Last time, after wittering on for ages about the virtues of dovetail saws, I left you hanging by a thread with a half completed job. I hope this month to be able to put you through the process of completing a simple through dovetail joint.

You remember that last month we’d checked the prepared timber, we’d marked a gauge line just shy of the thickness of the timber around both pieces of the joint; on one piece in which the tails were to be cut we had marked out where the tails would be and pencilled in the waste. I then talked about using a dovetail saw and sawing down these lines, down to the gauge line, this is as far as we’d got. The next stage would be to clear the waste between these two sawn lines. The job would still be in the vice of your woodworking bench, with the end

Th - grain pointin~~’wards. e first operation is to clear the waste using a coping saw. This is a all framed saw that will cut around very tight corners. The knack here is to saw so close to the gauge line without going over it. The gauge line marks your no—go area, you must not go past that gauge line. A sloppy, careless move at this stage could wreck your job. Slide the coping saw down your dovetail cut until your near the bottom, then sawing, very gently turn the corner and saw across to the other side.

2. Operation Two. Now pare back to the gauge line using your nice sharp chisels; if you have sharp chisels this shouldn’t be a problem, if you havn’t, the chances are you are sacrificing a good deal of control, lack of control and work of this kind don’t really go together. Place the job flat on the bench with a backing up board beneath it. With a small chisel, probably 1/4", pare a full width shaving down to about 3/4 of the way down. Having got one paring, you can enlarge that cut to left and right. This is why sharpness at the corner of your chisels is so important. Now turn the job over and pare from the other side. Eventually you will remove enough waste wood to come to within a shaving of your gauge line. This is the critical stage — you only have one opportunity to pare back the gauge line. Fit the chisel into the notch created by the gauge line and pare 3/4 of the way down to the bottom. Extend that to left and right, then turn over and do the same from the other side. If you chisels are sharp, and you’ve done this correctly, you should end up with a broadly flat land between the two gauge lines. Put the square across to check it, or hold it up to the daylight and check by eye; if you see any lumps or bumps in the middle, pare them off now. Although verticle paring is a basic cabinetmaking technique it’s not one that is acquired without a little bit of practice. I would suggest that anybody taking to dovetailing for the first time would benefit from some practice. Run a gauge line around a piece of 2" x 1" timber, saw it off to within a millimetre or so of that gauge line, then pare away the remaining timber back to the gauge line. The objective is to leave a perfectly flat surface without going beyond the gauge line.

3. While I’m on the subject of gauge lines, I should stress that a gauge line properly marked is capable of absolute accuracy. See diagranO As you will see, the shoulder cut by the gauge line is at right angles to the job, and is not disturbed by any subsequent paring away. It isn’t like a pencil line that has a thickness, a scribed gauge line is absolutely accurate. A gauge line put there at the start of the job remains right through construction, right up to assembly, it is your guarantee of accuracy. Operation three. So, having pared back to the gauge line on all the waste areas, you now have a piece which looks a little like dovetails, see diagram~~ The problem now is to mark out the pins from these tails. To do this, lay a bench plane on it’s side just behind the opening of the jaws of your vice. Set your job into the vice, with the end grain pointing skywards and set t nd grain at a similar height to that of your bench plane. ~eepeteg~ w you are going to lay the piece you have already cut, the tails piece, on top of the piece you are going to mark out; the pins piece. If you do this as I suggest, you will be able to position it exactly where you want it, and then hold it in position with one hand, while you mark out with the other. Let me stress at this stage that this is the critical part of the operation. If the tails piece moves whilst you are marking out, then your risking the fit of your joint. Use a small pointy little bench knif~4~ a specially made dovetail scribe ~t~~Qçj) to mark the pins from the tails. Once you have done this, and you may have to hold your breath while you are doing it, you can then relax a moment. Have a careful look at the lines you scribed in the end grain on the pins piece. If any of them look too faint, very gently, go over them with a marking

4. knife and the dovetail template you used to mark out the original tails. Don’t overdo this, and be careful not to change the position of the lines. You can at this stage drop a vertical down to the gauge line to assist you in your sawing. If your working in dark wood, it may be helpful to make the gauge line more visible by rubbing in a bit of chalk dust. Once again, mark with a pencil which side of the line is waste and which side is pin. I tend to use a pencil and make crossed hatch lines right up to the gauge line so that the pencil mark points out the position of the line, and indicates the point beyond which I must not go. Remember DON’T GO BEYOND THAT LINE. Operation four. The next job is to saw the pins. This is the most tricky part of the entire operation of cutting through dovetails. We talked before that there are three parts to the operation of using a dovetail saw. The start, sawing down the line, and the finish or stop. With this operation, the start is the most important thing. You have to position your saw exactly, to take out this line at half mark. Half mark means you split the line, so one shoulder of the V of the marking gauge is still left. Those of you of a timorous disposition will saw leaving the gauge line on, then fiddle about paring back to the gauge line. It’s excusable to do this when you are very unsure of your skill and capabilities, it is less excusable when you have been handling a dovetail saw for a day or two. The tricky thing about sawing the pins is the start, for you must position that saw exactly right, and as you push and make the start, the gauge line will disappear, so you have to have the courage of your own convictions and go for it! 52~II2~

