Some thoughts on dovetails - part I

For the last several weekends, I have been working on our kitchen drawers. I have just crossed a major milestone - there are more drawers completed than remain (only by 1... but it still feels great!). So I have had “dovetails” floating around in my head quite a bit lately.

There was in interesting thread about dovetails in one of the forums a week or so ago. The thread was titled “Skinny pins in hand cut dovetails”. After reading most of the thread - I started thinking on my own dovetail evolution - and the whys and how's of it. I have also had a bit of an epiphany moment sparked by that thread, and it has to do with the relationship between process and efficiency. I am fully aware that I may to step on a few toes with this one - and I am fine with that.

My goal with woodworking and planemaking is to become extremely efficient while continuing to improve my accuracy... and in that order. I make my living in the woodworking field - I have to be efficient. So everything I do is motivated by using the fastest method even if it means a slow initial learning curve - complete with bumps and errors. Sharpening is a perfect example. I made a very conscious decision to learn to freehand sharpen because once you know how - it IS the fastest way to sharpen. Sure, it made for a lot of frustrating sharpening sessions and the dizzying parade of sharpening jigs were quite tempting - but I can honestly say I am glad I stuck to my guns and learned to do it freehand. I am now fast at it, and don't hesitate to stop work to restore an edge. I will write more on freehand sharpening in another post.

Back to dovetails & efficiency. I believe that the dovetail joint is a functional mechanical joint that can be extremely beautiful if well executed. There are a lot of times when dovetails are used and they are not seen - and in these instances how it looks is less important (though they still need to be tight fitting and designed for mechanical strength). The drawer is usually to blame for all the discussion about dovetails - skinny pins vs fat pins, machine cut vs hand cut, spacing, angles, pin lengths etc. This is because these dovetails can be seen, and rightly or wrongly, have come to symbolize the quality of the piece they live in.

I decided that I would hand cut my dovetails for several reasons (in no particular order). I like the somewhat random and irregular look of handcut dovetails - they tell me that a person spent time making this - and I like that. I like skinny pins - especially in contrasting woods - they make everything look lighter and more delicate. I like irregular spacing. I tend to put narrower tails on the outside edges and gradually increase them as they get closer to the center. It means I don't need to do as much math and is really quite fast to lay out. Here is an example;


The tails on the top and bottom are 3/4", 1/16" pin, 1" tail, 1/16" pin, 1-1/4" pin. It makes for a somewhat rounding effect.

Once I made the decision to hand cut my dovetails it meant I needed to be as fast and efficient as I could be. To me, this means the goal is to be able to fit the dovetails off the saw - no paring. My friend Karen was over a few weeks ago and we were talking about this as we stood in a sea of kitchen drawer parts. I commented that I was going to cut to the line and not intentionally cut inside and then pare to the line. If I overcut and there was a gap - so be it. I would not scrap the drawer but live with it. I explained that I felt this was part of my learning process and working towards maximum efficiency. She gave me an affirming nod and agreed. As we continued to talk we realized that there are many woodworking schools out there that teach to cut well inside the line and to pare to get the right fit. Looking at that now - it seems a little off - it is teaching a process where the outcome is consistently a 10 hour dovetailed drawer! It may be beautiful and perfect - but the process strikes me as questionable - not to mention it is unrealistic to expect a client to pay for a drawer that took 10 hours to make. I would much rather endure the pain, suffering, and disappointment of a few gaps here and there knowing that I am slowly, over time, getting closer to dovetails that fit right off the saw (I am aware that I am building drawers for my own use and not for a client - so I do have the luxury of “learning” through my work). So with that in mind - here are a few examples of dovetails I have produced spanning my entire woodworking life.




This was the first furniture project I made with a drawer. The front is cherry and the sides are pine. Drat... it is a bit out of focus:)



These are the drawers on my left handed, shaker inspired bench. There are 10 drawers in all. The sides are 5/8" basswood and the fronts are 3/4" mildly curly soft maple. They are still a little clunky - but the spacing was starting to feel right on these.




