I want to introduce you to something that I've used for 52 years when I was a boy I made my first dovetail template and this is a dovetail template that stayed with me all my life I haven't found any that I feel work better it works very efficiently effectively give you a quick demonstration I take the dovetail template make my 1 in 7 line or whatever pitch you want 1 in 7, flip over just keep flipping over and you have your dovetails laid out on the piece of wood as quickly and as efficiently as I doesn't give you the size of the dovetail it gives you the angle only when you get to the end of here this also has a square on the opposite edge and you can flip over and pull your square lines up here just like this and you are done so you've got everything in one template works great and I think it's a great template so I've got thousands of people using this template all over the world and I'm going to show you how to make one. I've got my blank this is one and a quarter wide 7/8 thick and and four inches long that's plenty of length for this usually dovetails are not very long so we're going to use a pencil to start with just to give us a mapping out so we're going to come one and a half from this end and one and a half from the opposite end like that we're going to square one of the lines now I've really worked on this blank so I have used vernier to get my wits and thicknesses and everything so they're guaranteed parallel all the way across take your time with this square your lines all the way around this is just to give you a visual so I'm squaring one of these lines only because the other one is not ready to be squared so these are going to guide my lines when I run gauge lines on here so this one I can square across the edge only here like that but now we're going to make this angle here because this is where we get the dovetail from so we can we're going to angle this across to get the angle we need to develop a one-in-seven pitch one in seven is between 1 in 6 and 1 in 8 so what I am going to do great this board is over 7 inches wide square a line across the edge here come up 7 inches this won't do 7 so I'm going to come up 3 and a half, that's going to be increments of half-inch and then I'm going to come across here half an inch from this one that gives me the pitch that I want for a 1 in 7 pitch which is a ratio this goes across here so there I've got my 1 in 7 then I take a sliding bevel and set this to that angle and that's the next step in laying out the template is to transfer this one in 7 onto my template this is called a dovetail template and this goes across here so again there this flips over so we flip over this way this angle is going in the same direction so this angle slopes down and went from my side it's also sloping down and then I square the line across the face and this is governing the lines that I want to make with my marking gauge so I'm going to make a line here and a line here but I'm not going to use a marking gauge as such I'm going to use my router I often do this instead of setting up a router I'm just going to run this as my gauge line because this is actually going to be the finished depth line here put it in the vise if you don't feel settled because this is a cutting edge so you have to be very careful the depth of this is about one third of this 7/8 stock I don't know what one third of seven eighths but whatever it is you just set it to one third and it works perfectly and it also gives a cut edge rather than the gauge which gives you a very nice edge to work to and you'll see how this works in a minute so there we are like I said be careful you don't overshoot because it is a cutting edge why is that slightly off there oh it's me I haven't put this is a pencil line not the gauge line there we go let me just put this in for you so you can see where we are that's the layout for your dovetail template, this means now that we've got these marked we can actually put the definitive cross grain cuts in and this is our knife wall this is the knife wall here so I go right onto the pencil line and I make my first cut here very definitive this absolutely creates that wall here I go onto the edge with the square into the knife nick and I just go the width of the cheek here and then onto the opposite side here I don't want to go over this edge because it's going to be seen I go into this knife wall here slide up to it light pass heavy pass again and then square across and these should line up and they will here and here that's that one the rest can all be done from the same edge this has to be square so if you are slightly out you want this stock to register against this edge that we used as the registration edge so just flip over make sure you start just in case you're out, I know this won't be out but that's because I took so much time okay so we've got knife walls we've got the cheeks everything is done what I'm going to do is chisel into my knife wall here steep cut and just flick that, same on this one now these you really do want these to be dead-on and so we take our time with this we make sure we've got sharp tools sharp knife even sharp pencil make sure everything is sharp because accuracy really matters when we come to laying out and the layout tools we use, never compromise I'm going to do my cross grain cut first and I'm going to use a dovetail saw drop this in push it up against the knife wall gently let the saw do the work make sure you don't go past your depth line if anything stay shy of your line by a millimeter because you can chisel out that internal corner very easily finger against the side of the plate that just stops the saw from jumping out and it helps you to guide it okay tenon saw now so I cut close to, very close to my line in my case maybe half a mil from the line across the top there, I'm going to angle this because it's easier for me to see I'm not saying you should do this but it makes it easier for me to see, so I'm following my gauge line my cut line here like this turn that corner go across the top first the end grain, the end grain is a bit trickier and then just follow the line close to it you can see I think I've got the two lines two lines still visible flip around come from this side now still staying catty-corner like that and down here, listen to it now pressing hard against the plate here the scrap piece of wood to make sure it keeps the saw registered against the face I've cut and it also slows my cut down slightly so I'm squeezing here now I'm prepared to break off that last little bit rather than cut into the groove, drop my hand here I like the advantage I get from this registering against the vise jaw so I'm leaving it there this time dropping my hand inside here squeeze, so I've left this little cheek on here a little bit on each one of these because I want this square edge I want to chisel down this face here the only way, the best way to do it's not the only way to do it is to chisel in using the knife wall to rest my chisel on so my chisel is resting right on this knife wall here and then I just rock the chisel til it won't go any further so let me show you what I'm going to do I'm going to bring this up and put it gently in the vise here just so it's resting here because this I want you to see this the registration is the very edge of the cut there the chisel, the saw kerf so I'm going down face and using the gauge line from the router I don't want to crunch this edge so I'm going very gently but this is, you can do it the way I did the first one I'm just paring those fuzzy edges left from the saw right on the very edge that gives me that beautiful crisp clean edge and here I'm going to go in here just to chisel up the face this is not my finished cut yet just so I can lift out these fibers there we go I've got these nice crisp edges that I want for my dovetail this will affect the dovetails you see so there you have have it that these are nice and smooth slick here I've got another little bit here to take out and I could pop this with the chisel, with the hammer to get that edge so now this is ready for me to do the last stage, I'm going to just take us a knife because these are already down just into that inside corner like that just to sever the fibers like that I'm going to put this in the vise now this is actually very smooth and I could accept that and just as it is keep your chisel pointing towards the sky you don't to go all the way through pointing upwards I'm going right into the very cut line I do this while I'm here, just using a scraper to scrape up the surfaces so I go right in the corner the same on this one here I'm just scraping those surfaces to get them slick a little further off my line there it feels smooth, so I'm starting in this corner I'm not going all the way through on that closeout cut I'm just going here and then on the last one I pull it all the way through and that gives me that nice surface so I have a little bit of paring on this one just missed my hopefully I'm going with the grain and it's not, 'cause I can feel the resistance I'm going to come in from the side here it's going to depend on your wood as much as mine I thought I was in the groove before but I wasn't, that's it, it's better I don't know if I would sand this or whether I would take a file probably to most of these edges here even here the end here just to break the corners just a little bit because they will break if you don't do it and it's better to have a controlled arris on here take the arris off should I say there you have it that's a tool you can add to your tool collection use it throughout your lifetime it's a great tool I've use it all my life, I hope you'll use it throughout all your life too
