In my daily (ok, not daily but nearly so) practice of hand cut dovetails, I came together with a finished practice joint that was very tight. I still had one small gap (I’ll talk about that in a bit) but the sides were very tight.
In the cutting of the sides of the tails and pins, I’ve been struggling with keeping the cuts parallel and plum. I’ve also struggled with how close to the marking line to cut. I think that I’m starting to understand the required technique. I feel like placing the blade so that one side touches the edge of the marking line (from the inside of the material to be removed) is the best place. Also, I’ve found that using a square to make sure the marked line for the sides is perpendicular to the bench top works best. I’ve done this several times now and have got increasingly tight sides where it’s not too tight (too tight splits out the dovetails). I’m very pleased.
Now as to the gap, this is from the chisel line. I’m still struggling with how to chisel out the wood to the marked line. I haven’t found a similar epiphany for this. I’ll keep at it and hope to find the thing that gets me the tight and great looking joint. I’m open to any suggestions from any readers.
