The thing I want to emphasise about cutting dovetails is that it's not very difficult. With a lot of care, a little bit of knowledge and a great deal of time, almost anybody can do it. The skill and craftsmanship comes in doing it quickly and efficiently. Before we go on to the actual cutting of dovetails, it might help to talk about the tools used to produce a good set of dovetails. These would be a dovetail saw, a couple of marking knives, chisels, coping saw, marking gauge, dovetail template and maybe a pair of dividers. I'm always wary when I discuss tools in these articles, because some tools work pretty well straight out of the makers box, a coping saw, dovetail template and dividers mentioned here are examples of that group. There are many other tools, such as chisels, marking gauges and dovetail saw which need a considerable amount of attention before they will do top quality work. Tool manufacturers don't like being reminded that some of their products don't work properly, but it is a fact of life that we all have to live with. For the sake of those poor devils who expect a tool to work straight from the box, we should all address the problem and do something about it. In a previous article I have talked about sharpening. Before you go any further, make sure your chisels are sharp, make sure the backs are polished and the edge of the chisel is honed to a clean edge. Without sharp chisels you might as well not bother going any further. Your marking gauge should be equally well set up. it should scribe a clean line. With some timbers it's necessary to use the cutting gauge, but there should be very little difference between the action of a marking gauge and a cutting gauge, both should cut the fibres of the wood.

2. At the very heart of this technique, is a dovetail saw. This is not a flashy Japanese thing, but a good old fashioned European Dovetail saw. It's one of the most delicate and sensitive saws used by the cabinetmaker. The art of cutting good dovetails is to cut them from the saw, and this is the saw you use. The person who can learn how to use a dovetail saw with confidence and competence, has the capacity to do a wide range of delicate and skilful joinery, far beyond that of dovetailing. Buy a saw that fits you hand; it should have a very comfortable handle, the blade should be thin and delicate, and the back should be heavy, probably made from brass. Keep this saw sharp. It is possible to sharpen a dovetail saw in house, by filing at right angles across the blade, but when the teeth get out of line, it should be sent to a good saw doctor for straightening and setting. When a dovetail saw is new, it invariably has a nasty gungy coating of lacquer all over the blade. This is to keep the saw from rusting in the tool shop. Take this off, you may need to use paint stripper or a sharp edge to scrape the lacquer away, but get all traces of this gunge off the blade of the saw. If you saw rusts, your workshop is too wet, and you should instal some heating. The blades of a dovetail saw come in two sizes, one is an 8" blade and one a 10". Both blades would have very finely cut teeth, probably 20 teeth in every inch of length, hence the notation 20 tpi. I have noticed that many of my craftsmen have two dovetail saws, one an 8" set to cut a very fine kerf, for smaller carcases, and one 10" saw with more set on the teeth for use with larger jobs. This saw, to a great extent replaces the full blooded tenon saw, and could more accurately be called a "half tenon" rather than a dovetail saw.

3. So what about this question of set? See diagram.ci) Set is the amount of bend the saw manufacturer puts on each saw tooth, so the tooth will cut a kerf wider than the plate of the saw. It's essential there is some set on a saw, or the saw will bind in the Cut. The amount of set put on a new dovetail saw is in my opinion far too coarse to enable a newcomer to the craft to gain control over the tool. A skilled craftsman can control a coarse cutting dovetail saw, and can benefit from the speed of cut that a wide kerfed saw will give, but a newcomer will become intimidated. There are two ways to reduce the set on a new dovetail saw, the first is to lightly stone off some of the kerf with an oil stone, and the second is to tap the teeth back into line using a small hammer on an anvil. We have now settled a lot of saws in this workshop and we've taken to using the tapping technique. This is easily done provided you build up a certain amount of rhythm. Use a small Warrington hammer, and just allow it to drop under it's own weight from a constant height. Tap down the line of the teeth quite lightly, then turn it over and tap on the other side, then try the saw out — you will see an improvement. Remember, the worst thing you could do would be to take off all the set, and don't whack too hard or you will crack one of the teeth. You must leave some "set" on to keep directional control over the saw, and prevent the saw from binding, but your just taking off enough to reduce the kerf of the saw down to about 1/2mm. PhGtc~ 1 ap1I SflUW~ clP~tr1y the difference between a ~aw cut on the right iiiade with d new ~W thc lefi, ~ adjustment .

4. Marking knives are quite important to dovetailing. Marking is always done with a knife, not a pencil. We have found that most people have the best success with a pointed bench knife, ~i~nilar to the one Ehown here . There is a type of craft knife that has been made by a company called Exacto, which is pretty popular; the Japanese make a very pointy and evil looking weapon that is also popular. The important thing seems to be a sharp edge, a pointed tip and a comfortable handle. We have found that for very fine dovetails it is necessary to make a small marking knife from a piece of thin hacksaw blade (see iiiustratioq When marking the pins from the tails of very fine drawer dovetails, this little chap will fit into the narrow space available, when many conventional bench knives are too thick, or too bulky. The process I am about to describe is that for through dovetails. This would apply most generally to carcase construction, and would apply on all four corners. However for clarity of description, I will describe the operation of dovetailing one corner only, and allow your imagination to deal with the other three. Operation one. Firstly check and double check that the two pieces of wood that you are about to join are flat, the same width, and the same thickness. Check that each piece has been cross cut at exactly the right angle, and that that cross cut is itself at a right angle to the face side. See diagramc~I~ When you are doing this, use a good engineering square that has been proved a true 90 degrees. it's amazing how many so called squares are just no accurate enough to enable you to get this dead right.

