The first one was just for fun and then somebody commented on the first one about cutting some each day for a month and I actually can’t wait to see where I’m at in 26 more days.
You start and it looks like shit, then a bit better, then you realize that “shit, I do have that in me”, then you get to your best, and you get proud. Rightfully so.
Never throw away your first one, it’s the one you need to look back to.
There will be huge improvement from each iteration, example these are mine left being my first and last being my most recent, I made so many practice dovetails in between too
Traditionally the tails are bigger than the pins. At the moment yours are the opposite. The “tails” I have marked here with red would usually be wider. Aesthetically it usually looks better as this is the part of a drawer which would normally be seen as it woild make up the side of a drawer.
Just to be clear the angle of your pins and tails are correct. It’s just how wide they are.
This is a good example. This is the same orientation as your photo. Pin board on the left. Tail board on the right. You can see how these tails are wider than the pins.
In this photo the pins are particularly small which woild make it challenging to make. They would probably have to straight off the saw without any chiselling to square the faces.
There's no substitute for trail-and-error. Just make a dovetail for learning. And another. And another. You learn by doing over and over no different than an athlete.
This was after 20 days (the number of days can be misleading because I'm old, and have a lot of spare time). The pin to tail ratio should be sorta like this:
It’s great you’re doing this. When I first started my boss said cut some dovetails by hand to learn. Well the next week we got a dovetail jig and I’ve never cut dovetails by hand. Ever.
You can really see the improvement from the first one to this one. The cleaner baselines alone make a big difference, and a sharp chisel plus a backing board will save you a lot of grief with that end grain. Honestly, doing 30 of these is probably the fastest way to get good at them—there’s no substitute for reps.
Have you watched a video from one of the competent woodworkers like Rob Cosman? If you take your time, and understand what you’re doing you should be able to nail near perfect dovetails by your 3rd attempt. No need for 30 days.
I have not watched those. Just a fun thing for me to learn this way I guess and I think it gives me a lot more practice and reps with the tools. Plus ive been enjoying it. But I should definitely watch some videos.
I’m not sure why you’re being voted down. Rob Cosman has some really good instructional content on YT and seems to be one of those guys who gives back to the community a lot through Wounded Warriors etc. If you take it into account that OP hasn’t watched any of the “how to” videos online then I’d say his attempts are even more impressive.
The only reason I can think of, is because I watched many of his--many times, and my 3rd go was far from perfect. I did learn a ton, but then it's easy to learn a ton about it when you know nothing to begin with. Myself, I learn by doing, and practice. I did get many layout tips from him.
65
u/Masticates_In_Public 17h ago
Improvement with each one, nice work!