David Barron vs Katz-Moses Dovetail Guides | Tool Duel #9

today we are going to be comparing the David Barron dovetail guide and the Jonathan Katz Moses dovetail guide welcome to told you [Music] so dovetail guides are becoming increasingly popular in woodworking nowadays because they make dovetailing so much easier for beginners you can just get started and voila you have a dovetail that would have taken me what three four years to learn how to do with one of these you can do it in your first attempt which is quite annoying really so without much further ado let's get into comparing these so the guys we have on the left here is the David baron dovetail guides and this is made of solid aluminium and has one massive magnet on either side and also has this protective plastic filming over the side to stop you from scraping up against the side of the aluminium the cat's Moses tough steel guide here is made from solid urethane and it's poured into a casting mold so this stem here isn't joined to the top it's all one massive block of just pure solid this this is actually the same material they make Paul balls from so if you ever been messing around on a pool table and you accidentally pinch your fingers between two of the balls on there you'd know how much that hurts and you know how hard they are that's what this is made from so that's one thing worth knowing there's no weak joint around here because that was something I first observed about this it is all one solid cast now the first difference you might see with this guide is that on either side there are two magnets as opposed to the one magnet you have on the David Baron here now in terms of grip strength the two small magnets give pretty much exactly the same holding power as the one large magnet here on the David Baron guide the difference is with having the two magnets is that it actually gives you better location over the length of the sword because with these tough shell guides they are very good at guiding you through the cut you do still need to put effort into cutting straight with your sword because it can still tilt on these if you're not concentrating enough but having the two magnets on there reduces that possibility of the saw wandering as opposed to the one magnet on here that is able to pivot on and this is something that I have observed with the David Barron guide as many of you know I work in Axminster tools machinery and basis like I've had a few people come in to store and say that the saw is still wandering against the edge of this guide and when I've gone to see them test out a saw for example I can see that their elbow isn't in the right place that wrist isn't in the right place they're not really putting as much concentration into the Soaring as they should be if you do want to know more about Soaring I do have a video on how to solve here but anyway that's a point worth noting about dovetail guards you can't rely on them for everything you do still need to have some sort of good technique with soaring now an interesting point about both of these guides is that when they first came out they were both made of wood David Barron released the version of his a few years ago which i think was made of rosewood and they became so popular that I think he just couldn't afford to keep making him himself so they are now made of aluminium which is obviously a longer-lasting material as well wood is able to move so the accuracy of the jig may be affected over time exactly the same story with Jonathan Katz Moses with these they were originally made out of wood but obviously wood is able to deteriorate over time so it's not really a lifetime tool whereas when you upgrade to something like this with the solid urethane that is going to last many lifetimes now looking further into the materials of these obviously you can see straight through the cat's modes of stuff Tokai which is really handy because you can still see the areas where you've marks the waste on there it's very easy for beginners to cut the wrong side of the line and thus get a massive gap in their joints so being able to look through the guide and constantly have that visual reminder of your waste is a really good feature of this the only downside that I have seen to this being clear is that it is a nightmare to try and film and photograph my god I tried to take some Instagram photos this year that they get in the local in it you just can't do it that's leap nightmare but that's a personal issue of mine don't worry now another difference for these if you flip them over you might be able to see that on the David Baron one here there is some sandpaper that has been stuck to the underside of it so when that is on the end of timber it's much less likely to slip side to side whereas the cats Moses one here the solid urethane here makes it a little bit more slippery than the sandpaper obviously but to remedy that you could stick sandpaper to the stem for example if you stick it to the underside here just be aware that you're not going to be able to look through the top of the jig and see your waste lines unless you get some of the see-through 3m paper then it will be somewhat translucent I would advise sticking it to the stem instead on all four phases now let's see these chicks in use shall we so with these guys it's worth saying that you can use these with both Japanese saws and standard western-style push source however they both usually work better with Japanese source if you're a beginner starting off with woodworking you will absolutely love Japanese swords let's use these cheats we'll start with David baron goes on the edge like that saw snaps up against the side that magnet you see now that I am able to still tilt that saw a little bit so I have to put a little bit of effort into keeping it square all you've got to do is keep an eye on the shadow gap along here and just make sure that it's even and then just start threading back and there we go so now we have a perfect dovetail angle and more importantly this is what dovetail guides will do they'll give you a square cut along the top because the squareness of that cut is more important than the angle of the dovetail here it also just do the other side just pick it up with your opposite hand rest it on the edge like that and just drag back again voila there you go so as you can see this guide is pretty self-explanatory to use you've got a dovetail shape on there you can see which way you cut in happy days the cat's Moses guide we've got writing on the top here which says what part of the dovetail you'll be cutting so on the side here I can see it says tails so I'm simply hook that on the back and start cutting so again nice square cut along the top let's do the other side simply flip the guide around sawed up