>If we are comparing deviders to laying a ruler at a diagonal and carrying each point forward, I'm not sure there is a speed differnece of any significance.
Not if you have the dividers already set up and you do a standard size drawer and dovetail every time. But if you're laying out a new size dovetail or a new size stock, it's nibble and adjust time just to get the spacing set.
As to ...attributing stuff to people just because they did a video. Kingshott's ruler trick!! Come on..., you are correct of course. I don't know that this was or was not Kingshott's invention, most likely not given eons of woodworking preceding him.
>Sure, Paul, this involves, as Thom says, laying a ruler on a diagonal to mark the center points of the dovetails. So if your board width isn't the same as a ruler's length (say 6" or 150 mm) and/or isn't evenly divisible by the number of dovetails you want, slant the ruler until it fits within the board width, mark the center points, carry them up to the edge with a square or by eye.
I first saw this on Kingshott's dovetailing video.
I know I'm a comparative newcomer in here, and there are a lot of great people in here who know a whole lot more than I do. Part of what I'm going to say comes from my own, more limited experiences. Part of it comes from working at a woodworking tool store, and seeing some very over-thought gizmos that were invented to make some relatively simple tasks "easier," for people who really don't know what they're doing. I've seen you in here a lot, so I have a feeling that you know what you're doing, but that's not the point.
Don't over-think things. You're referencing several different sources, and I can't help but wonder if you'd be better served just doing the 14 drawers and seeing what you can teach yourself as you go. I learned a few things cutting single entry/triangular pin dovetails last summer that was a sort-of "eureka" moment for me, and now they're all I use for my drawer fronts, because I found them to be easier than "normal" (trapezoidal) pins. But that was something that came to me. I didn't learn it from someone else. Practice, and pay attention. The wood and your tools will speak to you if you listen. Just don't listen so closely that you can't see what's going on.
It's nice to have new insights once in a while, and occasionally I come across good information. Like a Fine woodworking article a year and more ago that mentioned using a shim in the drawer bottom groove to align the parts when you're transferring lines before cutting the mating board. That, to me, has been pretty useful. I like the idea of using a scraper or a putty knife to square corners, but frankly I think they chop out easily enough anyway without having to switch tools.
But still. I came across this bit of wisdom years ago. If you're building a house by the side of a road, and you heed every bit of advice from every stranger walking by, the house will never be built. Many people have their own methods and techniques that have evolved in their own shop over a period of time. And not all of them are really complimentary. But at the end of the day (and woodworking novices would gawk at this statement) it's just a dovetail joint. You cut tails, or pins, out of one board, and you fit the other board to that one.
Maybe I sound like a cocky little jerk. I hope not, but I concede it's happened before.
I have a book in my house, titled "The Little Zen Companion." On the back is this quote:
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought." -Basho
Maybe this will all sound condescending and obnoxious. I don't know. But...
Don't spend your hours with a saw in one hand, a chisel in the other, and the voices of 18 different woodworkers in your head; let alone countless posts from enthusiastic and helpful woodoworkers. Take some time with a chisel in one hand, a saw in the other, and a clear mind. Do what you know how to do, without worrying about how someone else thinks it should be done. And put the clock in the next room. After a while, something will occuer to you. Use it when you build the next drawer. And the next. Individual drawers do take a lot of time. And ganging them together will save you some of that time in various ways. Still, do it without the clock involved.
If you really want to see how you're doing, time your first drawer, and your last. I think you'll find that after doing 13 drawers, you're bound to get faster, but I could be wrong.
I find I can usually home in on the divider setting in about three attempts, having made a rough/accurate sketch of the joint first
The method is undoubtedly old as Alan Peters learned it in Edward Barnsley's workshop when he was a lad.
No maths, no division. I find it much quicker than the Kingshott method, specially if you make the aid shown in Ernest Joyce's book, which marks the slope and the square line in one hit.
>I agree with David and prefer the dividers method. I get evenly spaced dovetails and know the size of the pins usually within two or three test runs with the dividers.