5. Operation two. You now have to mark out the tails. Firstly take a marking gauge, or if you wish a cutting gauge; whichever you use should be capable of scribing clean lines, with no tear out, that is deep enough t capture the blade of a chisel, but not so deep as to require a lot of cleaning up afterwards. It is essential that this line be visible to you, for if you can't see where your going, the chances are your not going to get where you intended. Set the gauge to a tad less than the thickness of the job. A tad by the way is a workshop acronym for a very small amount. If your working to real accuracy, you'd be working in millitads. It's part of our drive into Europe, and the metrication of an ancient imperial cabinetmaking measure. A tad now replaces the old imperial gnats or fly's foreskin — but I digress. It's very important that you set the gauge to just shy of the thickness of your job. I won't explain now why, but it will become clear later when the job is assembled, why that tad is so important. Scribe a line all the way round both pieces, using this gauge setting. Leave the gauge set up, you may need to use it again later on. S~.t N~ 5 Operation three. On one piece of wood, mark out the "tails". Where you put them is up to you. On a large carcase it would be conventional to have more joints towards the corners, and fewer in the middle. I would advise that at this stage you space your tails out evenly, and a pair of dividers can be brought into good use for that purpose. Put the job in the end vice, with the end grain pointing skyward. Walk the dividers down the end grain, marking out four or five centres. Now mark the position of the dovetails.

6. What you are marking out i~...effectively the area that will be cut away to see. ~OIE~~J9 accept the pins. Always ow the tails to be larger than the pins. Mark across the end grain with your square and then use a knife, not a pencil, mark down the angled line at 80 degrees (or whatever is the angle on your dovetail template). In our workshop we've got a couple of dovetail templates that some engineering friend very kindly made up for us. We can't buy them, but I'm sure if some clever soul marketed this gadget, they would find a small but appreciative audience. The template we use has one angle and is use for both the left and right hand side of the tail. It also has a square on the other face, which enables all the marking out to be done with one small tool. I would advise anyone making a small gauge or template like this to make it in hard steel rather than brass, as marking knives rubbing against it would wear brass away very quickly. See diagram~ Mark the line down past the gauge line, and with a pencil, delineate what is the waste area. Draw your pencil line right up to the gauge line so it points out exactly where the gauge line is. Again the idea is, if you can't see where your going, your not going to get there. You may feel for the first few sets of dovetails you cut, that you'd like to mark both the back and the front side of the tails piece. It's not really necessary, most people would only mark one side. This is because you can only see one side at a time when you saw, so it's far better to learn how to saw properly, and to only mark those faces that will actually guide your saw.

7. Operation four. Take your dovetail saw, and saw down at half mark. Start cleanly, start at right angles to the face side, and saw straight down the side of the tails. Stop right on the bottom gauge line. All this is easier said than done for those of you who are not properly acquainted with a dovetail saw. A professional will set the job low down in the bench vice so there is no vibrations. The job would be set low down and perfectly horizontal, then lock your wrist to 80 degrees, then working quickly but accurately, you proceed sawing all the left cuts before stopping, changing the angle of his wrist, and coming back and sawing all the right hand cuts. Rhythm, speed and concentration play a great part in the success of this operation. For those of you less confident in the use of a dovetail saw, I would advocate a little warm up practice on a bit of scrap wood. The operation can be broken down into three stages: the first is the start. The start of the cut is always prone to go wrong for those of you who are a little tentative, as the saw jumps and jags and goes everywhere except the place intended. It is essential the start is made with one firm push. Rest the saw on the job, maybe guided by a thumbnail, then calmly but firmly push the saw forward; it may take a little practice to get this clean start, but then a little practice never hurt anybody. Having made the start, the next stage is to guide the saw down your marking line. To achieve this, you have to be standing in balance, with your saw arm swinging like a pendulum from the shoulder. The stance is sideways, a little bit like a class batsman addressing a fast bowler. Hold the saw handle with a gentle grip, if you strangle it, what you will do is exert downward pressure onto the saw teeth, this is not desirable. Your saw has a nice weighty brass back to it; this should be all the weight that is required to press down on the cutting action of the teeth. Think your way down this line, concentrate and at the same time, relax, if you are tense and over correct, the saw will go off line — it's a little bit like riding a bicycle, the corrections made are minute and constant, if you keep losing control and sawing off— line, try sawing more slowly, and by exerting less downward pressure. The final stage in this operation is to stop right on the bottom of the gauge line. Once again, you will need to have your work area well lit in order to see exactly where that gauge line is. Many of my craftsman have an "Angle poise" lamp. This can be directed to catch the gauge line and highlight exactly where a saw cut should be stopped. I've gone on at some length about using the dovetail saw, it's a wonderful tool, very delicate, very sensitive and capable of extreme accuracy. It's worth your while spending a bit of time getting to know this tool. Certainly when it comes to dovetailing, the person who can get their work straight from the dovetail saw has some justification to call themselves a craftsman, for that is how dovetails should be made — straight from the saw, no fiddling about, the very minimum of paring of the pins during fitting, it's the marking out and the sawing that gives the fit. So having introduced you to the technique of using one of the most important tools in cabinetmaking, I will stop. Next month we will complete the work on the tails and mark out cut, and fit the pins to those tails.