Gappy dovetail repair

Re: You are correct

Hank Knight

Bill is correct. My gappy dovetails are the joint between the top and sides of the slant top desk I'm building. They will show and be pretty obvious. I have always used a guide block for paring the pin sockets for half blinds. It has never failed me. This time the holdfast pulled the guide block a couple pf degrees off perpendicular, so the sides of the sockets were pared out of square. By the time I figured out what was wrong I had pared the pins unnecessarily and too much and the results are not attractive. I can fix it with small wedges when I glue the top on, but that won't be for a while yet. I need to leave the top unglued until I build and install the desk gallery, one of the final operations. Thanks for all the information about fixing gapped dovetails. It has been helpful. I was hoping for a magic bullet; but alas, there is none.

fool proof half blinds

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I make sloppy dovetails. I don't regard it important to get them perfect on a drawer nobody sees. Carefree as I am, it is hard not to make good ones when half blind. If the sawing goes well, and over the years it has gotten better, there isn't anything left that is fiddly.

I have always used a guide block for paring the pin sockets for half blinds. It has never failed me.

I don't understand for what the guide block was used. What part of the socket is being pared? I don't see any role for a guide block in half blinds, especially sockets.



I route out waste for half blind sockets. With good light I can carve with a 1/4" carbide bit to almost kiss the base line. Then it is a trivial task to set the chisel in the base line scribe and whack. If it undercuts, who cares? If it overcuts it will show up when the socket is checked with a square and can be pared. The router bit depth is set perfect for the tail length. There is nothing to screw up.

All that remains is chiseling out the waste the router left behind. It is had to fail to pare this waste to the saw kerf. Again, nothing to screw up unless the sawing was off.

Ditto

I recall a pro using this same method...

david weaver

...not that there aren't tons that do, just pointing out that it's well used and appreciated.

I can't remember the name of the pro (he was on SMC quite a lot a decade ago), but he showed rows of dovetails on a fancy desk that he was making and was bold enough to show the post-wasting pre-finished picture touting the router work and the speed.

I prefer (build furniture seldom, a couple of rows of hbdt is once a year, maybe - still the preferred way to make the top of a case so the sides can be covered with a moulding) to bang out the waste, but the router would be less picky about stock selection.