how to mess up your dovetails

I came across these old photos from when I was making my anarchist's tool chest, and thought I should share some of the mistakes I made while learning a lot of techniques.

But there are already too many blog posts with contradictory information telling you how to cut nice dovetails, so I'm going to tell you how the mess them up:

Use a jack plane with a heavily cambered iron to surface your lumber, then decide that's good enough. Do this on the inside surfaces to ensure visible gaps.

Crosscut your lumber after surfacing. This means more work to get out large cups & bows, so you definitely won't have energy left over to get out a smoothing plane.

Warm up your sawing arm with some haphazard cuts.

Decide that dovetails are first class cuts and waste lots of time making knifewalls, even though the angles don't really matter on the tails (assuming tails first)

If that takes too long, decide they are second-class cuts so that you still waste some time with knifewalls.

Orient the board so you are cutting against the grain. (Actually I was using a dozuki, so this was the right way).

Train your eye to see square by looking at an engineer's square from the wrong direction. Don't "undercut", because it might be considered "cheating"

Cut the tails way inside the lines so it doesn't fit right off the saw.

Fuss with the joints a lot so you have plenty of opportunities to go past your lines.

Glue it up with the minimum of clamps so that the glue has a place to go.

If you're cutting grooves, make sure they go out through the end (this is from a different project)

Repair the blemishes with a few small slivers of wood and some glue, or if the gaps are small, just hammer the endgrain until they disappear. Flush plane them and they'll look fine. I'm serious about this one--it's easy to repair dovetail problems.

...but you can still point out your mistakes to anybody who sees the tool chest.

You can also point out your mistakes to the whole internet.

And don't paint over them so you can keep pointing out your mistakes.

But seriously, you can fix all this and they will come out great. The important thing is to make the attempt so you have the opportunity to succeed.

drawbored breadboard ends, step-by-step

If you saw my earlier post, "extrapolating myself into unknown territory", you might be curious if my experiment with drawbored breadboard ends actually worked out. So far, it seems to have. If it explodes in the future, I'll mention it here.

I photographed to entire process to share. More info about this project is available by using the "purple_bar" tag.

This process starts after the joinery has already been cut, which means 5 haunched tenons and mortises in a groove to match. I've already drilled 3/16" holes (one for each mortise/tenon) in the yellow board on the drill press before where the photos pick up the process.

First, I tap the breadboard end in place.

Using the same brad-point bit I drilled the hole with, I make a mark in the tenons. One light tap is perfect. Deep marks will interfere with subsequent steps.

I removed the mortised-board carefully using this slender pry bar.

This takes a little time to do without damage, but it's easy with a nearly-sharp pry bar.

Finding the marks can be difficult, but holding the end piece up next to it helps show where to look.

The original mark has been highlighted with white pencil. Here, I made a new mark, offset towards the tenon shoulder. This is the crucial step for drawboring. The offset is about 1/16" in this case.

Drilling holes, following the new marks. For a relatively clean exit-hole, spin the sharp brad-point fast, and push down gently. These are 3/16" holes, using the same bit as I used for the yellow end-piece. Eyeballing vertical is good enough. 

Here, I'm using one of these WoodTek bits that are meant to cut sideways. First I get it spinning fast in the eggbeater drill. I didn't do this to the center hole, which can stay round.

With the bit spinning, I tilted it back and forth. I Leaned over further on the holes further from the center hole, so those will be wider slots. This method provides lots of leverage, but one must tilt slowly to avoid jamming the bit.

Now, back to vertical. I push sideways in each direction to finish making the slot. These slots are the crucial step for breadboard ends, so humidity changes don't ruin the project later.

Don' forget to brush away the chips! It sounds stupid, but missing this step would cause big problems. 

Next I tap the end piece back into place, using the center hole for horizontal alignment, since it is still a circle. These holes will not fully align in the other dimension though, so the peg can pull it tight.

Easing the offset holes with drawbore pins. Nail sets also work for these small holes (both shown). A little push and twist from each direction is all it takes. I might be able to get away with skipping this step, but I'd rather not find out the hard way I can't.

Next I prepare the pegs by rubbing paraffin on them. Not necessary, but an effort-saver. These pegs were formed earlier by pounding purpleheart through a dowel plate. Note the slight taper on the left end.

Driving those pegs home! That blur is my hammer. The tapered tip snakes through the offset holes and pulls the joint tight. It should hold well for a long time, and without glue.

For a minute, I forgot to flush cut the pegs on the bottom.

After a little surface prep, I am satisfied with the way this looks.

This is starting to look like a bar!

Bartender's view.

extrapolating myself into unknown territory

Today I'm drawboring some breadboard ends on a bar top. I've drawbored before (once), and I know I need slots to allow the wood to move, so the logical conclusion is a slot that is offset from a hole.

If you aren't familiar with drawboring, this won't make much sense, but there are plenty of good videos explaining it out there on the web. A little peg is going to squiggle through offset holes, holding the yellow stick over the purple tenons. Simultaneously, the width of the hole in the tenon will accomodate the purple board as it gets wider and narrower with the seasons. At least that's the theory.

See how the hole doesn't quite line up? That's the key to drawboring.

I think it's going to work, but I've never actually seen these two combined. I'm going with a very small offset just to be safe.

Incedentally, those Woodtek drill bits that are meant to cut sideways work superbly in an eggbeater drill. You need to get it spinning fast before applying sideways pressure (it's similar to handsaw technique), but then it is so controllable that I doubt those bits will ever see the inside of a power drill chuck again.

One more dog hole

 OK, so maybe it's more of a nook, or a shady spot. In any case, my dog Maggie has decided her favorite spot in the workshop is right under my workbench.

It's almost enough to make me reconsider replacing this temporary bench with a Roubo later this year. Almost. I was going to make the lower shelf removable anyway.

Inspiration from Tunisia

I just got back from a short trip to Tunisia this week. Here are a few pictures of interesting furniture and architectural details I saw along the way.

This tree and building seem to have adapted to eachother

With 8 nearly identical pieces, this should be called "kaleidescoping", not bookmatching.

Quintessential door and windows in Sidi Bou Said

Farmhouse courtyard

stacked containers

Apparently these are a traditional type of shade/shutter

modular chandelier with some off-the-shelf parts

Sticks + rugs = shade

nice hardware

This table has striking proportions

This style of table with the turned elements seems typical