This is a drawer in a table I built for my sister and her husband as a wedding gift. Skinny pins have arrived and are here to stay! 1/2" maple sides, 3/4" walnut front. Note the African Blackwood pull... I shaped them by hand... no lathe:(

Which brings us to the most recent dovetail project - the kitchen drawers. I have just finished 5 more kitchen drawers - here is a shot of the stack.



There was a magical moment that happened while building these 5 drawers - I did actually cut a set of dovetails that fit right off the saw. It is pictured below.



There are a few wee gaps - but after they were glued and planed flush, they were gone. And after this set - there was another set of 1/2 blinds and two sets of through dovetails that fit off the saw. This was most encouraging and confirmed to me that this longer road was the right road to take.

And hey... I have 7 more drawers to practice on!

Another (fun) deviation

I was in Toronto on Tuesday - visiting with some good friends - Anson and Joanne. I was also delivering this little Blackwood infilled XSNo.4. This plane has a few unique features worth noting.

The sole of this plane may look pretty typical - but the material is quite unique - it is pure iron. There is a very skilled blacksmith in town here - and during one of my visits, I asked him if there was a material that would be “rust proof”. He said he had some pure iron from France that might be suitable. So he gave me a piece to try.

This plane is going to spend a good part of its life restoring a boat on the east coast - so rust was a primary concern. I used brass pins to hold the infill in - to eliminate another potential rust area. I used a steel pin to hold the lever cap - I was concerned that a 3/16"D brass pin would not hold up over time.

The pure iron sole was a real treat to work with - much softer than the 01 I usually use. It felt more like bronze than steel. It piened beautifully! I suspect this won’t be the last pure iron sole I use.

My own R2 unit

Lucas has turned into a bit of a Star Wars nut - almost as bad as me really. We have this funny little game we have been playing for at least a year now - Lucas recites a line from any of the movies (except episode 3 - we heavily censor that one!) and I have to guess who said it. When we started - it was your basic stuff;

“I'd rather kiss a wookie”

“Laugh it up fuzzball” and,

“Blep-bloop-bloop bleep” (in the voice of Lucas - his best R2 impression).

But with each rerun, he is getting more sophisticated in his lines - he has actually stumped me! The other day he observed that R2 is one of the few characters that is in every movie and that R2 is always saving everyone. It was a good observation - and I decided to rename a recent purchase “R2”.

I recently purchased a moisture meter which is capable of accurate readings in exotic woods. I know what all of you are thinking... how has a planemaker gone on this long without one? I will get to that - and the meter really just confirmed what I already knew (I will admit, there was a slight sigh of relief though). I have wanted a good moisture meter for a very long time now - but I could never find one that had all the right stuff. Here are some of the issues. Firstly - I could not use a pin style meter - try getting those pins 1/2" into African Blackwood... heck... try getting them out then! So I needed a pinless meter - but most of them are pre-calibrated for domestic woods and will not work with Exotics. The problem is the specific gravity of most exotic woods is so much higher than even our hardest domestic hardwood that the readings will not be accurate. Enter the CT808 pinless meter from Electrophysics!

This meter allows the user to compensate for specific gravity - from 0.2 up to 1.5. This changed everything! Take cherry for example; the specific gravity of black cherry is .50 roughly half the density of water (which is 1.0 - and the reason it floats). I set the gravity setting on the meter to .50 and took a reading in a cherry board - 7% moisture. I then took the meter to a piece of African Blackwood - 15%. The trouble is - when I adjust the specific gravity to 1.2 (the correct gravity for Blackwood) - I get 7% moisture. The ability to adjust the relative gravity was the key I needed.




So I ran around the shop checking everything. The first piece I checked was an old piece of Rosewood. Specific gravity of 0.8... moisture content... 6%? That can't be right. Changed the gravity to 1.0 to check my recent Ebony purchase - 8%... Blackwood - 1.2... moisture content 7%... ok... is this meter even working? So I adjusted the gravity back to .50 to test a piece of cherry I know is wet... phew... 18%.

All is right with the world - my wood really is that dry.

Thanks R2.

