How to Cut Dovetails by Hand – A New Approach (2020)

hi I'm Rob Qasim welcome to my shop in this video I'm going to show you how to cut dovetails by hand using my new method I can take brand new woodworkers and after one day produce results like this now if you'd like to be someone that can do that stay tuned I'm going to show you the entire process I'm Rob Kozma and welcome to my shop we make it our job to help take your woodworking to the next level if you're new and you haven't subscribed please do so hits a notification bell so you'll receive alerts when we release a new video and any time we use a special tool we always leave a description down below alright let's get to work mastering the skills to cut great dovetails like this is something a lot of woodworkers aspire to I've been teaching this for 35 years and I have taught thousands of folks how to cut the joints like this now I've also developed a lot of techniques and tools that make this process easier faster and more precise in fact today I'm going to show you those tools and those techniques and as a result of using them ninety percent of my students are able to do that near-perfect dovetails in that first 24 hours in fact this is as I showed earlier a dovetail by one of my students first time crack at it and that's the kind of results if you want to be able to do that watch through the entire video and follow along with the process evaluate the tools for yourself but if you do it as the way I teach it you'll be able to cut a perfect dovetail on your first attempt first thing I want to do is explain what is a through dovetail and dovetails are typically used in boxes or drawers in fact all the drawer really is is a box just doesn't have a lid but on the front you have what's called a half-blind on the back you have a through dovetail through meaning you see the ends of the pins these parts and you see the ends of the tails these parts and the way that it holds together primarily really is the glue surface between two long grain pieces this is long grain and this is long grain and we know that a good glue joint on long grain will produce a joint that is as strong maybe even stronger than the wood itself there's a wedging shape of the actual tail that prevents it from coming apart this direction but it's the glue and the interaction of the glue on the two pieces of long-grain that really create that strong joint and here's a box sames idea only this time you have three dovetails both front and back now in the comment section I'd love to hear what you plan to do with this I read them and I'm always curious what you folks are doing with this information so please leave a comment now I'm gonna show you my way of cutting dovetails and that's that I'm going to use my tools however you can apply employ all of the techniques I'm showing without using my tools but I get asked this a lot how important are the tools to being able to do a good dovetail this is the best example I can just give you I'm gonna take a piece of wood put it in the vise and using my saw I'll come in about three-quarters of an inch and make a cut I'm gonna take that down as far as my blade will allow then I'm gonna turn it on its side and I'm gonna remove that piece now a good glue joint is the result of two pieces of wood going together so that there's no gap so here's the two pieces that have been cut I'm actually gonna flip them around so we're not matching grooves and when we put these two pieces back together as you can see with the exception of the grain direction there's no gap you can turn it around like this if you want whatever you do you end up with a nice tight joint side of the tail side of the pin good contact so the flatter and the smoother those two surfaces are coming off the saw the less work you have to do I'm often quoted in saying 70% of your ability to cut the joint is the saw the other 30% is just following the technique and going through the process if you use inexpensive tools particularly a cheap saw that doesn't perform nearly as well you're gonna reverse those numbers and it's going to be 30% saw and 70% you going in and trying to correct it now you can as I said you can do it using any tools you want this just happens to be after all the experience I've had in teaching other people how to do it and developing these tools to make this process easier this happens to be the easiest and fastest way to getting to that point where you're making dovetails exactly the way you want the problem with using lesser quality stuff that my opinion just does not work well is you get so frustrated and trying to figure out how to do it and at the same time how to overcome the crappy job the tools done a lot of people just end up quitting so depending on how important you feel your time is in developing those skills to be able to do it you might want to invest in some really good tools and we'll leave a link below we'll take you to our website and show you all the tools that I'm using here's a quick run-through of the tools I'm going to use this is my dovetail saw my marking gauge I actually used two of them my dovetail marking knife that has a sawtooth blade in it more on that later a fret saw not a coping saw a fret saw uses a very thin blade that'll fit the kerf left by the dovetail saw two chisels really quarter and a half you don't need more than that but they need to be properly prepared and sharpened I like a red ballpoint pen fine point fine ballpoint the reason is it's a lot easier to see particularly on dark woods as a dovetail marker that actually performs two functions the square line across the end and the slope on the front small combination square pair of dividers ones that that hold their position instead of just the friction type a mallet and not necessary but a skew block plane for creating a little rabbit on the end of the board that I'll show you momentarily alright I want to talk to you about my wood choices first of all you'll notice I'm using two different pieces of wood this is a piece of walnut and this is a piece of poplar there are two different thicknesses the reason is most of your dovetails you're going to be cutting are going to be in making drawers and I'll explain the hows and whys