How to make a Half-Lap Dovetail | Paul Sellers

[Music] I'm going to show you how to make a half lap dovetail a half lap dovetail is a dovetail that has the front face of a draw usually where we use it where you don't see the dovetail going all the way through like you might on a common dovetail weather the tails and the pins go all the way through to the outside faces in this case the side piece the draw side usually is dovetailed but the front has a lip along the front edge that prevents you from seeing it when the draws is there draw is closed so what I'm going to do here I've got a 20 millimeter front piece a 15 millimeter side piece that means that I can use my maxim which is to have the length of the dovetails 3/4 of the length of the thickness of the front piece so in this case I've got 15 million 15 mph in my side piece 20 mil for my front piece so the length of my dovetails are going to be 15 millimeters so what I'm first of all going to do is take my knife to make a measurement here 15 mil from this very front edge of my draw now I have made sure that my draw side is absolutely dead square so when I put my square on here this direction and this direction I'm dead square very important to work accurately when you're making this type of joint and I'm going to pull my line here this is a rebate I'm going to form a rebate on here and I'll show you why in a minute well this is a no-nonsense method for making dovetails I'm going to go all the way up to this front edge on this top edge here and then on to this edge here too because I'm going to put a rebate on here and how I'm going to do that is cake I rule I only want this rebate to be out about one and a half mil so I set my steal rule on here and then I can set my depth of my router here to the surface here what I'm going to do now is make a rebate move your chisel just chisel into this face here to form a rebate now you've got to know what depth you're going to go down to from the depth we're going to go down is governed by the plane we just set here so I'm going to take my super turn this so you can see I'm using the cutter on here to give me a line to work to here so this is actually foot becoming a marking gauge if you like so I'm cutting the line into the end grain going on to this edge of my draw side which it would be right into it here so I'm just using the corner of my plane to give me a cut line so I keep the claimed sole registered against the surface of my ward that gives me a depth to cut to going back in with my knife however combined two cuts that I made with my knife are taking me down about the depth of the cut of the setting of my blade and here I'm going just I'm going actually into my gauge line and I'm pointing my chisel upwards going on to the face here and I'm keeping the chisel pointing sky was just a hair to create a very small rebate on my pieces would come in from the end here and that should give me enough to now come in with my plane here that gives me a very small rebate see why in just a minute so I'm using my router plane to guarantee the exact depth very nice pristine surface here so I've got a rebate on that piece of wood now to set out my dog tails I'm using a pen here just a black pen so that you can see I'm coming in a little 3/8 of an inch which of that 10 millimeters and then the same from this side and then I'm finding the middle there and then I come 3/16 on each side and that gives me exactly the same distance as I have on each side I use a dovetail template doesn't matter where the line stops at the moment and now I'm going to come down onto this face from that knife wall that I created on the end and I'm going to go into but not pass that pen line in between the two pen lines in the middle ten recess and then out onto this side here so I've got this nice crisp corner where I meet on the corner and now I'm going to cut down my dovetail rake first I need lines square across and this square across aspect has to be dead square so when I cut I'm dead square going into the joint with my saw my lines I've got my dovetails cook these are the recesses I'm going to take away so I need to cut down these two lines or four lines you're not Komachi so take your time cooking square across aligning the saw your body your arm your eyes my recommendation is to stop about a millimeter above your line the important thing is to stay just above your line and to cut on the waist side of the line so I have cut on the waist side of this line so this is my waist same here and the same here your cross grain cuts again just a little step down to guide that saw [Laughter] now we take out the midsection I'm using a 3/8 chisel here and we're going to chop now right inside here gently you don't remove the knife wall here so go very gently don't go very deeply at all and go right up against the rebate wall here in and out of the vise for safety make sure your bench top is clean nothing underneath your piece I can go heavier now as the wall gets deeper just pair out any fibers left in between to point so make sure is dead square across follow the rake with your chisel just to get the answer inside corner nice crisp and the shoulders you need to be just paired slightly just to take off any fuzziness I've got my marked edges face mark face edge face mark face edge so this is where I aligned this up you can see what I created I think you see if I can turn this so you can see this created a very deliberate stop there that I can buck this up against push this against that shoulder make sure the side aligns with the front edge bottom edge and I can go around my dovetail here with a light pass with the knife making sure it doesn't deviate from this point now I'm going to go right on the inside rake of the dovetail from the very tight inside corner on each side this is one pinned two pins more so feeling for that inside corner almost as I'm trying to reach underneath and I've got this very faint line but it's enough for me to see I want to bring the lines down onto this inside face of Israel now see how I can do this so there is a line but here's the thing we're actually