Ok, so i'm trying to follow tage frid's instructions for cutting through
dovetails (for the umpteenth time). Not having great success. Some
questions:
1) He says to cut a slight "V" at the scribed line. What does this mean?
In the pictures he looks like he is making a straight cut across the scribed
line. Is the "V" what he means by undercutting as it shows in one picture
more like a ">" pointing to the opposite end of the board rather than a "V"
pointing to the flip side?
2) My first chiselling "into" or "torwards" the scribed line slices off
clean, but every piece I try to chisel out after that (below the first) ends
up not gettting cleanly cut off at the inside edge between the tails; it
turns into a jagged mess actually, looking more smashed and torn then cut.
(The chisels are scary sharp, btw.) What am I doing wrong in that the area
between the tails is so rough?
3) Is pine ok for practicing?
Cheers!
On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 01:36:20 -0500, Silvan
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Roy Smith wrote:
>
>> It's amazing how hard it feels when you get whacked on the head with a
>> 2x4, though :-)
>
>I guess because your head is blunt, and it contacts a large number of fibers
>simultaneously. Or something.
having a fair number of bald relatives, I keep waiting for the number
of fibers on the top of my head to decrease. hasn't happened yet,
though. if I shaved my head do you think the 2x4 would hurt less?
Bridger
A lot of Frnak Klausz and a little Tage Freid and a smidge
of Ian Kirby for you. The next page gets into the "V"
thing and the following page goes into rock and slice
paring method, with a semi-useful GIF animation of the
method on the next page
http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/DovetailDrawer9.html
Note than with the Klausz chopping method you take just
a little out of one side then chop down from the other
side in increments 'til you chop through. By taking just
a little off the first side the wood is supported well
when chopping through on the other side.
Glenn-Drakes Tite-Mark is a great marking gauge and then
some. Single bevel wheel cuts one face square to the
face of the board and one face sloping on the cut side.
The square face starts you out square rather than in
the middle of a V. Here's some info about it
http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/MTprimer10b.html
I'm still practicing on making through dovetails in
2 inch (8/4) stock for my bench apron. Mental block
continues.
charlie b
It sounds like you are trying to chisel through the wood. Take lighter cuts
with chisel.
I learned on pine. There's nothing wrong with pine.
If you can lay your hands on the Tage Frid video for making dovetails, most
of your questions will be answered. Taunton press sells it. It doesn't cost
much.
I learned to scribe the dovetails with a tri-square and a utility knife. It
defines the edges of the wood better. I learned to make dovetails at the
woodworking school, Homestead Heritage in Waco, Tx.
Tage is cutting s slight bevel in the wood on the waste side of the line.
The cut stops at the line. The resulting depression looks like this. _ _
l/
The bevel wall is vertical on the good side and angled on the waste side.
"Duke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Ok, so i'm trying to follow tage frid's instructions for cutting through
> dovetails (for the umpteenth time). Not having great success. Some
> questions:
>snip
>
> Cheers!
>
>
Just for discussion -
"Conan the Librarian" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Lowell Holmes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
>
> My first set in maple looked so cool that I immediately ran in from
> the shop to show SWMBO.
>
> For some reason, she wasn't all that impressed.
I think we all have experienced this. I sometimes think we are little boys
and when we accomplish something we have been trying to do - we feel
compelled to run and show it to someone important to us. That would be
parents when we are young and later SWMBO.
SWMBO actually gave me an un-soliciitated compliment on a pencil post bed I
made for one of my daughters and I was suprised at how good I felt about it.
I think I will try to be more attentive to her projects and make sure she
understands how proud I am of what she does. :-) Of course, we've been
doing this for 34 years now. And that is a gloat. <G>
> I use the same principle, but scribe the baselines with my little
> Veritas rolling wheel gage. It severs the wood at the baseline and
> you can actually feel the chisel lock in to the tiny groove it
> creates.
I have the same wheel gage, but for some reason, it is not a tool that I am
comfortable with. I fully respect the principles involved, but it doesn't
fit me, and that doesn't mean anything at all in the grand scheme of things.
One of the caveats of the tri-square and marking knife is that your wood
only has to be square length wise. The ends do not have to be square, but in
practice I make them square.
You can even accommodate a bit of irregularity on one edge with proper
marking techniques.
