Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Handcut Dovetails
Ken Rozema - Whitby Ontario
>Hi All,
I've been busy practising my handcut dovetails as of late and am beginning to build some confidence even though they still look a little rough. My question is; how do you space the dovetails evenly? Is there a formula or a trick of some sort to easily lay them out evenly? I seem to remember someone using a compass but for the life of me I can't seem to wrap my head around it.
Any help is appreciated.
KenR
Re: Handcut Dovetails
Rusty Miller-Tye, Tx
>Ken,
The first Rob Cosman video on dovetails show how he lays them out. It works very well. Kinda hard to explain in words, but very easy to pick up when watching it done.
Rusty
Re: Handcut Dovetails
John Pappas
>Ken, I posted an article in the WC Articles and Reviews, (Hand Tools and Techniques section) about a fast easy way to lay out dovetails. In the article I use a protractor ruler to divide the space into the number of pin/tail sets, but you could use the article as a basis, and use a metric ruler instead with the same results.
John
Re: Handcut Dovetails
David Hay @ Denver
>Here's one way to do it. Decide how many pins you'd like, counting both half pins as one pin. Let's say it's five pins (4 full pins and 2 half pins). Lay your ruler/tape measure such that the zero mark is on one edge, and a multiple of 5 is on the other edge. The ruler will be at a diagonal at this point. Now just mark out the interior pin locations. If your board is narrow enough for you to use 5 in, then you'd mark at each inch. If your board is wider, you might have to use 10 inches, at which point you'd mark at 2, 4, 6, and 8. These marks are now the centerpoints of the pins.
It's actually a lot simpler to do than it is to describe.
Hope that helps!
David
Re: Handcut Dovetails
L. Hanson
>Here's a graphic of the method David's referring to - I use that method most of the time myself. Say you have a drawer that's 4-9/16" tall, and you want 5 pins in it - rotate the ruler so you can use numbers that are easier to divide. In this case, 6 - which will put the pins at 1-1/2", 3", 4-1/2", and 6":
HTH
Leif
NorseWoodsmith.com
Nice Job. Thanks Lief.
Victor Parisian
>
Re: Handcut Dovetails
paul womack
>I suspect you're thinking of Rob Cosman's "divider trick", but it only works when the pins are more-or-less 0 width, which is what he makes in his demos. These are, whilst pretty, rather weak structurally
In general, simple arithmetic is the answer, and possibly a template if you're doing repition work (e.g. drawers). I recommend the metric system for this, but some people might differ on that point ;-)
BugBear (who hates dividing 9 3/8 by 7 when working out dovetails)
Thanks
Ken Rozema - Whitby Ontario
>Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give them all a try!
KenR
Re: Handcut Dovetails
Rob Cosman
>Actually Paul, the method I use as taught by Alan Peters allows for infinate pin size. You saw the skinny version. As for strength, I usually set the finished corner on a slippery surface and stand on it to show how deceptivly strong it is.
Rob
Re: Handcut Dovetails
paul womack
>Actually Paul, the method I use as taught by Alan Peters allows for infinate pin size. You saw the skinny version.
I do apologise.
I assumed what I saw was "the whole deal".
BugBear
Re: Handcut Dovetails
Rob Cosman
>.....none of what you hear and only half of what you see! :)
Re: Handcut Dovetails
Todd Stock
>I thought I had the same issue, until I tried to get a 'bad' layout. As long as the inside pins are less than or equal to the width of the outside pins, the layout can be done right on the board.
Worth the cost of the DVD. Almost 30 years of this stuff and still learning something useful every now and again.