on the drawer and then you'll understand why we're doing it that on the sample when you build a drawer you want them to keep it as light as possible you don't want the drawer to be three times heavier than the contents and if you use a dovetail both front and back it will compensate for a really thin drawer sight whereas any other joint you have to have a certain amount of material in the drawer side in order to get a strong corner joint not so with a dovetail that allows me to keep this nice and thin make the drawer nice and light I also like the way that it along gates the pins and in my opinion the overall look of the joint is almost as important as the integrity of the strength that it provides so I'm gonna use a piece of poplar on the side which is a common secondary wood and for the front I'm going to use a piece of black walnut now you want to identify them so I've clearly written tail and pin and the way I wrote them this is the top and this is a piece of but this is the end I'm going to be cutting on both and that is the outside so when it goes together it'll go together like that okay now I always identify that and every time I teach the class someone will end up doing this and then they turn around and they end up putting that side on and it's not such a big deal except this is the one that they square it up not that one so try to keep that oriented properly last thing I want to tell you about drawer construction is the color difference if you're going to take the time to hand cut a dovetail then why not show it off and you're going to get your best look when you contrast the ends of the tale pins from the face of the tale which is the white portion and just so that you understand this the tailboard is always going to be on the drawer site because the dovetail has strengthened one probably real strength in one direction I told you earlier that the glue really makes the joint gives it its strength but there is a mechanical action of that wedging effect of the pin in between the two tails so the resistance is preventing the drawer from coming apart like this if you can envision this in the case as you open the drawer you're trying to pull the drawer front off so you've got resistance this way that's why the tails are on the side and in the back as the contents hit the back there's pressure trying to push the back off and the same reason that we have the tail here so that wedge shape is working against the most amount of force there's very little force ever pushing out sideways on a drawer because of that and just to throw one more thing in if you were building a hanging cabinet you'd always want to counteract gravity with the tailboard again you've got that wedge shape as gravity to pull this down the wedge shape is preventing that from occurring okay clearing your marked all squared up ready to go if you're hoping for that drawer to come out just perfect or that box to be nice and square no twist then you have to make sure that every one of those components has been properly prepared before you even start cutting the joint before you start cutting the joint now that means the shooting board and a hand plane if you're unfamiliar with it check out the description below and I'll take you to another video where I teach you how to use this shooting board or recent one we did on how you learn how to flatten the inside face and I say the inside face we can do the outside after but the inside face has to be done before you even start to cut the joint if you don't and you try to plane it after you've cut the joint you'll alter the fit so the first thing I'm going to do is take a straight edge hold it up to the light and I want to verify that that inside face is truly nice and flat then I'm going to check the edge to make sure that it is square I'm not gonna assume anything I'll check the opposite edge I'll check the end of the board both this way and this way everything checks out I can go on to the next piece same thing check the inside face for flat check both sides for square check the end for square and also check it against the side okay looks good now we're ready to cut that joint first thing we need to do is determine how far down into this piece of a cut and how far down into this piece we cut by the way this is just going to be a demonstration we're gonna do future videos where we go through and explain the entire process in great detail I want to measure my tail board I find the easiest way to do it is to take my marking gauge set it on the tail board let the cutter drop down lock it now I know that that represents that thickness and the tail board measurement goes on to the inside face and the outside side face of the pin board the inside face no big deal you can make that nice and deep so you're easily register your chisel the outside face if you make it really deep you're either going to have to live with the mark that stays there in the finished piece or you're going to take off a lot of material so I typically go a little bit lighter on that outside one now you can use the same gauge but if you're doing multiple corners it's nice to just have to set that once now we need to set one for the pin board so I'm gonna do the same thing set it on top of the tail board drop it down lock it that represents the thickness of the pin board and on the tail board I go all the way around light pass on the outside face nice deep pass on the edge and by the way sometimes it's easier to roll it then there's a pull it across because you don't have a lot of reference surface here so press it against the end of the board and roll it and I'll talk to you more in another video about the cutter and how it works but it actually pulls pulls the tool in this direction as you're using it which doesn't that's exactly what you want to happen nice and deep okay my next thing I'm going to do is cut a little rabbit or a rebate on the inside face of the tail board so it'll register those two pieces and make it so much easier for the layout of the pins so what I have to do is grab my skew block plane and we're gonna go through that one in a future video and explain to you exactly how it works how to set it up am I gonna be able to get that tighten there am I gonna