Hand-cut dovetails -important to learn?
jointerman
| Posted in General Discussion on
Last night, I decided to try and make some hand-cut dovetails after reading the primer from last months FWW (#201). All I can say is that it has been a nightmare so far.
I put a nice mark on the poplar (started with a nice soft wood) and then laid out my lines and started sawing crookedly…
I resisted the urge to fire up the bandsaw to remove the waste for the first set of failed tails and then broke down on the second set. I’m at the point of trying to cut my second set of pins, hopefully tonight some time.
Anyway, is it really that important to learn hand-cut dovetails? Is it something that I should really try and do successfully at least a couple of times? Just curious.
Replies
You don't need to make hand cut dovetails, but you may want to hone the skills necessary to make them. What's so hard?
http://www.popularwoodworking.com/article/klausz
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
Where do I start... I had 20 minutes before my cornbread was to come out of the oven. So I set the timer and went out to the shop to see if I could cut the pins...With 2 minutes to go, I had cut and chiseled the pins but knew they wouldn't fit the tails because I was sloppy on cutting the tails square and I was sloppy scribing pins.As you say hammer man... beat it to fit! I reached for my waffle head framing hammer and wham! I'll get back to it again later. Starting over!
Got any beans to go with that cornbread? The first time I cut dovetails, I cut out the parts I needed to leave, duh! One of my go to tools is a rubber mallet. Just cause you're beating on it doesn't mean you have to hurt it.Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
"The first time I cut dovetails, I cut out the parts I needed to leave, duh!"
Hell, man!! I did that 3 months ago, early in the morning, after having a few too many pints of Bass Ale at the pub the night before!!
No such thing as having too much experience to XXX out the waste areas!!
LOL
Jeff
j-man,
you KNOW you not only need to learn, but you really want to.
i too was like you. unrepentant of my mental enertia. in denial, not willing to face what needed to be faced.
you dont have to tell anyone. you can secretly cut all the practice dovetails you want. you CAN stay in the closet as long as you like. dont tell anyone. just practice, alone and in secret. it gets better. dont worry. practice.
by the way, i couldn't have done it without the written guidance of brother tage.
he was a pins first fellow.
you are not alone.
eef
To the OP:Whether or not you intend work this way exclusively, you need to be able to lay out and hand cut every important joint required to build a reasonably complex piece of furniture. If you can't do this then you're relying on somebody else's skill set (engineers and machinists) to determine the outcome of your woodworking. A flaw in a jig or runout in a router spindle could affect the quality of a dovetail joint, for instance. This is unacceptable. You have to be in control of the outcome of your efforts, otherwise, what's the point?You can set up a mini-manufacturing facility in your garage or you can learn the skills required to be a furnituremaker. It's your choice.Once you learn hand layout skills and hand joinery skills you will find yourself in a position to make an informed decision about which of these processes you'd like to automate with machines and jigs. You can make an intelligent decision about machine size, capacity, accuracy, and the fit and finish you require. You will be somewhat immune to marketing tripe and slick machine graphics proclaiming "professional" and "industrial" quality. Here's a hint - if the manufacturer feels the need to put a sticker on a machine proclaiming either one of these attributes it almost always, in actuality, is neither.Beyond that, you will be working from a position of UNDERSTANDING WOODWORKING at the basic level. This is a good place to be and IMO a springboard for everything that follows.
Edited 11/26/2008 8:22 am ET by TaunTonMacoute
While, I think dovetails are over-rated as far as a sign of craftsmanship (other joints are more difficult to cut) and it certainly isn't necessary to learn how to cut them, they do embody some important aspects of woodworking; the ability to saw/chisel accurately to a line, a way to organize your work to insure a proper out come and when mastered a sense of accomplishment, which can't be over-rated.
I know I once looked at dovetails as the pinnacle of woodworking and felt able to take on bigger tasks when I learned to cut them well. I also know when I broke them down to just sawing and chiseling to a line, they lost most of that mystique, and became just another repetitive task i.e., you saw to one line, you can saw to any line, you chisel to one line, you can chisel to any line.
Rob Millard
http://www.americanfederalperiod.com
I tent to agree with Mr. Miller..
I can cut a nice set of dovetails... IF I take my time.
However, most of my projects are on the 'sort of large size' so my routers save me ALOT of time.
I still use hand-cut dovetails on little to medium size boxes and such. Or just when I'm in the mood.
