Link of the week

Hand-Cut Dovetails After Fifty  

Wow, if this week’s quick poll is any indication, it looks as if the majority of our readers prefer to hand cut their dovetails. That’s quite a surprise to me.

This site’s author Norman Havens proves you can teach an old dog new tricks. This site offers step-by-step instructions with clear photographic illustration of the hand-cut dovetail process - from the initial steps of marking out the pins to the final fitting of the completed joints.

The most valuable part of the site is that Havens not only describes the process, he also discusses the difficulties and mistakes he made along the way.  This way, the novice dovetailer can hopefully avoid some common pitfalls.

While there are many other processes to cut these complicated joints, this site will get the novice up and running with the basics.