need to put a piece in here no what does okay I've got my I've got my tail board so the inside is facing up remember this is gonna be the outside of the joint I've got the end of the board sticking just out beyond the bench and I've got a clamped in place now it always helps to just tap those bench dogs down and it'll pull that board down so it's sitting nice and flat I want my skew block plane set up so that the blade is parallel to the sole so I'm just gonna move the fence over so I can see more of it okay that looks good I want the blade sticking out just a little bit on the side I'm gonna put this in place so that the at point of the blade is cutting right on that gauge line if you go over it'll leave you a ragged cut if you go if you don't go far enough you'll leave material in there that means you have to come back with another step with the chisel now I need to make sure that this makes a cut that remains parallel to this surface it will be eventually be lower but it must be parallel to this surface there's not a lot of surface area here to start the cut on so I'm counteracting gravity wanting to have this drop back and off to the side so I'm having to do this with this hand keeping my index finger pressed against the fence which by the way is an auxilary piece I add after the fact some pressure keeping that down so that the cut plane starts cutting on the same plane that this board is and I should pick up a shaving immediately right here with the point of the blade and I should maintain contact all the way across removing a shaving that if I were to unwind it it would be full length uniform thickness and full width now I need a little more of a little more of a ledge than that and I find you're always better to take several lighter passes than to try to do it in one heavy pass I'm actually gonna go one more so that's three light passes and if I was doing the other corners I would make sure if I took three here I take three there take three on the other two corners alright now that's ready to actually do the layout okay so the camera can see it better I'm gonna turn the outside face this way whereas normally I would have it facing me and the first thing I need to do is establish my outside half pins now the half pins are these two pieces on the outside extremes of the joint if you make them too thin then they almost look weak and frail if you make them too thick or too wide they'll it really throws the joint out of balance so there's a there's a really nice place to be I typically want mine to be wider than the interior pins but this is a type of thing that requires just practice and I always tell people save your practice joints number them date them and just go back over time and as you do this more and more you're gonna get better at evaluating it yourself and you'll look be able to look and see it was better than or I was hopefully getting better I always also tell people that usually you're gonna be a wantin to be around somewhere around a quarter of an inch now I don't ever measure it I'm just gonna eyeball it based on the width of that joint which looks to be a little over three inches I'm gonna set the dividers for you know a boat right there so I rest the one leg on the outside and leave a mark that actually wasn't very clear I can see it now the light same thing on this side and this is a reason why I like to have two pair of dividers I don't have to change that now just to make it a little easier to follow along I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going to draw this in so I put my pen to right in that hole move the gauge over to it get a nice square line across the end and then from the gauge line come up and then because this allows for both a one-in-seven angle and a one-in-six those are those are rise over run that actually translates into ten degrees and eight degrees in order to get the same ten degrees slope on the other side I've got to turn it around like this but again put the pen in the hole move the gauge over to it careful to make sure that this line is nice and square and then come up from the gauge line I prefer a 10 degree slope for the simple reason that from a distance you can still identify the slope and it looks as it could like a dove tail as you back to slope off it gets harder and harder to identify as you get even three or four steps away so stick with the I stick with the 10 degree now we need to divide up the remaining space by the number of tails that we want and this is another judgement call what do you think is going to look good I wouldn't want to leave just one big tail because the real strength of the joint as we mentioned earlier is anywhere long-grain touches or is glued against opposite long-grain so in this case if we only had one big tail you've got a little bit of long grain glue here and a little there not a very strong joint if we broke that in two now that's more but probably not enough in my opinion this would look best with three tails you could go for but you get beyond three and you start to make it too busy and you actually weaken the joint because you remove so much material here that right along the base line becomes your weak spot I'll show you what I mean when we actually lay this out so I'm settling on three and this isn't the way I do it but sometimes it's an easier way to explain it and we're actually going to go through and do a separate video on the layout but I need to find three equal spaces first close that down a little bit one two not quite one two all right so that's three equal spaces but that's ignoring the fact that I need to have some internal pins so I'm going to open the dividers up a little bit and I know that this time when I step it off I'm going to go beyond that line and the amount I go beyond that line will determine how big my inside pins are by the way be careful not to make too many marks in here it makes it very easy to difficult to layout after the fact I'm gonna make that just a little bit bigger any mount you change here gets multiplied by the number of times you step so on a wide joint a small adjustment here can be a whole lot the time you get to the other side all right I'm gonna go with that so liking that I'm going to come back