To me.. the pinnacle of woodworking is.. You were happy with the results when finished. Even with the little mistakes that only 'YOU' know are there.
I do not do them hand-cut dovetails very often on a project. I do however, cut one or two on some scrap as often as I think of it just to practice a bit...
Hardest cuts I ever made were for some Soji? screens I made for my grandbabies. They are Chinese but they still loved them even if a sort of Japan thing. Not sure what the Chinese call them. Multi angled joints in soft wood. VERY difficult to get perfect fits with those small sticks.
Another pinnacle of woodworking to me is sharpening a hair splitting chisel edge. I can make them sharp but never got to the point of a 'comfortable' shave with any I have ever sharpened!
Dovetails may not be the only sign of good craftsmanship, but they do look nice. I think that dovetails are mostly a nice design element. That said, I apparently still need much practice in sawing, chiseling, and marking!
Hey RM,
Haha that's funny and really true. I saw a dovetail expert on Roy Underhills show. He was showing how to make DT's and he was good. He said that when he learned as a kid in Eastern Europe, they would dovetail packing boxes because it saved on the price of nails!
I'm guessing that the first time you tried to ride a bike, it might not have gone so well, either. The first time I tried riding a bike on my own was in the alley behind our apartment in Chicago. I ended up crashing down the three steps, into the gangway, and hitting my head on the garbage barrels stored there. 9 stitches later, I never forgot about the experience.
Like most things in life, you need to practice in order to improve. As others have stated, it's just a matter of improving your skill level of cutting and chiseling to a line. I'll bet Frank Klausz's first set of dovetails were not a thing of beauty. I know mine weren't, but now, I consider them just another time consuming task requiring very little skill.
Keep at it. I can promise you one thing. If you do one corner of dovetails out of scrap, every single night for the next 2 months, you will see an obvious improvement both in quality, and in speed of accomplishment.
What the hell are you still reading this for?? Start practicing!!
Jeff
Learning to walk on the rice paper is good for the soul, Grasshopper. Now, try to snatch the pebble from my hand. ;-)
If you want to improve your general woodworking skill set, dovetails are a good thing to learn. If you think that doing them (either by hand or with power tools and jigs) will be a big selling point for your business, I would say "Maybe".
I've been doing custom cabinets and furniture for five years now and have yet to get a customer who's willing to pay for dovetails. I've only met one who even knew what they were. - lol
Important to whom?
If you want to your piece to have joints that look handmade, then yes, it's important.
Don't be intimidated, it's not that hard, expecially if you are willing to do a bit of paring with a chisel until your sawing gets a little better.
Jointer -
While I am far from an expert, I really don't find handcut dovetails all that hard. Certainly not the pinnacle of woodworking. Look at some of Rob Millard's work for a better definition of that. I think your problem is expecting, or even hoping that you'll be able to do them perfectly, or at least well right out of the gate. It takes a couple of tries to even pound a nail straight the first time, so dovetails do take a bit of practice. But really, that's it do a few sets, and you will be amazed at the progress. As someone said, breaking them down, they consist of sawing to a line, and chiseling to a line. If it helps, saw to the waste side of the line, and you can always sneak up on a good fit.
Good question. On my workbench, I have been experiencing the learning curve of hand cut dovetails. Prior to this, I had cut about four practice joints. They all fit very nicely, and probably required over half an hour, probably closer to an hour. Cutting dovetails is not necessary in woodworking. You can accomplish the same function with other joints or a router jig. They won't look the same, but they perform the same.
On the other hand, the skills you learn from cutting dovetails are important. Maybe you will never need to be able to chisel to a line. The way the world's going, power tools may be the answer for everything.
You might want to try building your confidence and your hand tool skills gradually by starting off using the bandsaw to cut your tails nicely, then focus on chopping out the waste, then transferring the marks over to the pin board. Cut out the pins with the bandsaw, then chop them out by hand. Once you have figured out the layout, transferring of marks, and chiselling, you can practice on your hand sawing abilities. Don't forget the compression factor. On softer woods, you can cut the joint a little tighter and rely on the little bit of give in the wood when you assemble the joint. With harder woods, you have to be more precise.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
J-man
Slim, good looking handcut dovetails are a Big Deal. They take time to master, causing much grief and frustration along the way ... but when this clicks - as it will - you will ask yourself what all the fuss was about. This is the sign of a skill well learned. You'll look to cut them at every opportunity. And never return to a jig and router. The satisfaction, the quickness, the ease of a handsaw and chisel lies ahead of you.