going to cut down this a little bit with the tennis or the dovetail saw we're not actually going to be anywhere near the line when we cut we're going to be maybe as much as a sixteenth of an inch two millimeters away from it that vertical line is just a guide for me to work parallel to not necessarily up to watch what happens here this is important now I'm going to flush the inside rebate here against the outside of my front my draw from here like this so this goes here and I'm going to make a knife mark here so I've got my position for my knife cut there I'm going to go into that knife neck between my black lines from background doesn't matter if you go past slightly doesn't matter if you go all the way across because it's an internal corner so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to saw down this is my waste wood this is my waste where I'm going to sew on the inside of this line the inside of this one this one and this one and I'm staying away from the line as I said maybe a millimeter two millimeters so I'm just going down the corners really catchy corner I'm just making the knife for more defined on the chopped down right on my knife wall don't go too heavily now this inside corner he's never going to be seen once each cut because the lap over overlap there's a rebate overlaps it I'm a little uncertain about my grain direction but here and a chop [Music] so I hear that - I take the bulk of the middle out let's take the wings out is pair down follow the rake and the black line and we shot we keep chopped in and out the device in and out of the vise just to get rid of the bulk of the waste I can go a little bit more confidently now because I'm now inside deeper inside the cut and show you a little different way just to get you inside go until you hear that dip dip dip dead sound too much so I can tell I took a little bit over-ambitious migraine is quite undulating inside this which is always a challenge pare down that wall this is now getting nearer towards the inside corner where the saw didn't reach we just whittle away at it here just right down into the corn otherwise you won't be able to angle your chisel in to follow the rake of the dovetail keeping this chisel as perpendicular as I can when I chop and now I start creeping up on the lines on either side and at the back edge here these loops to me is on probably about four mil from my depth line now [Music] clean up the inside of the rake a little bit I'm using a half inch chisel but now I'm going to switch to a narrower chisel a quarter inch too tall and I'm going to chisel into the interior corner get me a little bit deeper to that part lattice pick your weapons here this is a gentle creeping up to that back line and you have to work in the middle see I'm working either side of the duck tail and the reason I'm doing that is because I want to take out some of this waste wood to allow a little bit of the outer corners some place to work to here and work either side like this I'm away from my lines at the moment there I got most of that corner out I still have my final depth line on the sides and the end to go to yet but I'm listening the whole time because the wood is telling me where the pressure is whether it's too much too little internal corners is creeping up on them a little bit more depth to go to if I can get a line for you to see there's the line is the line keep your bench top clean all the time internal corner with a now a chisel even go down to a 1/8 to the low 3/16 chisel I often do and I am about to mill from my line my depth line here so I'm going to split that difference so now I'm 1 mill from the line midsection comes up first every time the nice thing is you created a knife wall which we can ultimately put the chisel directly into feels good I've got a 1/8 which is alot one fine if you haven't just use a quarter inch just to get that internal corner now I'm going to just shot one more time being consistently very near to the outside face now now I'm going to go down the outside wall here this is where I meant where I'm feeling now for the chisel for the knife wall that I created when I drew around the dovetail I'm feeling for that I'm looking for the grain direction here because I've got the feeling the grain is undercutting it may not be but just in case it is I'm going to come in from this face I can see a line there this is the nature of the type of wood I'm working with so I'm just cutting in from this side just a little bit is that knife wall is definitive I have to have that knife wall and the grange sometimes does want to take you in another direction that's great I think that's great let me come back your direction little bit here internal corner left I'm writing this back wall now into the grain moving into the corner right into an eye hole I'm definitely fighting the grain here but I think the end result will be worth the fight this last one I got to feel again to this grain so I'm writing the knife wall this was working fine which is great midsection I think that's it go ahead and just give this a try one little trick that we use in woodworking and that is I'll show you here I think I have a little in one time let's take this internal corner off here I just snug up on the chisel like this and on the inside of the dovetail just take it corner off take a corner off take a corner off and a corner off well just feel how that deft ally is feeling as it goes down into the cut so look for any areas where it might be snagging listen for any popping feels nice feels a little bit tight maybe just hear a few hairs just hanging on and we'll try it this one sounds a little tighter on this side still feels a little tight but not too tight and that's how we cut a half lap dovetail I hope you enjoyed it I did I'm going to take that last shaving off the face [Music] you

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 143,827

Rating: 4.9467049 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, hand tools, paul sellers, wood, dovetail, craft

Id: ADyJ8AMLcOI

Length: 34min 22sec (2062 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2017