If you mark one intersection between a face and an edge as your chosen index
and place your square always on either that face or edge, a fine line can be
scribed around the piece, and that line will meet exactly at each edge-face
intersection.
If you have ever drawn a line around a 2X4, you know how difficult it can be
to make the last face-edge intersection meet exactly. Then if you are going
to cut on this line, you don't know which one to use.
Having said all this, if I were going to dovetail some wide boards together,
like in a chest, I would use your technique, making the ends exactly square
and then marking the line around it with a marking gage.
In passing, I have a depth gage made by General that is a small T shaped
device that has a small rule and head like on a t-square. It will measure
angles as well as depth. It's model number is *General 444*. I find this
tool to be very handy when checking the squarness of my tails after I cut
them The small scale will fit into the tails and show any irregularities
that exist. I think I bought this tool at an Ace hardware that has a display
of General tools. It is an inexpensive tool.
Roy Smith wrote:
> It's amazing how hard it feels when you get whacked on the head with a
> 2x4, though :-)
I guess because your head is blunt, and it contacts a large number of fibers
simultaneously. Or something.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
Duke, pine is fine for practicing cutting dovetails. Being soft it is
tougher to get a clean edge, but can be done. When you can cut
dovetails cleanly with pine, hardwoods become easier to do. Place the
chisel on the scribed line with the bevel towards the waste, push
chisel down, or lightly tap with a mallet.The cut should be 1/16" deep
or so. Then place chisel bevel up and tap lightly towards first cut.
This will give you a slight V that lifts out easily.
Now you have a clean cut to place your chisel vertically. Chop down
first, then use a narrower chisel to chop horozontal. Continue this
until you are about halfway to two thirds thru, turn over and repeat
until dovetail is chopped thru. When you are chopping vertically ,
hold chisel slightly out of plumb with the handle leaning towards
waste.
Duke I believe the main problem your having is chopping too deep on
first pass.
Try the method desribed above with the 1/16" deep first cut.
mike
"Lowell Holmes" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> It sounds like you are trying to chisel through the wood. Take lighter cuts
> with chisel.
>
> I learned on pine. There's nothing wrong with pine.
I learned on pine too, and I'd have to disagree here. :-) Once I
tried chopping dt's in harder wood, they started looking a lot nicer.
My first set in maple looked so cool that I immediately ran in from
the shop to show SWMBO.
For some reason, she wasn't all that impressed.
Personally, I'd recommend poplar as a good wood for a beginner.
> I learned to scribe the dovetails with a tri-square and a utility knife. It
> defines the edges of the wood better. I learned to make dovetails at the
> woodworking school, Homestead Heritage in Waco, Tx.
I use the same principle, but scribe the baselines with my little
Veritas rolling wheel gage. It severs the wood at the baseline and
you can actually feel the chisel lock in to the tiny groove it
creates.
> Tage is cutting s slight bevel in the wood on the waste side of the line.
> The cut stops at the line. The resulting depression looks like this. _ _
> l/
> The bevel wall is vertical on the good side and angled on the waste side.
Yep. That's the way I do it too. Once you have the scribe mark to
define the baseline, it's just a matter of creating that tiny
bevel/groove without having your chisel get pushed beyond the
baseline. I give it a tiny tap, reverse it and go at an angle towards
the baseline to lift a small chip. This gives you all the clearance
you need for the bevel.
From there it's just a matter of deepening your cut by going
vertically, reversing the chisel and removing a wedge of material. I
go a bit short of halfway through, flip the board and proceed from
that side. This way the waste is still supported until you finally
cut through. That helps avoid crushing the area below the baseline.
(I also undercut the joint slightly from both sides.)
It is actually not as complicated as it sounds, and you can get a
nice rhythm going when you're cutting a few sets.
Chuck Vance
"Lowell Holmes" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Conan the Librarian" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> [showing off dovetails to SWMBO]
>
> > For some reason, she wasn't all that impressed.
>
> I think we all have experienced this. I sometimes think we are little boys
> and when we accomplish something we have been trying to do - we feel
> compelled to run and show it to someone important to us. That would be
> parents when we are young and later SWMBO.
Yeah, we say that we woodwork for ourselves but I imagine most of
us would admit that we wouldn't get the satisfaction we do without
someone else seeing the end-product.
> SWMBO actually gave me an un-soliciitated compliment on a pencil post bed I
> made for one of my daughters and I was suprised at how good I felt about it.