The fact is that we all look at the dovetails when we examine someone's drawers or cabinets or boxes or whatever. Handcut dovetails are the sign of craftsmanship. Thise who have mastered them play this down - it's a sort of reverse snobbery, machismoism ..
Are they important to master? It depends on what you believe is important - a significant step (but not nearly an end point) along the craftsman path, the ability to add a design feature, personal satisfaction, bragging rights ..
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Regards from Perth
Derek
Derek,Wow! Beautiful work in your photo. I hadn't even thought about a hand-cut half blind dovetails. That is something that I don't think I'd attempt.
Half blind are arguably easier than through in that they are more forgiving - only one surface shows! There are more places for gaps in through dts.
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Derek
NO HATE HERE
I looked at that drawer,, Reminded me of my Mate.
How could three dovetails hold it all together without GLUE! Very more than a pretty drawer I'd say!
Jman,
Hand-made dovetails are only important for the handmade look; or if you make them a self-imposed test of your craftsmanship. But there are plenty of good craftsmen who use machine-made ones; or none at all.
We are modern folk and therefore impatient for gratification. (I blame the tele). Also, we want a "magic trick" or super tool to allow us to become expert in 5 minutes. Unfortunately, this is a myth of modern times as eye-hand-brain stuff always takes practice and is learnt by lots of doing.
However, a good tool is better to learn with than a bad tool. If your saw wanders from the line and leaves a great raggy kerf mark then it makes it harder to learn. Same applies to marking out tools that cut ugly-woggle lines and chisels that are thick, blunt or bent.
It took me around 500 DTs (that's 3000 saw cuts, as I cut out the waste with a fretsaw!) to get to the stage of "I can just do it now". Start with big, easier DTs in softwood. I cut all the pine drawer carcass DTs for my workbench cabinet first, which were quite forgiving; then some finer ones.
Don't feel you have to attain immediate perfection; or perfection at all - you can fix/hide gaps with wood slivers glued into them; or with beaumontage or hard wax if the gaps are small and few. If most of your DTs are competant then no strength is lost when one or three are so-fixed.
Avoid getting carried away with technique and the guru-methods that are proposed. You need to learn only those things that will spoil your DT-making actions then feel your own way to doing it right by avoiding those spoilers. After all - it's only a few saw cuts and chisel thrusts. :-)
Lataxe
No, you don't need to learn to make DTs by hand.
But if you want to be proficient at hand tools, you need to learn how to accurately lay out your work, saw accurately to a line (straight!), chisel to a line, and "tweak" joints for perfect fit.
Thing is, once you master those skills, DTs are no big deal. (A good M&T joint is WAY harder to do, IMHO.)
Probably the biggest problem most beginners have is that they can't use a hand saw. And since a hand saw is a pretty basic tool used for pretty much every step of any project, that can be a huge obstacle for noobie galoots. But that's easily remedied. You don't remedy it by sawing DTs tho'. You gotta break it down to the basics first. Otherwise, you'll be dealing with too many variables to try to fix all at once.
Just make a bunch of cuts in a piece of scrap (no lines needed at this point) about an inch deep and a quarter of an inch apart. Try to make them straight and square. After you've made 5 or 6, look at 'em, check them with a try square. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until you're consistently cutting straight and square. If you're having trouble, it's probably your stance. Look at your arm while you're sawing. It should be moving back in a straight line and forth like a piston. Figure out what you need to adjust to make it so. Different for everyone. You just gotta figure it out. Try again. It's all about hand/eye coordination and that always takes practice so you can build muscle memory. Before you know it, you'll be able to do it in your sleep.
Once you can cut a straight, square kerf without any lines, ("You don't need no square -- you KNOW square." Frank Klaus) mark a few lines and try to split them with the saw. Repeat. Repeat. This phase will be much shorter and easier.
When I was teaching, I would advise my kids to start each shop session with a few minutes of this exercise. You can even make a game out of it. See how many you can cut in two minutes. See how close together you can get the cuts. . . .
Same advice for you. It works. (And it's actually fun and relaxing -- at least I think so.) And don't break down and cheat by using up all those electrons or you'll never learn.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
I think that your post hits on the spot where my weaknesses are:-Cutting straight with a handsaw.
-Cutting square with a handsaw.
-Chiseling comfortably to a line.It makes me think that I should practice with my other hand saws too. I thought they were only used o hang in the shop and admire. ;-).