against the edge and start cutting again I can check the shadow gap along the top here to see if it's cutting evenly the fact that this guy doesn't have any plastic separating the magnet from the saw means that the saw is butted up right up against the side of the jig rather than being offset like it is on the day bear Amon again this is really good at keeping the saw tracking in a straight line another nice dovetail joint consistent angle down the front and a nice square cut along the endgrain most importantly so now I'll show you these jigs in use with the standards push saw so again guide on their saw snaps up against the side and you can start cutting now what you might see here with this is that the spine of the saw is going to hit the top of the guide there you go so it's bottomed down now I can't get any further so I have to take the guide away and I have to finish that off by half now because we're pushing with the Katz Moses guide it might be tempting to put it on this side so that you're pushing the stem into the wood however if you do that the back of the saw or the handle will start hitting the front of this guide so usually best to keep it on the back edge and then just cut a small now because it's a thinner profile on the top of this it means it can get a little bit further with a western-style saw but if you're doing particularly deep dovetails you will still have to finish it off by hand now here is a feature that the cats Moses guide has that the David baron one does not and that is that on the top of one of these faces on here it says shoulders 90 degrees so after you've cut your dovetails down the front here you can pop that on the edge and you have a 90 degree dovetail guide so perhaps you could do some sort of V groove on the side here pop your saw into the V groove get the card up to it and then sawed down into that and you wouldn't have to do any chiseling on this outside line because this is incredibly difficult to cut with a chisel having a 90 degree guide like this that you can slide your saw into and just go straight down will make that process much easier now it's pounding on from that previous point what you can also do here if you're not confident that cut into that line still just get the guide line it up with your shoulder line lightly cramp it in place along the stem and then because we've got a magnet on here you can simply pop your chisel up against that and just tap it through like that we have perfectly square edge on there now that is a brilliant feature of this guide so dovetail guides are not only good at cutting the tail section on your dovetails but if you flip them over you can also use them to cut the pin side and again this is an absolute brilliant feature of a dovetail guide because doing it freehand being able to follow a knife line takes a lot of skill and practice having a guide like this where in this case you've already cut a 1 in 6 ratio you can flip it rounds and you're able to cut the pin sections and the great thing about this is that it's not only matching your angle but it's cutting perfectly plumb as well cutting this long vertically is as important as cutting the end grain on the tails here squared because if this end grain is wedge-shaped or that line there is wedge-shaped as this goes together it's gonna split that joint apart so as you can see that's how the David baron works you work on this side and you work on this side and you're able to do both sides of the tails with the Katz Moses one we use two at the four sides so faster this one is the tail side because it's got a slope on it and this side is the 90-degree side that means these other two are for the pins so you see this magically locks in at different angles because the stem on this is a dovetail shape to lock that in the opposite way so up against the side and just cut through as I said earlier this is where the cats Moses won cancel it side to side a little bit easier than the David Barron one but if you hold it securely with your fingers on the stem here and your thumb pressing down on the top there's no reason why that should move side to side if it does move side to side like I said a little bit of sandpaper on the inside of this stem here that will stop it from shifting there we go guys that is the difference between the two dovetail guides now as you know I don't use them I've had enough practice to not need any of these in my work but for a beginner who is starting dovetailing from scratch and wants something that's going to be able to do everything from cutting the tails to the pins to even the shoulder lines cats Moses guide will do that for you incredibly easy to use incredibly intuitive if you've got everything labeled on the top lid to make sure you are you actually using the right face the only thing I would suggest obviously is sticking a little bit of sandpaper on the stem there just to prevent that side-to-side movement that is pretty much the only downside of this guide other than the fact it's a nightmare to take a picture of the David Barron guide still absolutely brilliant people are getting amazing results than this the only negatives to this being you've only got one magnet on there so the saw hasn't got as much location it's not quite as versatile as the cat's Moses guide here which has the shoulder section on it and also this one is a little bit more expensive than the cat's Moses guide so you're paying less for more versatility hence why I would say for beginners this is the one to go for so if you're interested in either of these guides be sure to check the description because I've got links going to both of their stores and if you want to see the cats Moses guide in use rather than me just hacking apart a little bit of material a video I did recently on how to cut a dovetail joint link up here will show you how I use this to cut the tails and the pins and got brilliant results from it so have a look at that obviously check any questions below using a guide is not cheating when it comes to hand cut dovetails it's just a more efficient and safer means of getting the job done so see in the next video [Music]

Channel: Matt Estlea

Views: 143,000

Rating: 4.8881607 out of 5

Keywords: dovetail, dovetail guides, woodworking, woodwork, woodwork tools, dovetailing tools, tools for dovetailing, david barron, furniture, katz moses, david barron dovetail guide, katz-moses dovetail guide, david barron or katz moses dovetail guide, how to cut a dovetail, woodwork by hand, hand woodworking, hand cut dovetails, dovetailing for beginners, beginner woodwork, matt estlea, hand cut joinery, furniture making, through dovetails, cutting dovetails by hand, how to, tutorial

Id: Qd6VD1mXvRA

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 25 2017