Dovetails according to Joyce (the furniture Joyce)

Re: One opinion

Andrew F in Australia

>No problems, Wiley. Thanks for the comments.

Essentially, you are cutting a shallow mortise in part. I find that you need a steep grind angle on a 1/8" or 1/16" chisel (the sixteenth chisel is called a skewer,) to avoid the edge chipping and breaking.

As well, if I didn't have a suitably small chisel handy, you could drill them out and then clean up with a standard 1/4" chisel.

CHeers,

Andrew

Re: Dovetails according to Joyce (the furniture Jo

paul womack

>As Don mentioned, if you are cutting tiny pins you probably have no choice other than using the saw to mark your pins.

Or a thin bladed knife, Kirby uses a small swiss army knife, or there's this:

http://woodcentral.com.ldh0138.uslec.net/cgi-bin/archives_handtools.pl?read=83244

Which is a simply a double ended, single side sharpened DT marking knife made from an old hacksaw blade.

BugBeae

Transferring rakes

Sgian Dubh

>Paul, here's another form of knife that works well to transfer marks from pins to tails, or visa-versa. It works very well in tight places too. I call it a 'bird's beak' knife. I made mine out of an old hacksaw blade and a bit of wood for the handle. The pointy end is quite fine with a low angle on the bevelled face either side. Slainte.

Re: Transferring rakes

paul womack

>I can certainly imagine it getting in tight places, but it doesn't seem quite as "optimal" for making the left/right mark dead close to the working faces (since it's double bevelled) and sharpening looks little tricky. The Wearing design ha a simple straight blade.

BugBear

Re: Transferring rakes

Sgian Dubh

>Paul, I suppose optimal would be to have a knife with a bevel on one face only,perhaps a two ended knife as in the link you provided. Still, this bird beak pattern has worked well for me for many years. Yes, a slight tilt is used to get the point into the corner and the cutting edge tight against the face of the tail or pin.

As to sharpening, I think it might have been sharpened two, three or four times since I made my knife some time in the 80's. Only the tip needs to be reasonably sharp, so it's not an onerous sharpening task. If the tip is too sharp the sliced line in the end grain is hard to see, so a very slight rounding of the tip works well. I suppose it produces an awl like scratch rather than a knife line.

In the end it's just another way of transferring a mark. As long as it works I guess that's all that matters. Slainte.

Re: Transferring rakes *LINK*

Andrew F in Australia

>HI Paul,

I know when I saw this drawing I raised the same issue. RJ's response was that the included angle is quite acute and allows accurate marking. The proof of the pudding, etc...

I'll see if I can dig up the original post and link below.

(link won't work for all - Taunton's knots forums - here's the quote below.)

"" The drawing doesn't show the pointy end as well as it might. There is a low angle bevel on both sides of the blade, so a slight lean either way as the knife is in use does the trick for me. Slainte.""

Cheers,

Andrew


http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=28095.29

An alternative, but along the same lines

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Stephen

This thread comes up every now-and-then. A while back it inspired me to create a "marking knife for skinny dovetails" (the thread is in the archives). I built this out of a steel trowel. It works (worked - I prefer the old fashioned method - later) very well. Basically, it is a blade the same thickness as the saw so that it fits in the kerf. First saw the outline of the tails, then hammer the knife through the kerf.

Here is an illustration:

Here is the construction of the knife:

It is blunt at the front bevel but has knife edges on the side bevels so that it could also be used as a marking knife.

While this works I prefer to use a marking knife (the knife above is now only used for half blind dovetails, ala Tage Frid). The knife I use has a very thin blade, as thin as the saw blade. This enables it to get inside a kerf. The picture below is of the type I make, but the same style is made and sold by Blue Spruce (Dave Jeske) and Chester Tools (Dave Anderson).

Some argue that a thicker line (made with a blunt edge) is easier to see and, thus to cut. I have found that a thin line, marked tight against the tail, while it may require a little chalk rubbed into it for visibilty, increases accuracy, especially if you saw as close to the line as possible and pare the final shaving using the kerf of the knifed line.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Transferring rakes *LINK*

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>Richard's knife, in use, enters the wood at an obtuse ( > 90 degrees) angle. This virtually eliminates any tendency to follow the grain. Stanley makes a version for their utility knives.

Ed


Stanley scoring knife blade

Re: Transferring rakes

Stephen Wiseman

>Here's one made by Glen Drake to add confusion (for me anyway) as it says to "capture saw".

Cheers,

Stephen

"Kerf-Starter(tm)

The Kerf-Starter looks like a knife but works like a scraper. It removes a shaving, leaving a kerf that captures your saw. Use it for laying out dovetails and other joinery."

Re: Transferring rakes

Andrew F in Australia

>HI Richard,

Looking at the time stamps, we must have been typing at the same time.

Apologies for stealing your thinder.

May 2007 exceed your expectations,

Andrew

Re: Transferring rakes

Sgian Dubh

>Andrew, you can steal my "thinder" anytime, ha, ha. Slainte.

Bugger! Missed it by "that" much.

Andrew F in Australia

>