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Drills & dovetails

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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby AndyT » 02 Apr 2022, 18:34

Nice results!

With your exterior photo, presumably that's just pushed together? If so, you should try adding some glue, then planing down after the glue has dried, then adding some finish. I reckon that the tiny gaps will disappear entirely as the water in the glue slightly swells the fibres.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 02 Apr 2022, 18:42

AndyT wrote:Nice results!

With your exterior photo, presumably that's just pushed together? If so, you should try adding some glue, then planing down after the glue has dried, then adding some finish. I reckon that the tiny gaps will disappear entirely as the water in the glue slightly swells the fibres.


That's definitely worth a try, thanks! I'll have a go at gluing it if I get any time tomorrow and will post another picture.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Malc2098 » 02 Apr 2022, 20:16

Coming along nicely. I reckon it's oak.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 06 May 2022, 15:33

I haven't posted anything on this thread for while, but I thought I'd just add a note to say I'm still practising!

I've done quite a few more over the past few weeks. I didn't take photos of most of them, but this was my latest one. I slightly cheated on this one and used a magnetic jig thing (3D printed) to help get me saw in a straight line. I was mostly doing it to see what the jig was like to use and it was by far the fastest dovetail I've cut so far, both the initial sawing time (less time checking and double-checking I was sawing in the right place) and also requiring minimal clean-up to get it to fit (just one tap with a chisel to shave the side of one dovetail).

IMG_20220506_145519 - Copy.jpg
(335.17 KiB)


I obviously wasn't concentrating when I marked it up as I ended up with a small offset between the two planks:

IMG_20220506_145537 - Copy.jpg
(81.93 KiB)


Nevertheless, it was quite satisfying to get a good fit so quickly. On all the ones I've done so far without the jig (regardless of how good they ended up looking), I've spent ages trying to work out which pin face needed a bit more taken off. This time it was obvious, maybe because it was just the one where previously the answer was "all of them"!
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby NickM » 06 May 2022, 16:21

3D printed guide is a good idea. Would it be cheeky to ask for a copy of the file…?
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 06 May 2022, 17:15

NickM wrote:3D printed guide is a good idea. Would it be cheeky to ask for a copy of the file…?


Of course not. I'll send it tomorrow if that's okay. I've made some tweaks and am printing another one - I'll check it's okay and send it then.

P.S. You'll need some 8×3 mm magnets (although it would be very easy for me to tweak the design for a different size magnet if you've got some already that aren't that size)
Last edited by Dr.Al on 06 May 2022, 17:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 06 May 2022, 17:19

I felt like it was going well, so I decided to have another go. Out of curiosity I timed this one (not that I really care how long it takes as this is just a hobby, but it's interesting to know). It was pretty much bang on half an hour from plane to plane (shooting the boards square to picking up the block plane to clean the ends of the tails & pins).

This time it went together first time with no tweaking & the edges lined up much better, although there's a very slight gap down the side of one tail:

IMG_20220506_170514 - Copy.jpg
(29.02 KiB)


IMG_20220506_170531 - Copy.jpg
(36.22 KiB)


I'm pretty happy with the two I've done today :obscene-drinkingbuddies:
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Malc2098 » 06 May 2022, 18:05

Nice one!
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby NickM » 06 May 2022, 18:32

Dr.Al wrote:
NickM wrote:3D printed guide is a good idea. Would it be cheeky to ask for a copy of the file…?


Of course not. I'll send it tomorrow if that's okay. I've made some tweaks and am printing another one - I'll check it's okay and send it then.

P.S. You'll need some 8×3 mm magnets (although it would be very easy for me to tweak the design for a different size magnet if you've got some already that aren't that size)


That would be great. Thanks!
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 08 May 2022, 13:37

I decided to have another go at dovetails yesterday, but to make it a bit harder for myself, I decided to cut four joints at the same time and see whether the result ended up square!

Again using the 3D printed saw guide, which looks a bit like this (hastily framed shot to demonstrate the jig in use!):

jig.jpg
(33.49 KiB)


I've actually printed quite a few of them with different angles and I can't remember which one I used for this set of tails, but hopefully you get the idea. Here it is being used to cut the pins:

jig_pins.jpg
(36.97 KiB)


Anyway the result of all of that (and a couple of hours of marking up, sawing, chiselling etc) were these four joints:

dovetail_a.jpg
(32.94 KiB)


dovetail_b.jpg
(36.19 KiB)


dovetail_c.jpg
(30.2 KiB)


dovetail_d.jpg
(23.2 KiB)


I feel like I'm getting somewhere with the consistency now (even if the jig is arguably cheating). All of those dovetails went together with no adjustment at all, which I was very, very pleased about.