Blep-bloop-bloop bleep

Desert ironwood No.4

This is the first time I have ever had the pleasure of working with Desert ironwood - and I have to say - it was really, really cool stuff to work with! This was also one of the rare occasions where I used supplied wood from the customer. Which brings up an aspect of planemaking that is by far the most challenging... finding appropriately dry wood. This wood prompted the purchase of a moisture meter specifically designed for exotic woods. I will be writing about the meter in another entry - but the quick answer is this ironwood had a moisture content of 7%.




The wood itself is extremely dense - with a specific gravity of 1.20. To put that into perspective, pure water is 1.0 - so this stuff will sink. Here is a site that has technical information for most of the domestic and tropical woods.




Working with Desert ironwood reminded me of working with African Blackwood and Honduran Rosewood. It planes well - but will wear an edge quickly, works beautifully with rasps & files and can be sanded and polished to a stunning finish. A little stinky to work with though.



This plane has bronze sides, a 2" wide, high carbon steel iron and a bed angle of 52.5 degrees.

A Yataiki saw arrives.

For years now - I have owned, used and struggled with various Japanese saws. Specifically Dozuki's. Struggled because I could not quite get the hang of using them. I always thought it was because I had spent too much time using western style saws and could not change my habits. So my few Dozuki's hung on the wall. I looked over at them from time to time - and even tried them every now and again - with similar disappointing results.

I was lamenting this situation to a good friend a while ago and he offered to send me one of his saws to try out. The saw arrived on January 7. Now this is not just any saw - it was made by Yataiki. I was pretty overwhelmed when it arrived - partly because of my track record with Japanese saws - but mainly because of who had made it (and has since retired from sawmaking).


There were quite a few details of the saw that really caught my attention. The first was how fine the teeth were - about 19 ppi. And the set... or should I say lack of set - there is virtually none to speak of. The blade is extremely thin - and absolutely perfectly strait.



There is a texture to the blade that is quite remarkable. The blade is tensioned by tens of thousands of little hammer strikes and then burnished. Yup - this was not an average saw.

The saw stayed in my shop for many days as I contemplated using it. Normally I don't wait to long to try out a new tool, but this one was different. I emailed my friend to let him know it had arrived safe and sound, but also to get any advise on using the saw. There were many emails sent back and forth all of which were helpful and set the stage for the first use. There were a few key pieces of advise - a relaxed grip, don't try to muscle the saw and let the saw do the work. A "relaxed grip" was described like holding a hammer. If you hold a hammer too rigidly, the striking (vibration) will hurt your arm. The grip should be relaxed enough to still control the hammer, but loose enough to keep the vibration from your wrist and arm. That was a brilliant piece of advise!

I practiced using the saw in my head - trying to anticipate how it would work. I had a few "free" hours on Jan 16th and decided to work on a few kitchen drawers. I took a deep breath - and finally tried the saw. I was not prepared for the results - it was perfect. I mean truly perfect! The start of the cut was smooth and clean and the saw tracked flawlessly leaving a clean and very thin kerf. And it cut fast. I was using the saw to cut the tails on the 1/2" hard maple drawer sides.

As I was using the saw, I noticed I was feeling for the straightest pull stroke - making sure I was not introducing a twist or lateral forces on the blade. The lack of set makes this really really easy to do. I cut a few kerfs and they all turned out perfectly. There was one kerf that did not follow the line perfectly, but instead of trying to correct for it - I let the saw cut along the started path. The words of my friend not to muscle the saw were ringing through my head at this point. In the end, that kerf was only off by a degree or two - all part of the story of hand cut dovetails.



I decided to stack four, 1/2" thick drawer sides together and try a cut or two. Pictured above is that first kerf... just as perfect as all the others.



And another shot of another 4 drawer sides.



Here is a shot of the 4-up drawer sides in my Tucker vice. A really nice feature of this vice and set up is that I can rotate the vice so I am sawing perpendicular to the floor.

Now for the really sad news. As I mentioned earlier, Yataiki is now retired - he is no longer making saws. As far as I know - he did not have an apprentice. If you ever have an opportunity to try one of his saws - or a handmade saw from another maker - you owe it to yourself to try it. I feel incredibly blessed to have been given this opportunity to use one of his saws.