here I'm gonna stay on this side because I've got a few marks in there that I made accidentally leave a mark by pushing it a little harder leave a mark when I get over here lift the dividers out set the leg down on that half pin mark and then come back leave a mark leave a mark now take my one in six put the pen on the second hole Square your line make sure you get a nice crisp line I prefer a fine ballpoint pen because that thin line I think is more precise than the big fat one the same thing here only now we're going the other way the reason I stopped at that base line you tend to train yourself with the saw to follow the line and if your line goes below your gauge line there's a chance you're going to saw blow your gauge line on that day you're not paying quite enough attention now actually I didn't get that one all the way down I couldn't see it nice thing about this method is if you have to go back put your pen in the hole go back over to it until it stops and you're right back where you want it to be okay I'm gonna come in here with some hash marks and I'm going to identify the part of the board that will eventually be removed as waste and if you take the time to do it everywhere that will lessen the chance that you're going to end up sawing on the wrong side or removing the wrong piece you'll notice I only I only layout the top and the face it's no reason to lay out the other side if you saw is any good if you follow this line in this line you'll get the exact same result on the backside all right there you go okay just before we go any further I want to explain why I cut this rabbet on the backside when it comes time after the tails are cut to lay out the pins with having that little rabbit that allows you to set that piece on top of the pin board and that little ledge on the inside lines these two up perfectly it's a huge help now if you don't have a skew block plane that can be done on the table saw or you can actually do it with a steel rule this one I don't prefer but if you had to okay put a little steel raw steel rule right on that line and then you're gonna have to come in and you're gonna juggle a little bit you're gonna have to clamp it in place usually takes three hands to do it and then you got to worry about putting a dent in there from the part of the clamp and you also to make sure it's perfectly in position so you need to come in with your marking gauge and make sure that's right up against that line as you can see it's a little bit awkward but when it comes to laying out the pins it is a huge benefit okay tail board in place now when I do this I want to keep the tail board down low because I don't want it to vibrate if you've got it up here and you're sawing it's a thin piece of wood it's going to vibrate doesn't feel very good so I'm gonna keep it so it's just a couple inches above the bench and I want it standing plumb so I'll use my square on the side that's assuming that my bench top is level make sure that standing plumb and then we're ready to go you don't have to you don't have to squeeze it and make it thinner just enough to hold it firmly so that it doesn't vibrate this is the job number one of cutting dovetails making these cuts across the end of the board perfectly perpendicular that means that when I make the cut and I check it it should be right on as long as I'm not out more than an eighth of an inch over six inches and I'll explain that after I do a few you're good to go but if these cuts are off you cannot fix them and maintain the joint you'll see what I mean as we progress through this now starting it is always the trick if your teeth are too aggressive they bite the wood and you're pushing to try to get it going and it jumps and skips and the next thing you know you're nowhere near your line or in the middle of your line you want to preserve the line that way you know where you are the whole time what I'd made on my saw intentionally the first two inches have little tiny 22 teeth per inch and the cutting face is relaxed by about 25-30 degrees that means I can go in there and I can make that saw kerf begin that saw kerf with minimal effort and it just enough so that when I move that saw forward so that the 15 teeth per inch engaged the wood they'll cut nice and fast in a pre-cut track now these teeth have a zero Degree cutting phase so it's very aggressive these ones are the relaxed ones makes it so much easy so I'm gonna come in here I'm gonna create an anchor point first with my opposite index finger and thumb and I pinched the wood but I pinched high enough so that when I'm pressing the saw against my fingers I'm not cutting my fingers if you pinch down here remember the teeth are set each tooth is bent one way or the other that means they're sticking out from the saw plate if I'm pinching like this and I press my saw against the fingers I'm gonna cut the ends of my fingers so instead I pull my finger and thumb up a little bit so that the bump of the index finger and thumb is now above the set of the teeth a little difficult out here on the end but still doable comfortable grip I've got a nice wide stance but we're gonna do a whole video on improving your sawing skills so we'll talk more about that in greater detail but you want to be comfortable you want to have a stable stance press that set that saw down always have some light lateral pressure against your fingers that way when you start sawing this saw is not going to skirt one way or the other hold this firmly get it so that I can see all of the red line on the right side of the blade and line it up as best as possible so I don't want to be crossing it on the back or on the front I want to see all of the line no wood before the line just ink line okay now when I'm they're just about ready to go however now I need to think about the slope it's not nearly as critical as people think because this is the template as long as these pieces on the pin board fit in these holes everything's good the slope is primarily there for appearance sake as I mentioned earlier the glue is such today that that's where the joint gets it's real strengths but we want to stick with a little bit of tradition have that nice slope on there and try to have to match both sides