As I'd made four sides of a box, I decided to turn it into a box. I used my Stanley 45 to cut some grooves in the top and bottom of each board. Cutting the "stopped" grooves in the pin board (with some drilled holes at either end) was quite an unpleasant experience, but I managed to get some very shallow grooves cut. If I did it again I think I'd try using a router plane with lots of fences all the way round. One of the pin boards had a bit break off, but I managed to glue it back on and it's not too obvious.

As it's the first thing I've made with dovetails, I thought I'd try to make the dovetails a feature. I've had a Kilner jar of white vinegar with some steel wool soaking in it for a few months and never got round to testing it, so I figured what the heck.

I "painted" the pin boards with the vinegary ebonising stuff and left them to dry. They went very black - I was impressed. When I came back to them a few hours later, that black had turned to a bright blue, which wasn't quite what I'd imagined but c'est la vie.

Anyway, I cut a little bit of beech in half (in the direction that I think is referred to as "resawing"), planed the two halves flat and used the #45 again to cut a rebate all the way round both pieces. The lid piece had a bit of a chip in it, so I sanded a slightly rounded shape into the edges to hide it.

After figuring out which board attached to which (not a straightforward exercise as the labels I'd written on the inside were invisible on the ebonised boards), I added a bit of glue and the result looked like this:

dovetail_box_glued.jpg
(59.05 KiB)


Here are those dovetails again:

dovetail_1.jpg
(29.68 KiB)


dovetail_2.jpg
(27.15 KiB)


dovetail_3.jpg
(27.36 KiB)


dovetail_4.jpg
(31.97 KiB)


The next bit was a bit scary:

sawing_box_in_half.jpg
(50.53 KiB)


(the masking tape is just there as I couldn't see the pencil line on the ebonised boards)

That left me with two halves of a box. I flattened the saw joint with a #4 followed by a bit of rubbing on a piece of sandpaper on the bench.

box_separated.jpg
(62.74 KiB)


What hadn't occurred to me until this point was that any chipping or non-level cutting in the gap between the pins suddenly becomes visible when you cut it in half:

gaps_in_the_pin_area.jpg
(256.45 KiB)


Oh well, live and learn.

I haven't decided what to do next. It's a fairly thick-walled box (12 mm) so I'm thinking it might be better to have a hinge (another thing I've never done before apart from some practises on a previous box that ended up not having a hinge) rather than a loose lid that sits over a liner.

I'm also pondering some sort of veneer (?) over the sawn edge of the two halves. It would cover up the gaps in the pin area and would also deal with the fact that the sawn edge of the ebonised board isn't ebonised any more (and would be very hard to re-ebonise without staining the tail board).

I haven't decided what to line the box with either.

I'd welcome any and all thoughts...

P.S. Nick: I haven't forgotten about sharing the jig models, I just haven't got round to it yet! I'll try to do it later today
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Malc2098 » 08 May 2022, 13:40

Nice.

There is no cheating with a jig. It means you can consistently repeat the process to the accuracy of the jig.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby AndyT » 08 May 2022, 14:10

Indeed!

Well known professionals such as David Barron agree -

http://www.davidbarronfurniture.co.uk/d ... _tools.asp

Al, it's good to see you learning about all this stuff by making things.

On the subject of stopped grooves, for instance, I think discussions about the ways around them will now be more interesting than before.

Options include

Cutting through grooves then filling in the little hole with a grain matched fragment

Making a mitre on the last bit, where the groove goes

Using separate slips to hold the top and bottom, which can be mitred together

And I think there's a trick where the last dovetail is shorter than the thickness of the side it joins, but I may be remembering that wrong.

Interesting blue stain btw. I've no idea what happened there!
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Cabinetman » 08 May 2022, 16:31

Not surprised about the blue, the best I have achieved with that method is a dark navy. But your dovetails are now very good! It’s all very well having at it by eye and no jig but not so easy to get the layout and spacing right without planning, depends on the use for the piece afterwards.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 08 May 2022, 17:24

Thanks for all the comments - much appreciated.

@AndyT - I'll have to do some more investigation into grooves & dovetails. Mitred ones sound properly scary!

Anyway, rather than fretting against what the right answer to the various questions was, I decided to go with "whatever I've never tried before" and not worry too much about the end result. On that basis, I thought I'd try applying a thin veneer (leftover from when I used a thicknesser to make some bookmarks) to the exposed edges to hide the holes and then I thought I'd have a go at fitting my first hinge.

I realised after cutting slots for the hinges that I don't have any screws that are small enough, so they're now on order. In the meantime, through the magic of double sided sticky tape & a handy bit of wood to act as a prop:

open_box.jpg
(68.37 KiB)


Lots and lots of things I can see wrong with it, but it's all good experience, innit?

closed_box.jpg
(55.29 KiB)
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 08 May 2022, 17:46

NickM wrote:
Dr.Al wrote:
NickM wrote:3D printed guide is a good idea. Would it be cheeky to ask for a copy of the file…?


