OK, I’ve been practicing…and practicing…and practicing…and…
Here are some of my test samples:
I’ve tried both tails first and pins first. Pins first is frustrating. I find that I make many more errors with pins probably due to assumptions and skipping steps. For instance, when I make tails first, I mark the waste before I cut. I forget this step a lot so after I cut pins and then mark out the tails, I cut on the wrong side of the mark lines. Very aggravating. I’ll stick with tails first.
The results are better but I think after the first few, progress slows down. I get fewer and smaller gaps now. They are mostly due to saw cuts needing to be straighter followed by straight chisel cuts. These test runs have been done on poplar. I will start test runs with oak soon.
[...] mentioned in the past that I am practicing hand cut dovetails (see Practice Update). Our family had a run with the flew so it’s taken a few weeks to get back into a normal [...]