I sell 95% of my work. The rest are gifts and for my home. I woodwork as my second job, and spend well over 500 hrs a year working for others. My customers come to me to build products they can't get at the stores. They may need special color match, custom design, or just hate particleboard.. What the all demand is higher quality work than they can buy at the stores. Every customer I can remember has ordered drawers with dovetails. These folks aren't woodworking experts. If they were, they'd build their own furniture and cabinets. They are savy enough to know that well built handcrafted woodwork can be a great value. And that DTs are a sign of quality in their eyes. Mine too.
It took me a while to learn how to cut DTs. Now that I know how to do them, I find it to be the most enjoyable part of my projects. You might too after a while.
"Anyway, is it really that important to learn hand-cut dovetails? Is it something that I should really try and do successfully at least a couple of times? Just curious."
Depends. If you're into making mitered highly decorative boxes like Doug Stowe, than I'd suggest that it's a waste of your time. Likewise if you mostly make high-end kitchen cabinetry - I've never heard of someone ordering up a $50,000 kitchen cabinet job and then insisting on tacking on another $10,000 for the time required to cut all the drawer joints by hand.
If you aspire to make American colonial period reproductions, it's critical - router joints are really out of place on an 18th century Philadelphia lowboy. Similarly, if you aspire to high-end, modern "studio" furniture, I think you'll find that most (though not all) of the drawers on such furniture are hand-cut (and to a much higher standard than colonial period dovetails). If, on the other hand, you wish to make Arts and Crafts reproductions, very, very little of the highest grade of that furniture - designed by the Greene brothers in California - have dovetailed joints of any kind, whether machine made or otherwise.
This is a bit like asking - "Do I need to learn to do inlay?" The answer, again, depends. If you want to make Federal period repros - you must. If you're into roccoco style carving, then my answer would be "of course not".
Hi there,
If I can do it, anyone can. Buy three things:
1) A decent DT saw, the fugly new one from Lee Valley will probably do the trick (for half the price), in place of the much lovelier one from Lie Nielson (which I use and love).
2) Rob Cosman's Mastering the Dovetail Saw DVD
3) Rob Cosman's Hand-cut Dovetails DVD
All told about $100, or $175 if you have taste and buy the Lie Nielson saw. :)
Follow the directions and you'll be all set. Honestly, it's not that hard, and it's extraordinarily rewarding. Women go wild over men who handcut dovetails.
---Pedro
You are just using the wrong words, your thoughts are backards roads on.
Firstly, you are not starting with a nice soft wood, you are starting with a difficult wood. Get a bit of hard stuff so that your saw cuts are clear and smooth.
Secondly, you are not cutting dovetails, you are making a series of careful cuts allowing the saw to do its work and stopping on the scribed line.
Bottom line, you are just making routine saw cuts which you could do with your eyes closed. I GOT MY WIFE TO MAKE SUCH CUTS AND BECAUSE SHE DID NOT KNOW THEY WERE REGARDED AS DIFFICULT SHE HAD NO PROBLEM. (The caps lock was on by mistake).
Finger joints are just as easy/hard. My hang-up is in the removal of the waste but whisky helps.
Gary Rogowski has a nice video called "The five minute dovetail" under videos on this site.
I am 10 drawers ahead of you. 5 to go on the current project. I have been doing the layout with a knife, sawing within a 1/32 and using a sharp chisel to get the rest. The go together very well. Even better when I cheat on the skinny side for the tail layout by less than a 1/64 so that the pins are slightly over-sized. Then the pencil marks transfer from pin to tail and a final shave comes pretty near perfect.
But it has taken my 6 hours per drawer. Gads. I watched the videos on this website again and they go straight from the saw to the final fit. And the layout is with a pencil. Is that true? Or did they cut out the hours of shaving with a chisel?
The only serious amount of chisel work they show is on the baseline. What about on the surface of the pins/tails?
With a knife mark, I shave to the center of the cut. What do you do with a pencil line?
I think it depends on what attitude you take towards woodworking. There is the notion that you can quite comfortably participate in woodworking without ever picking up a hand tool. But in my experience that route often results in less than spectacular results and more often than not work that tends to lean towards the blasŽ or routine end of the spectrum.
Learning to cut dovetails are not an end onto themselves rather I tend to look at them as an exercise in honing and keeping ones skills up. That is there are numerous skills and techniques that are learned along the way that are valuable in other facets of the craft.
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