> I think I will try to be more attentive to her projects and make sure she
> understands how proud I am of what she does. :-) Of course, we've been
> doing this for 34 years now. And that is a gloat. <G>
Congrats. SWMBO and I have a much shorter amount of time together,
so I can only hope we make that many years. The first time she asked
me if I had really made such-and-such, I reacted like you.
And I still sometimes step back from a project and just look at it
and think to myself, "You made that?" :-)
> I have the same wheel gage, but for some reason, it is not a tool that I am
> comfortable with. I fully respect the principles involved, but it doesn't
> fit me, and that doesn't mean anything at all in the grand scheme of things.
> One of the caveats of the tri-square and marking knife is that your wood
> only has to be square length wise. The ends do not have to be square, but in
> practice I make them square.
> You can even accommodate a bit of irregularity on one edge with proper
> marking techniques.
Yes, and marking from the ends is not so forgiving. DAMHIKT.
> If you mark one intersection between a face and an edge as your chosen index
> and place your square always on either that face or edge, a fine line can be
> scribed around the piece, and that line will meet exactly at each edge-face
> intersection.
This is good advice for any woodworking process, whether cutting a
board to length, laying out dt's, m&t's, etc.
> In passing, I have a depth gage made by General that is a small T shaped
> device that has a small rule and head like on a t-square. It will measure
> angles as well as depth. It's model number is *General 444*. I find this
> tool to be very handy when checking the squarness of my tails after I cut
> them The small scale will fit into the tails and show any irregularities
> that exist. I think I bought this tool at an Ace hardware that has a display
> of General tools. It is an inexpensive tool.
I'll have to check it out. I currently use my little Starrett
double-square for those sorts of operations. (Heck, I use my
double-square for almost everything. It's the one tool that's almost
always on my bench.)
Chuck Vance
Long answer short - Don't use pine to practice on. Use a hardwood and then
see if you're having a problem.
Place the chisel on the waste side of the scribed line (about 1/32" from it)
at a slight angle (handle away from waste side) and make a cut, now turn the
chisel 180 and at a slight angle (handle towards the waste side) make a V
notch. Now make a cut at the scribed line (on the waste side) leaving the
line and with the angle of the handle of the chisel towards the waste side
so you will start to make a very slight V cut from this side. The V,
(undercutting) when done needs only to be ~1/64" deep. Repeat on the other
side.
Making the V serves a dual purpose. One - to cut the grain cleaner (at an
angle) and second, to allow some room for glue.
Bob S.
"Duke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Ok, so i'm trying to follow tage frid's instructions for cutting through
> dovetails (for the umpteenth time). Not having great success. Some
> questions:
>
> 1) He says to cut a slight "V" at the scribed line. What does this mean?
> In the pictures he looks like he is making a straight cut across the
scribed
> line. Is the "V" what he means by undercutting as it shows in one picture
> more like a ">" pointing to the opposite end of the board rather than a
"V"
> pointing to the flip side?
>
> 2) My first chiselling "into" or "torwards" the scribed line slices off
> clean, but every piece I try to chisel out after that (below the first)
ends
> up not gettting cleanly cut off at the inside edge between the tails; it
> turns into a jagged mess actually, looking more smashed and torn then cut.
> (The chisels are scary sharp, btw.) What am I doing wrong in that the
area
> between the tails is so rough?
>
> 3) Is pine ok for practicing?
>
> Cheers!
>
>
"Duke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Ok, so i'm trying to follow tage frid's instructions for cutting through
> dovetails (for the umpteenth time). Not having great success. Some
> questions:
>
> 1) He says to cut a slight "V" at the scribed line. What does this mean?
> In the pictures he looks like he is making a straight cut across the
scribed
> line. Is the "V" what he means by undercutting as it shows in one picture
> more like a ">" pointing to the opposite end of the board rather than a
"V"
> pointing to the flip side?
>
> 2) My first chiselling "into" or "torwards" the scribed line slices off
> clean, but every piece I try to chisel out after that (below the first)
ends
> up not gettting cleanly cut off at the inside edge between the tails; it
> turns into a jagged mess actually, looking more smashed and torn then cut.
> (The chisels are scary sharp, btw.) What am I doing wrong in that the
area
> between the tails is so rough?
>
> 3) Is pine ok for practicing?
>
> Cheers!
>
>
I believe that poplar is a great wood for practicing hand cut dovetails.
