Building an Impossible Dovetail Cutting Board

Today we're building an  impossible dovetail cutting board i love watching puzzle box videos and  the impossible dovetail is one that has   locking joints on all four sides so it looks like  you can't even assemble it but i want to take that   idea and scale it up and make it look even cooler  let's build something awesome this is a lot of   cutoffs from when i used to make cutting boards  when i was trying to make money and a side hustle   to become a full-time content creator so excuse me  if i shed a tear when i'm pulling these out oh yes   i remember you old friend hello black walnut my  old friend let's make some cutting boards again   all right enough weirdness let's mill some wood so i'm going to start off with the thicker  boards and get these glued up and i am using a   waterproof glue to make sure that it  stands up to washing and use in the kitchen while those boards are drying i'm going to head  inside and start setting up the computer programs   that'll let me do the cnc cutouts and all the  3d designs at first i drew a model in sketchup   of what i thought the impossible dovetail  would look like with the joints on all sides   but that's like beethoven and i'm still trying to  learn chopsticks so i modeled up a small prototype   single sliding dovetail design in fusion 360. now  i'm totally new to cutting in three dimensions   all the work on my X-carve cnc from Inventables  has been just 2d pattern and shape cutting so far   so it took a while to figure out the cnc side  of fusion and i was ready to start testing   now it's time to find out if i can  actually make a dovetail work on the cnc   having one that actually fits nice and tight  that will still move but not have enough slop   that it jiggles around so that's gonna be  the challenge let's see if we can do it all right so working with the cnc and working  with Fusion 360 for the first time to make my   tool path has been a bit of a challenge and i  actually ran several different shapes and designs   or several different runs so what i've realized  is that i needed to calibrate my machine a whole   lot better than it was because i never needed  that level of accuracy before and also i was   being too aggressive much too aggressive i think  i got it figured out and i think it's gonna work all now i'm going to do the test cut and it's kind  of awkward because i have to leave this in place   in case i have to make adjustments but i have  the male dovetail piece and i just cut the   ends off it so i can slide it in here and now  we'll see if it uh fits into the female side that's not even close wow that is so far off so  i'm gonna have to go into the program figure it   out and just work through it because there's a  bunch of settings in there about what to leave   and offsets and all these things and apparently  i messed that up so i'm gonna go in there try   to figure this out and then i'll come  back and see if we can make it work all right so I ended up actually remodeling the  entire thing but I think I have it right now   so i've got it to the point now where  it will just slide in oh that is a good   fit and you can see it slides nicely but there  is a little bit of a gap you can see some gaps   around there a little bit more than i would  like but i'm a perfectionist so what can you do   i think we're good enough to go to the next level  which is to make a full-sized sliding dovetail   into the cutting board of one of those ones i  glued up earlier we'll see how that works and then   gear up to do the impossible joint so the first  glue up is dry and i have started taking some of   these out so the next step i need to get this flat  you can see this has a very rough surface to it   but first i'm going to get these out of the  clamps and clean them up before i hit the planer so now each of these is nice and smooth on each  side and it's parallel and now we can move on to   step two which is making the ingrained cutting  board so these are long grain these would look   great just as is this could be a nice cutting  board but if you cut it into sections and then   turn it 90 degrees that's how you make an  end grain board so i'm gonna go do that on   the table saw and that's going to let us get  into the next step all right let's get cutting   all right here are the blanks for the boards i  do have these turned on in so you can kind of see   what the end grain is going to look like and with  end grain especially with walnut it can have some   pretty crazy patterns in here and if you turn it  certain ways you can make diamonds and different   kinds of shapes as you look at i actually did  a video where i made a diamond cutting board if   you want to check that out but i don't want that  here because i want the eye to go to the edges   and the dovetail feature not to the top so i'm  going to rearrange it so that it doesn't really   draw the eye as much i've got the cherry one  then the other walnut so i am going to go ahead   and glue these up and then we can start doing some  prototyping for the cnc design that we did earlier   so these boards are pretty flat coming off of the  drum sander so what i'm going to do is take these   over the cnc and actually use a surfacing bit  on these to get each side completely parallel   with the other and that will just go through  and basically take a little bit off of each   side i can square them up on the table saw  and have them ready for the dovetail joinery all right it is time to do the first actual cut  on an ingrained board i gotta be honest i am   very nervous about this i've done some practices  and stuff and i think it's gonna go okay uh but   you never know so i'm gonna do the tool path so  i'm gonna cut the uh the male side first actually   then we'll cut the female side on the walnut  board and we'll see if they slide together but uh   i don't know i feel pretty good  about it we'll see what happens   all right the first cut is done the the cnc is  buzzing in the background because i can't turn it   off or i'll lose the position but i just wanted to  let you guys know i did it for you all this dust   i left the dust shoe off just to get those sweet  time lapses but i'm not going to do it again so   now i'm going to switch out to the dovetail to get  that cut and then i'm going to switch out and go   into the next board it's looking good so far other  than that dust this drive me crazy all right this   one turned out really nicely the lines are nice  and crisp and the dovetail there's no tear out   there everything is flat so this went really  well so now all i got to do is clean off the   cnc from all that dust put the dust shoe on there  and then cut the complementary female dovetail on   the walnut board and then we can do the test  fit but it's looking good i'm digging this all right just got done and now  i'm going to try the dry fit   i have to leave it in place  because if it doesn't fit then   i have to do some more machining but  the test piece fits so this should fit this should fit let's measure this and see what's going on because  this does not look like it is fitting at all   this is 5 inches and 13 thousandths and this  is 4.98 so what is that 32 