Hand cut half blind dovetails first attempt.
Virgil Johnson
I'm posting this to inspire a friend who is going to cut his first half blind hand dovetails. Here is a pic of my first attempt at half blind dovetails on a table drawer I built in 1985 when my tool collection consisted of: A knock off of a Black & Decker Workmate bench , 1 low quality dull hand plane , a decent 3 x 21 belt sander, a set of cheap chisels from Sears and 50$ pile of cherry from my friends saw mill.
On this project I marked the sockets on the drawer front carefully with a felt tip pin. I did not have any type of hand saw so I borrowed the router from work and attempted to rough out the sockets. The cutting force of the router was more than I expected and took out all of my careful lay out resulting in one mass socket. I cleaned up the corners and made the side to match. Nice huh?
Go forward 15 yrs and after getting better tools, reading and practicing they got a bit better.
Have fun Jack!