that'll come a little bit of practice people often ask me what am I looking at when I saw and I really can't tell you I'm just kind of envisioning is that saw on that same slope as the line and let's hope for the best can't correct it partway down once we start we're committed so I'm pressing laterally I see just the line I'm gonna just use those little teeth to get it started I'll stop and let you see that's all it is just enough to catch my thumbnail in but it's enough of a track so that as I move forward and the bigger teeth engage it keeps it where I want it to be now I'm slowing down and I want to go right to the line you have to learn and this will only come from practice as well we're plum is or a level I should say sorry you don't want to be cutting too far forward you know we're cutting like this you want to try to keep that saw level I stopped at this line if my saw is level it should be on the right spot on the back side as well let's check that real quick I'm gonna put the saw back in the kerf don't force it just let that fall in there and then with my six inch square make sure the blade is up inside so it's not it's not interfering with the way it meets the wood put that in there and slide it over okay now I'm off but if you look I'm off about a little less than the sixteenth of an inch well if you did the math a sixteenth of an inch over six inches is a 32nd over three inches is a 64th over an inch and a half is one 128 over 3/4 and this is only half inch so as you can tell that's not a big enough area to worry about but I'm gonna try to get better hey let's go on to the next one by the way I cut all of this slope before I turn and come back the other way for the simple reason you benefit from some repetition anchor press push the saw back into position with my index finger and thumb all the while applying lateral pressure with the saw get that lined up relax my grip use a little teeth in the front to get the sauce started watch for your line make sure you're not going too low balance the saw let's check this one okay whoo that one's out about 1/8 of an inch but we're still safe maybe I'll get a good one before I get to the end let's do the next one same thing pinch press laterally line it up so I see nothing but ink on the right side of the blade get the sauce started with a couple of little small short strokes watch for your base line it's harder to see the older you get let's check this one you know let's get down here right on the tooth line so that one's out maybe 1/32 that one's not even worth calculating okay you're also gonna notice something that you find one saw one side is easier to solve than the other this is my best side I got both hands both fingers behind the blade and I can see all of it nothing obscuring my view by the way wipe the sawdust out of the teeth each time so that when you set it back down you don't drop sawdust on there and obscure your line when I come this way I've got to change my grip if I do it like I was I completely obscure the line so what I've got to do pull my thumb back I still use it to help anchor my index finger but now it opens it up so I can see most of that line I'm still pressing against my fingertip get that in position so that I see nothing but ink line this time on the left side of the blade use those little teeth to get it started committed to the angle I always keep a hold of the board with my opposite hand go down until I get to that line let's check this one you don't I don't do this every time but when you're first starting it's not a bad idea make sure we get rid of that song fuzz so it doesn't interfere with the way the square lays against the wood balance that better on my site usually is right underneath the Canada move that over now that one is out I'm just touching it that one is out about an eighth of an inch so again not a big deal come to the next one just want to stop right there real quick and hone right in you see how we see all of our Penn line right there we've not touched it on either side front or back so it should be [Laughter] an acceptable cut and acceptable you remember is within 1/8 of an inch over six inches now it's a little better about 1/16 of an inch last one remember thumbs back here supporting the index finger sometimes if you've got sticky skin you can bring your finger around so you're actually running on your nail and it just makes it a little bit easier get that so that you're looking at just the line you've already got your angle established some folks will end up starting plumb and then trying to turn or angles a saw once they get going you don't want to do that you want to start on whatever angle you plan to cut hey check that last one it's hoping to get one perfect one yeah sixteenth of an inch but we'll show you as we go through this that'll still work now I'm just gonna turn this around let you have a quick peek here so we've maintained our angles pretty good in fact I think you can still see ink and we've cut right down to our line we haven't gone below and we haven't stopped short that one might be a little bit short and ammendment I'm actually gonna unfix that and I'll tell you why if we leave it we end up come in here and we have to do chisel work I find it so much easier particularly on the inside pins it's so much easier doing it from the saw than it is trying to do it with a chisel so just put your saw back in that curve and just go in there and that and you're done now all we have to do is remove that material between the lines we've already got our corners established and we're that much farther ahead if you were to stop short by any amount on each one of these you've now got to go in after you remove the waste with your chisel and carefully pair and create those corners that can add three or four minutes to every section all right on to the next step from here on out we start do things a little bit different than what we would call the true no way the first thing I need to do is remove this sawing fuzz just carefully pair that keeping the chisel nice and flat keep it away from your body parts and even just use the edge of a steel square which is probably our straight edge there's probably a lot safer now I'm gonna take my pin board and