5. Having started, proceed in the way we talked about last month. Saw down the line concentrating and thinking your saw down the line, and stop just on the gauge line. Operation number five. Clear the waste. This is done in the same way as for clearing the waste on the tails. Without moving the job position in the vice take out the waste with a coping saw. You may have to be a little careful here, as the opening will be narrow on one side and wider on the other, but by now you should be concentrating as you have invested a lot of time in these bits of wood, and you won’t want to mess it up. ~ Operation number six. Pare back to the gauge line — you’ve done this once before so you should be getting pretty expert by now. Pare back to gauge line in the same way as you did on the tails piece. this land is a good deal larger than on the tail piece so you may need to use the corners of a larger chisel to keep the flatness of the land. Don’t start off with a large chisel, work up from a small one, and use the corners to create a flat area big enough to take the next size chisel, then go on enlarging it with the wider chisel rather than the small one. Work from both sides, and don’t go past that bloody gauge line.

6. Operation number seven. We now come to fitting the pins to the tails. If you marked the thing out right, and if you’ve sawn and pared to those marks, then the pins piece will fit closely and sweetly into the tails piece. When you are used to doing this, this is exactly what will happen, but the first time or two, things might not go together the way you want them.

Firstly, try relieving the inside edges of the .p~. See diagrarrki6]This will give you a start, and will help the pins enter the tails. Make sure this relieving is very small, and make sure it doesn’t go right out to the end grain, or it will show. Now place the tails piece flat on the bench and try entering the pins into it vertically. Try feeling with your fingers, and sensing where the resistance is, you may find that it will enter more easily on one side than the other. Try to keep calm at this stage — an analytical approach to the problem is far more beneficial than frantically flailing around with a paring chisel. If you have to pare one or two of the pins, pare them to a slight arc, the last place you should take timber from is points on diagrar~~ If anything, things should he nice and snug at this point. If you get the pins half entered into the tails, the chances are, they will go the whole way down. I know a good many cabinet makers that take them right down to the bottom, just to make sure there are no obstructions, but classic technique says that this is not necessary if your job has been well cut and pared to the line. Personally, I take mine to the bottom for there are no medals to be gained for heroism in this craft

7. Operation number eight. Assembly or glue up, is one of the critical times in cabinetmaking. The two piece of wood we have talked about, may well have taken you several hours to prepare and mark out and then finally joint. If this were for a cabinet, you’d have that at least multiplied by four. if this were a complex piece with drawer runners, whistles and bells, you have have two or three hundred hours of work at stake during this operation. Mess this up and it could all be lost. Having tested the joint for fit, you will be pretty sure that it will go up dry. Paint the glue onto the joining surfaces, and begin assembly. This is often ‘zalled nocking up and not without reason, for quite often, considerable force is required to expel the hydraulic pressure created by the glue. Use a good big hammer to drive the two pieces together. I’ve heard of a club hammer or lump hammer being described as being one of the most useful tools in the cabinetmakers workshop, and this is why that saying comes about. A lump hammer has a flat hitting surface with quite considerable weight behind it and is very useful for large carcase assemblies. You may only need a normal l2oz hammer, so don’t go turning your job into match wood. You remember right at the start of this operation, I said make sure you gauge your gauge lines around the job, just a tad shy of the thickness of your two pieces. At the time I didn’t explain why, now you come to see the benefit of doing as your told, for at this stage, the pins don’t quite come through the tail piece, they lie just below the surface. This allows you to belt away with your hammer, and drive the tail piece down onto the pins. If the pins came through the tail piece you wouldn’t be able to knock it home and you’d have

8. to make nasty little castellated cramping blocks to drive the two pieces together. Operation number nine. The final operation is to clean up. Because the pins don’t quite come through, it’s possible now to plane up the outside of your job which may well be covered in glue and hammer marked, but no matter, your planing off the entire outside surface down to the end grain the pins. As long as you mark it out properly a "microtad" less than the thickness of your two pieces, you won’t have too much planing to do. If you’ve never attempted dovetailing before, have a go at it, it’s quite a simple joint, and with a little bit of care, it’s relatively simple to make. Take it carefully, prepare your tools, prepare your timber, prepare yourself, then go for it, once you’ve got the hang of it you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.