how am i 32 000 okay so i'm 32 000 off apparently missed it  by that much uh which is significantly more   than i should be i'm just going to keep running  this until it expands so i'll just take off a   little at a time and then test it uh but clearly  this is a little bit too small but it's better   than the alternative all right uh since we're  at the desk you probably already know i did   take a little uh just the beginning to  see if it would fit and check this out this fits so nicely oh this looks  cool so i'm super happy with how this   is working but i just had an idea and i am now  going to do something different with the project   so i want to have some magnets to hold  this in place so i'm going to figure   that out and then we can go start  working on the impossible dovetail all right i got the magnet all worked out here  and it works pretty well though it could be a   little bit stronger so i may have to go  with a bigger magnet for the larger one   and speaking of the larger one it is now time  to start on the impossible dovetail joint   i've got two little blocks that i have glued up  and made square and it's important that these   are square you'll see why in just a minute  so i definitely want to try these out as   test pieces first because there's a lot more  complexity than with just the sliding dovetail oh yes yes yes yes yes check this out this is so  cool i got it assembled the fit is almost exact   and i tell you what it is really tight i'll do  some close-ups you can see the grain and how tight   it is there are not any gaps i am extremely happy  with this and here's how the impossible joint   works you can see it looks like four separate  joints but really it is just two that are cut at   45 degree angles so you can slide them when you  apply the pressure diagonally pretty cool trick   but i am ready to go full scale and what i'm gonna  do on the full-size board instead of just having   one i was gonna make it wider i'm gonna do three  dovetails across it's gonna look crazy so it'll   look more like an actual dovetail board than what  my original idea was which just one wide one which   i don't think would have had the same effect after  looking at the single dovetails versus the three   i had to go with the three the modeling for this  one was a bit intense though this is about a half   hour of modeling cut into this short clip but my  main concern is that with three dovetails per side   any poor fit or air might just make this whole  thing not work at all and after i finished the   modeling i just needed to do a little more work on  those blanks while i'm prepping those boards let's   talk about the sponsor today's video Skillshare  now Skillshare is an online learning 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back to the video so the boards are prepped  and ready for the cnc so what i did on the blanks   is i put some little trim of just uh it's just  poplar and i used some blue tape and ca glue   to attach it there and as soon as it goes through  there it should have support so it shouldn't blow   out this should help protect that so we'll see  if it works or not or if it just blows it off   but now i am ready to start the machining on  the impossible dovetail we'll see how it goes the first round of machining on the  base is done i'm going to pull it out   but it looks like it turned out really nicely uh  the back end did blow off the little strips but   it looks like these did a really good  job at uh everything else stayed on and   there is no blowout so it's gonna be super  clean in the final product so those worked   out really awesome let's throw the walnut  top in there and we'll get to milling that   and that's where the fun comes in and  trying to get the fit this is the easy one all right guys we are like right here this i i  am a little nervous because this like right now   it fit just it's barely starting to fit and i  feel like i'm just i pushed it in about like an   inch and it was just starting to bind up i'm just  super scared if i get it in here that it's gonna   it's i'm not being gonna be able to remove it  and not even be able to close it the right way   so i think i'm gonna err on the side of just  getting one more pass at it i've already done like   four or five passes one more pass to hopefully  free it up enough and not have a bunch of gaps   i hope this will be the one let's see  if it passes this first one then um   i think i'm just gonna take  it all off oh there we go   there we go there we go all right see if this  goes by oh it's still catching a little bit it's past them and it's going i'm gonna take  all the poplar strips off but leave it in   the thing and see how it works should i do  that no um ah i'm gonna push it a little   bit more ah there's so much friction  here i knew this was gonna be an issue all right it just hit me that uh i saw the  rubbing is happening like i said because   there's so much more surface area but i'm  not really concerned about the surface   in the middle all i want is the outside  to look nice and crisp so what i can do   is come in here and relieve some of these  edges so that there's not as much rubbing   i'm going to try to do some sanding and you know  spend a few hours just really massaging the fit   if you will all right i just spent like an hour  sanding everything and i think this is gonna be it come on go go go go go yes that is it oh man that is it i don't  want to slam it all the way in there   but that is it i'm gonna clean this bad boy up and  we'll see the final look all right guys check it   out oh man this thing turned out so amazing and  i haven't even put the finish or the oil on it so   i will do that i'll have some beauty shots for  you here in just a minute but it fits together   perfectly and there is so much friction in here  i was worried it was going to slide apart like   like the sliding dovetail did it did not uh but  i can look at it now and i'll show you how it   opens up just slides oh you gotta really put  some pressure into it and then it slides right   open check that out that is so cool if you don't  know how an impossible dovetail puzzle works now   you do and if you've never seen a three dovetail  puzzle i've never seen one now you have so i'm   gonna sand this up and put some finish on it i  am so happy how this thing turned out it looks   amazing hey if you're loving these hidden and  secret feature videos i've got a playlist queued   up for you right there that's got a few more  in it i think you're going to love as well   i want to give a big thank you to all those  folks that have been joining the builders   club you can get more information down below but  i'll catch you guys over there on the next video

Channel: Fix This Build That

Views: 1,049,237

Rating: 4.8737035 out of 5

Keywords: Impossible dovetail, cutting board, dovetail cutting board, impossible dovetail puzzle, puzzle box, impossible puzzle, sliding dovetail, sliding dovetail cutting board, how to, how to build, how to make, woodworking, woodworking projects, woodwork, diy, do it yourself, diy project, fixthisbuildthat, fix this build that, ftbt

Id: JhNoxW2yapA

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021