I'm gonna use my plane on its side so the way I'm going to position the pin board the outside is gonna face me drop it down in the vise and get it so that it's flush with the top of the plane now if you want you can just put another board over there and hold that up snug it up verify it and then you want to create a little bit of a bridge so I'm gonna slide this back put the tail board on there and the rabbit will bring these two pieces into perfect alignment and I want this back far enough if you've got it here and you're trying to hold it in position it's too easy for it to slip if you move it back here so the amount of pressure you apply is over a very small surface area then that's gonna hold it in place a lot easier one step I need to do I'm going to use one of my marking gauges to do it I want to measure the thickness of my saw kerf saw kerf is the saw plate which in Mike situation is 20 thousands of an inch plus the set on both sides my saw set is just to thousands of an inch per side that's why the it ends up producing such a nice smooth wall after you've made the cut so what I'm going to do is carefully lay that on a flat surface take my marking gauge pull the cutter up inside the head set it on here so I'm resting only on the saw but the cut is going to drop very close to the tooth line and I want to hear it I always like to hear it hit that surface and then I'm gonna lock it in place now that cutter should be sticking out beyond the head by 24 thousands of an inch this is where the little tiny mistakes can really get you because we're shooting for a level of precision that most folks might not think possible in wood now I'm going to put that in position and the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to set my marking gauge so that the head of the tool is referencing on the side of the pinboard cutters on the top put this in place and it's just so nice about having that rabbit remember if you don't have that plane or you can't do another table saw you can always clamp that in place and it would serve the same purpose it would give you that little wall that helps to reference those two pieces set your cutter there slide it over and then hold it right there now if you look over here you've got you should have twenty-four thousandths of an inch of material right here on this side I'm gonna hold that firm and we use my dovetail marking knife now we made this knife specifically for this new technique and instead of a normal blade we put a saw blade in there that is the exact same as the dovetail saw so when it fits down in that curve there's no side-to-side slop this is a part that you have to get straight I just move my tail board to my left by one saw kerf so I'm gonna I'm going to identify the tails with a tee and I'm a circle it those are the pieces I'm keeping the T stands for the tail so I move my tail board to the left I'm gonna go to the right side of this tail I'm gonna reach down and I'm gonna drag it through the endgrain of the pin board and sometimes it's easier to do multiple passes instead of trying to get it with one then I'm going with the next tail I'm gonna go to the right side of it putting the saw the Sawtooth blade down into that kerf it's shaped like this so I can reach right into that back so I go in drop it down hold it level and then pull it out and the reason I do that is if you pick it through like this there's a chance you're gonna pull pieces off the front of your pin board if you lay it flat so all the teeth engaged that tends not to happen as much now I'm doing the third tale the same way don't be afraid to do multiple passes the deeper that saw kerf that we're starting in the pinboard is the easier it will be for the next procedure alright so I did the right side of each tail now to do the left side what I need to do is move my tail board to my right so to do that I'm going to balance the marking gauge on the cutter on the side of the pin board don't want it wonky it's got to be right on but it's got to be low enough so that the tail board doesn't bump it now when I slide this over until it engages the head it will now be overhanging the pin board by one saw kerf hold it firmly and that's going to allow me to go to the left side remember if we move the tail board to the right we go to the left side of each tail when we move the tail board to the left we go to the right side of each tail so now I'm going to the left side reach down or I should say drop into the corner and then lower it so that I'm pulling it parallel to the top of the pin board go to the second one notice also that I hold up close so that I've got a little more control you can see by the marks on my jaw that I didn't used to do that and the last one I might add that if you're working with really narrow stock on a small box or a drawer then this has a tendency to want to make that piece flex so you just have to be a lot more careful okay now you'll notice also that I have not removed the waste yet that's critical that it stayed there because that kerf being the exact same as this blade prevents that from any lateral movement now when we take the tail board off instead of lines to try to follow we actually have saw curves that the saw will fit right down into this makes it so precise all we need to do is continue those cuts from where they are and as long as we make them plumb this joint is going to work perfectly but I'm not going to do anything to the tail board just yet process this first now I'm going to use my dovetail marker I'm going to turn it like this to make it more of a square and I'm just going to draw lines down to my gauge line that could be a little bit darker try that again okay now I'll identify with an X or something the waste portion put this back in the vise I want that standing plumb so again I'll check it with my square keep it low in the vise same reason we don't want it to vibrate when we're sawing okay this is the part that makes it this is the maker break this can be perfect but these have to fit in there most of the work is done because you already have a place to start your saw now you just have to make a plumb cut so get your saw into the curve do your best to follow the line and stop at the base line now