>Well if one has to layout four corner, 8 ends, one is only going for the initial mark 12.5% of the time. And while the location of that mark may be pretty instantly derived from the diagonal ruler, one has to square forward all the lines. If one does the dividers properly I doubt one is saving any more than a few seconds, and the accuracy is better. For me, if I'm in a big rush I just saw by eye as shown by Klaus, that's fast. If I want extreme accuracy I will use a layout method that is truly accurate, and doesn't litter lines all over the workpieces.
On the rant stuff, I know you know. It's just getting sloppy out there. If there isn't some corporation that claims a patent (etc...) on a traditional process, it's associated with someone because they did a video. I haven't seen the Kingshott video so it isn't really helping me much with the communication side of the issue. So one ends up with some people who know what is being discusses, and are practicing sloppy attribution, while the rest of us are still confused. Not sure this is a great leap forward, but if everyone is happy.
>If you are doing a bunch of drawers of the same size the use of templates to lay out the joints woud save a lot of time as would cutting more than one tail board at a time.
>Two or three passes? Versus slapping down a ruler and drawing a few tick marks? I don't doubt that you've found ways to make this fast as long and as well as you've been woodworking; but I look at that process and it bored me just watching it done on dvd. I'm very comfortable with simply sawing without any tail markings at all, things always work out great; so to me, using the dividers is fiddling around with no ultimate joy.
>I took down about 20 fluorescent lights to drywall my place, and I never got them back up. Light is really important, and mine still needs more work.
On the other hand, I feel this is mostly straight shot work not tracing a line. As long as I am set up properly, the saw is cutting, and I have an aiming point the cut should make itself. I'm not tracing along the marks as I might trace a map though tracing paper.
A good exercise is to do some sawing with one's eye's closed, once the cut has been started. One feels any tight points in the body.
>Sawing with no marks is a different issue, as is just suiting oneself.
I think the ruler method is fine where the number of devisions is close to the actual scale but where the ruler needs to be layed out at an angle, the tick marks get scatered the length of the board, or at least too far from the end to avoid having to carry them forward. This requires several re-markings, and is neither fast nor accurate. Probably close enough on both counts, generally, but we are racing here.
The same measures would come up over and over again, for a working cabinetmaker, and if he wanted to use deviders, he could have a little block with the punch marks for various drawers, pick these up with the devider, and be on the mark first or second go.
I use the ruler trick on scrap to allow me to scale spacings up and down, particularly if I use uneven spacings. One can do that for more than just DTs, so it's certainly a valued trick. An example being one of those devices that self-sets for laying out octagons on spars and such.
>I prefer the dividers method as well. I have also (as someone else mentioned) used a block to keep settings if I needed to repeat them for drawers of the same width (not terribly common on my work as I prefer graduated drawers).
>I have gone as far as to do two or three dovetail sets of practice dovetails to visual the spacings and overall size before getting to work on the true carcass.
For me Carcass dovetails take allot longer especially with mitered corners which I can sometimes "flub"
I like the idea of templates providing you will be doing common size drawers
>I am in the same area as Angus but the wood you use makes a differance also I like to use Popular for the sides and back as it cuts like butter and pares easily.
>What you all are talking about isn't accuracy, its esthetics. Who says its even preferable to have all the dovetails the same size, Cosman? David Charlesworth? William Duffield (Wake up Sir William)
I say its better to have every dovetail different. I say its better to have the dovetails spaced unevenly like my own crooked teeth. I say is better to have a different number of dovetails on one side than the other. Who's to say my work isn't accurate as a result? The fit may be precise or accurate. The layout is esthetic and nothing more.
(dramatically with some bizzarre english accent) Mark my words! Beware arbitrary requirements! Take heed! (derranged laughing- fade to black)
I like my dovetails a certain way. As I mentioned in another post I will go as far as test runs on dovetail spacing just to make sure I like the dovetail spacing when I dovetail a carcass.
My choice and I am happy with it. I wouldn't be happy with unevenly spaced dovetails or differing dovetails on the left side when compared to the right.