Bob McBreen
On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 22:42:39 -0800, charlie b <[email protected]>
brought forth from the murky depths:
>I'm still practicing on making through dovetails in
>2 inch (8/4) stock for my bench apron. Mental block
>continues.
Yeah, every single process on a $100+ chunk of wood will
getcha punchin' buttonholes in yer skivvies every time.
------------------------------------------
Do the voices in my head bother you?
------------------------------------------
http://diversify.com Full-Service Web Development
Bridger wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 01:36:20 -0500, Silvan
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Roy Smith wrote:
>>
>>>It's amazing how hard it feels when you get whacked on the head with a
>>>2x4, though :-)
>>
>>I guess because your head is blunt, and it contacts a large number of fibers
>>simultaneously. Or something.
>
> having a fair number of bald relatives, I keep waiting for the number
> of fibers on the top of my head to decrease. hasn't happened yet,
> though. if I shaved my head do you think the 2x4 would hurt less?
No. Consider shaving the 2x4!
--
Morris Dovey
West Des Moines, Iowa USA
A far simpler way is to use a jewelers saw; slip it down in the saw kerf
turn and cut the pin or tail waste out close to the line. All that's left
is light paring. Not to mention it's very fast vs chisels the whole way. I
use a jewelers saw because the blade is very thin and very tight which
allow me to turn it even in the tightest saw kerf without marking the edge
of the pin or tail. Only time I find this does not work is when the wood
is over 1-1/2" thick then I move up to a very taught bow saw with the
finest blade I can get.
On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 14:55:44 -0600, Duke <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ok, so i'm trying to follow tage frid's instructions for cutting through
> dovetails (for the umpteenth time). Not having great success. Some
> questions:
>
> 1) He says to cut a slight "V" at the scribed line. What does this mean?
> In the pictures he looks like he is making a straight cut across the
> scribed
> line. Is the "V" what he means by undercutting as it shows in one
> picture
> more like a ">" pointing to the opposite end of the board rather than a
> "V"
> pointing to the flip side?
>
> 2) My first chiselling "into" or "torwards" the scribed line slices off
> clean, but every piece I try to chisel out after that (below the first)
> ends
> up not gettting cleanly cut off at the inside edge between the tails; it
> turns into a jagged mess actually, looking more smashed and torn then
> cut.
> (The chisels are scary sharp, btw.) What am I doing wrong in that the
> area
> between the tails is so rough?
>
> 3) Is pine ok for practicing?
>
> Cheers!
>
>
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
Duke wrote:
> (The chisels are scary sharp, btw.) What am I doing wrong in that the
> area between the tails is so rough?
>
> 3) Is pine ok for practicing?
I won't touch the rest of those because my own dovetails suck. For this
one, I can assure you that pine makes *wretched* practice wood for this
sort of thing. You end up with a ragged mess because the fibers are soft
and squishy, and they wad up instead of cutting cleanly. I suppose it's
because the fibers under the ones you're cutting are unable to provide much
support, so you have to smush a bunch of them together to get enough
resistance to make your Scary Sharp(tm) edge do its thing.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
In article <[email protected]>,
Silvan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Duke wrote:
>
> > (The chisels are scary sharp, btw.) What am I doing wrong in that the
> > area between the tails is so rough?
> >
> > 3) Is pine ok for practicing?
>
> I won't touch the rest of those because my own dovetails suck. For this
> one, I can assure you that pine makes *wretched* practice wood for this
> sort of thing. You end up with a ragged mess because the fibers are soft
> and squishy, and they wad up instead of cutting cleanly. I suppose it's
> because the fibers under the ones you're cutting are unable to provide much
> support, so you have to smush a bunch of them together to get enough
> resistance to make your Scary Sharp(tm) edge do its thing.
Yup, I second that.
My first attempts at cutting dovetails were in pine. I figured it would
be the simpliest to work with becuase it was so soft. I had exactly the
same results that Silvan did.
It's amazing how hard it feels when you get whacked on the head with a
2x4, though :-)
"RWM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Duke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Ok, so i'm trying to follow tage frid's instructions for cutting through
> > dovetails (for the umpteenth time). Not having great success. Some
> > questions:
> >
> > 3) Is pine ok for practicing?
> >
>
> I believe that poplar is a great wood for practicing hand cut dovetails.
>
> Bob McBreen
>
>
Basswood works well, too.