I need some extra light because I can't see so I'll bring my bench lamp in and illuminate this backside at least so I can find the base line I'm going to do something else to that I often do take a piece of masking tape and put it right on that base line especially if you're going with a really faint chisel or scribe line so that you don't have to work to get a whole it off okay then reposition for this side okay now a fretsaw reposition this lamp i've when i put the blade in I've twisted the blade at the two contact points so that when I make a horizontal cut instead of being restricted by the depth of the throat because the blade is twisted about thirty degrees a horizontal cut keeps the frame up here so you're not restricted at all so when you're putting the blade down in the kerf you've got to bend it over until it drops go to the bottom kind of use that as a way of finding level come up just off the bottom if you turn back this way it'll now lock the blade so it doesn't move up and down it allows you to get it started with a little more control I always try to saw as close to the gauge line as possible just reduces the amount you have to chisel slow down as you get close get closer but not I use a 12 and a half sees parents skip tooth 5-inch scroll saw blade and the skip tooth allows you to cut faster because it's got more room for sawdust and it's and that's an as an aggressive tooth as I can use and still fit down there that kerf easily alright now I need a backup block to chop out the waste I'll use my half inch I'm gonna start on the inside and I always want to chop so that I can see plum here's what I mean chop like this I can tell the chisels plum if I chop like that I don't have that and this surface has to be either square to the face or slightly undercut but if there's any kind of a bump then the joint won't close properly I like to be able to see this line so I've left a little too much material so I'm going to take a preliminary chop first which take gets rid of a lot of the waste pushing on the chisel tip now I can go in there and find that gauge line go down upward halfway and flip it over make sure there's no debris between your backup block and your workpiece or else you'll end up dealing with dents and it can be hard to get rid of now I need a little extra vision because I cannot see that line there it is now I'm just gonna go all the way down doing that little preliminary chop just to get rid of that excess material anything on the waste side puts pressure on the bevel and tries to force it beyond your scribe line you don't want that now when I start here I'm right over tight to the pin first chop registers it then I'm gonna slightly angled and push forward so that my chisel follows the slope of this pin and if I do it accurately I can actually eliminate a step I'll go to the next one good sharp chisel will go in that nice sharp gauge line now something I noticed recently that I did I do I always have a downward pressure on the chisel just to prevent it from accidentally bouncing up when I make that first couple of taps with the mallet what I've had happened before is it bounces up and before you realize it you've hit it a second time and now it's somewhere other than in your gauge line and that's problematic to say the least [Applause] all right now we'll put this in the vise come in here I always keep my forward hand tight against the face of the piece squeeze the chisel tightly so that I can come in here and apply as much force force as needed because remember your your paring through end grain so you want to be able to apply that force but it has to be remain under control I always work front to back if you happen to go crazy at least it's going to damage something on the inside instead of the immediate show side to make sure that there's no debris right in the corners make sure that socket or the bottom of that socket is flat it can be slightly undercut but no bump and depending on how good of a job you do on angling your chisel to follow the slope of the pin sometimes all of this work can be eliminated that's about the only one that I got about 95% more practice needed well actually that's not true this one is almost completely done just a couple of fibers right there this one's got a little more remember a lot of I'll call it back pressure with my left hand so that I can power through that walnut but remain in control okay and I can now I just run my fingers in there and I can tell that that's the sockets are sitting low okay now we're gonna go in do the same thing here again the masking tape just helps see that very faint line moves it fretsaw over drop down to the bottom come up just off the bottom turn and saw now this poplar particularly the heartwood where the green stuff is a lot softer than the walnut as I mentioned it's a nice secondary wood not terribly difficult to work relatively inexpensive but unlike Pine it's not full of sad it's not full of pitch and it is a little bit harder okay now I'm gonna trim these and these are very important the reason is when you open a drawer the first thing you're going to see is that joint right there and if there's a gap well you got to live with it so I'm gonna come in here and just in the waste using my chisel remember I said make this marking gauge line really deep and that's the primary reason because what that now allows when I come in with my dovetail saw I can set it down against that little wall and I can tell because right now I can tell my saw is not perpendicular because I see a gap at the front gap at the back get that in there so it lays there nice and tight the only thing you're left doing is estimating your plumb instead of having to do two things which is start it perpendicular and make a plumb cut this little wall does one of them for you again lots of back pressure with my opposite hand so that while I'm pushing it's under control set it in there let it find its sweet spot go for one process meaning don't purposely cut away from the line and then have to come back in with a chisel aim to get it right from the saw now I cut into an angled corner saw cuts square on the bottom so if you try to get all of it out with a saw cut you're gonna end up cutting into