Of course not. I'll send it tomorrow if that's okay. I've made some tweaks and am printing another one - I'll check it's okay and send it then.

P.S. You'll need some 8×3 mm magnets (although it would be very easy for me to tweak the design for a different size magnet if you've got some already that aren't that size)


That would be great. Thanks!


@NickM: as promised, the STL files (and STEP files in case you want to tweak anything) are here:

https://www.printables.com/model/199398 ... -dovetails
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Andyp » 08 May 2022, 17:57

Good job Dr.
Practice makes perfect.
I do not think therefore I do not am.

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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Malc2098 » 08 May 2022, 18:20

Nice.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Woodbloke » 08 May 2022, 18:27

Dr.Al wrote:
I'm also pondering some sort of veneer (?) over the sawn edge of the two halves. It would cover up the gaps in the pin area...

Good box, nicely done. Covering those edges is actually a lot easier than it sounds and is an ideal outing for a mitre attachment on your new shooter, discussed earlier. The tricky bit is getting the first pair to sit exactly over the interior and external corners. I did exactly the same thing recently on a playing card box:

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=7339&p=121682&hilit=card+box#p121682 - Rob
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby NickM » 08 May 2022, 18:58

Thanks for sharing the files. I’ll take a look.

Do you just use the template to cut the tails and then trace around the tails onto the pin board and saw the sockets freehand in the usual way?

Where you’re cutting through a dovetail joint, there’s a technique to ensure that there is no breaking of the end grain so that there are no gaps when you cut the lid off. I think it’s called “tenting” or something like that. Instead of chiselling straight down, you chisel at an angle so that you end up with a peak (or tent). You then pare the peak away. Matt Estela describes this in one of his toolbox series videos. I think Derek Cohen of this parish might also have something on it.

Thanks again

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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 08 May 2022, 19:10

NickM wrote:Thanks for sharing the files. I’ll take a look.

Do you just use the template to cut the tails and then trace around the tails onto the pin board and saw the sockets freehand in the usual way?


I use the template to cut the tails, then use the tails to mark the pins, then use the template to cut the pins.

Two sides of the template are angled to suit the tails & two are angled to suit the pins. There are some photos at the link I shared that hopefully make it obvious, but I can share more pictures if it isn't clear.

NickM wrote:Where you’re cutting through a dovetail joint, there’s a technique to ensure that there is no breaking of the end grain so that there are no gaps when you cut the lid off. I think it’s called “tenting” or something like that. Instead of chiselling straight down, you chisel at an angle so that you end up with a peak (or tent). You then pare the peak away. Matt Estela describes this in one of his toolbox series videos. I think Derek Cohen of this parish might also have something on it.


Thanks, that makes sense. To be honest, it wasn't something that even occurred to me before I cut the lid off. I tend to cut at a slight angle so that the base is concave (so that the edges sit flush), but of course that looks awful if cutting the pin in half & your suggestion sounds better in that case.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby NickM » 08 May 2022, 21:58

Concave normally makes sense for the reason you give. It’s only the one you’re cutting through which needs to be perfectly flat.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Dr.Al » 07 Aug 2022, 16:10

Still practising... this one was my first attempt at a dovetail corner with one end mitred:

IMG_20220807_155000 - Copy.jpg
(32.83 KiB)


This was the first one in a while that has needed a bit of adjustment to get it to go together and I think I adjusted in the wrong place (I find it hard to tell where to shave some wood off), so it ended up with a small gap:

IMG_20220807_155017 - Copy.jpg
(28.67 KiB)


Nevertheless I'm quite pleased given it was my first attempt.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Malc2098 » 07 Aug 2022, 16:18

Well done.
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Woodbloke » 07 Aug 2022, 22:18

Good attempt; those things are 'ticky' to set out, but what's normally done is to leave a separate section for the mitre:

IMG_4908.jpeg
(205.53 KiB)


...wot you can see in this box where the joints have been trial fitted. This also means that it's relatively easy to incorporate a panelled lid of some sort - Rob
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Re: Drills & dovetails

Postby Blackswanwood » 08 Aug 2022, 08:47

Looking good Al.

A quick couple of questions if I may ...

Rob - presumably the first pin down is thicker to compensate for the saw kerf when you make the cut to separate the lid?

When you are using a solid panel for the lid (and base) do you glue it into the groove or is it left floating in case of movement?

I'd have put the tails showing on the front of the box (without thinking rather than as a considered design choice) and a quick Google of images seems to show most (but not all) boxes made that way - do you see pins to the front as more aesthetically pleasing? (For the avoidance of doubt I'm just curious and not looking to open a new version of the cutting tails or pins first debate :lol: )

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