>First, you need to get them to fit together snugly, for strength. Second, for strength, the pins and tails need to be about the same size. But, a dovetail joint, with the exception of London pattern dovetails, is more than strong enough for most practical applications, disregarding abuse. Also, for strengh, the angle needs to be chosen to match the strengths and weaknesses of the type of wood. If you make them consistently the same size and shape, it's easier to get them to fit together consistently. Esthetically, I think London pattern (single entry) dovetails are really ugly, because they are wimpy, and they fail, especially when the secondary wood is deal. Esthetically, I think perfectly uniform dovetails, with equally spaced pins and tails, are even uglier, because they look like they were made by Porter-Cable. To make sure no one mistakes mine for Nahm's, I usually try to cut the pins for drawers, or other show joints, just a bit narrower than what you could do with a router bit (due to shank strength considerations), because I think these are usually strong enough for the job, if the rest of the piece's construction is sound. For carcases, I make the pins wider, because I think they need more strength than most drawers.
When I'm making drawers with half blind dovetails in the front, drawer bottom rabbets in the front and side, and a drawer back without a rabbet (so the drawer bottom is removeable and repairable, the front dovetails can't match the rear dovetails anyhow, because the drawer front has half pins top and bottom, but the drawer back has a half pin at the top and the back of the drawer side has a half tail at the bottom. The front tails are narrower than the pins up front. with the bottom tail just wide enough to fully cover the drawer bottom rabbet in the drawer front. The rear tails are wider than the pins, so the half tail at the bottom looks balanced.
Consistent measurements between the left and right side of any given drawer are immaterial, since once the drawer is assembled, you can't see them both at the same time anyhow.
Form follows function. It can't be esthetically pleasing to the trained eye if it isn't structurally sound and efficient to construct and maintain.
>Well, it isn't *that* slow, and it is amortized over all the corners that are the same size (typically a minimum of 4, though occasionally 2 ... :)). I'd be guessing it is faster over 4 corners, maybe 8. But of course, this is all really nitpicking; it is such an insignificant amount of time over the actual cutting/fitting that it is irrelevant.
I have a hand-tools-only shop and after going through the effort to get my boards dimensioned and planed to use for a drawer, I am very willing to spend a little extra effort to make sure the dovetails come out right. The extra time required in insignificant in comparison.
>I would have though London Style dovetails would not be strong and more for show but at a woodshow a coupla years back Rob Cosman had my buddy who weighs close to 280 - 300 pounds (sorry if your reading this "buddy") and he couldn't break them.
And I do agree I don't like evenly spaced dovetails as they do appear to be machine made
>Pam you haven't yet mentioned the time of carrying the diagonal ticks forward. That's another tool and several remarkings. If the answer is that you just eyeball it, or don't care about fine accuraccy, that's fine, but then we aren't talking about the same issue. I can eyeball inaccurate layout that generally would go unoticed, as doubtless you can too, so why bother.
Also someone using the deviders, could just step off from both sides and cut between the ticks. Or eyeball undersized by a fraction simply use the setting to create dead accurate tensioned dovetails.
Technique also plays a part with how one breaks down the steps, Evens can be broken into halves and quarters which is more accurate and faster. Odds, when one gets to the end of the step off, it's important not to move the devider and visualize the remainder broken down by the devisor, then set that mark. That seems a lot faster than just making random adjustments.
So far I just don't accept the deviders are anywhere near slower if used for the purpose of accurate layout.
>He probably couldn't have broken new finger joints either. Destruction test are only meaningful to the extent that they mimic the actual failure mode. I haven't seen too many failed drawers, but the ones I have seen tended to have the backs knocked off from thousands of contacts with the contents on opening. It's funny that the back is often the part that gets the slipshod work. I've seen finger joints fail just from seasonal cycling.
Accurate smackurate is an OK approach, though it's probably slower than accurate layout. I once went on a climbing trip to new paltz, and packed only canned spaghetti. I haven't been able to look at the stuff since. Likewise I seem to have passed my pleasure level for repetitive work. Still, what I remember from when I used to tie trout and salmon flies for pocket money, is that the neatest flies were the fastest to tie, assuming they were any good at all. The straightest line between two points is a neat wrap of thread.
"because they look like they were made by Porter-Cable". That's just a hang-up. If the PC layout was the best, not doing it because a router can is allowing the router to dictate results just as much as if it were used directly.