your tail so there's always going to be just a little bit of material right there that needs to be removed always best to have two hands behind the chisel edge and again it allows me to anchor the chisel with my opposite hand up against the piece I'm working on now will remove that little bit of waste I'm going to use a quarter inch chisel starting on the inside always holding it so I see plumb okay get rid of that now here you really don't need to do it I do it more out of habit I've already got that nice wall that was created with this skew block plane which would give plenty of support to the chisel but just to make it easier I'm gonna just back off some of this excess pin right up against that wall get the chisel standing plumb or slightly undercut go down about halfway I find when I teach this at people often are way too light with the mallet hit it like you mean it get the job done now on this one I don't have a wall so I'm gonna go in here and I'm going to get rid of as much of that you don't have to go down very deep you just have to go down enough that when I start chiseling and that with the chisel in the scribe line by the time I started to encounter the resistance from that extra waste I've got enough support over here that I don't have to worry about the chisel getting pushed back now you're going to meet that other cut somewhere in the middle so just back off with your taps as you get close you don't need to go blowing out through the bottom and accidentally take out a piece now we're getting rid of move the waste choke ups you have lots of control and just push out that waste and you can do this by hand holding it like this you can put it in the vise but I just need to make sure that those inside corners are nice and clean and the other option is to put this in the vise use both hands forward hand supporting the chisel against the face there you go all right last step before we apply glue I'm gonna take my chisel I'm choking up so I'm careful starting on the inside of the joint stepping in about a sixteenth of an inch I'm going to cut a little chamfer down the inside edge of each tail this serves to help ease the joint together but more importantly it helps in distributing the glue if you have left them square it'll have a tendency to push all the glue off as it's going together this way the chamfer allows the glue to come up and get dispersed over most of the surface okay pinboard in the vise okay if you're gonna use a steel hammer you're gonna want a block of wood to protect the surface or I got my rubber mallet and sometimes that works just as well okay we're only going to glue long grain surfaces with one exception I like this little glue bottle just because it's very convenient for putting just the right amount I used to go through the process of having a puddle of glue but then more times than once I like tool down in it accidentally I'm doing all of the long grain sides I just did the pins and now I'm doing the tails and with this little spatula I make sure that it covers the entire surface don't expect the glue to get somewhere on its own now my one exception to my rule of not doing end grain is right over here on these end grain shoulders then put that in position always best to start it by hand first so that you're not pounding and it's not lined up then you can take your mallet do it evenly meaning don't put one side together first you've got to do it at the same time so that it doesn't split now just to prevent that glue from splashing and if you needed to you can come in with your block get right up beside the pin and give that a tap and what that does is if the glue starts to tack and connect the tail to the pin and you've got this sitting like that some of these fibers may lift up that's particular in particular if you have a long joint where by the time you get back to this it's been sitting there for a couple of minutes now I want to check back here and make sure that it's down nice and tight no gap then I'll take my square check to make sure that that's square long as it is we'll flush this off grate it and be done now I didn't explain everything in great detail because the video would be too long but we are going to come back and we're going to do a series on the various steps probably the most important will be the one where we come in and we teach you how to improve your sawing I'm looking for my wax that I don't have it so I'm gonna have to forego it so if you haven't already subscribed subscribed and hit that notification bell and you won't miss any of these there it is the wax makes planing so much easier just because it reduces the friction between the plane and the wood now I'd I'm not taking a very heavy cut but here's where having a very light marking gauge line prevents you from having to seriously remove a lot of material in order to get rid of that gauge line try to take the same amount off across the width flip it over and do the pin side little more blade this should be three passes one one down the middle went down the first side all right so there you go have a close look at that no gaps this new technique as I said will allow you to do a joint like that your first time you're not gonna believe that but it'll happen there's this side high if you like my work if you like my style of teaching click on any one of these videos to help take your woodworking to the next level and I've always said better tools make it a whole lot easier if you click on the icon with the plane and the chisel it'll take you to our website introduce you all of our tools and also talk to you about our online and in-person workshops good luck in your wood work

Channel: RobCosman.com

Views: 278,430

Rating: 4.9146204 out of 5

Keywords: Hand Cut Dovetails Made Easy, hand cut dovetails, hand cut dovetails 2.0, hand cut dovetails a different approach, hand cut dovetails layout, hand cut dovetails rob cosman, hand cut dovetails tutorial, hand cut dovetails youtube, easy hand cut dovetails, how to make hand cut dovetails, how to cut dovetails, how to cut dovetails by hand, dovetails, rob cosman, rob cosman dovetail, woodworking

Id: E8SrH6HbDdQ

Length: 60min 33sec (3633 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 16 2020