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.

I’ll remember it like the day it happened. I was standing in Busch Gardens, the Dark Continent in Tampa one steamy August afternoon. Looking up, my sight fell upon the aqua and red tracks of Kumba, the new enormous roller coaster the park had just opened. 143 feet tall. 114 foot vertical loop. Batwing maneuvers. Not one, but TWO inverted cobra rolls. This thing was a monster.

As the train whooshed by at 60 miles per hour, I could feel myself being knocked backward by the rush of air and deafened by the roar.

And, I was in line to take a ride on it.

I grew up in a family where my mom couldn’t stand to see her sons in peril. She cringed through six football seasons as my younger brother took to the gridiron. We grew up within short driving distance of a ski resort, but never went because it was too dangerous. Needless to say, whenever we went anywhere with a roller coaster, we were told just how perilous they were.

So, you could imagine my fear when I boarded the train – my first real roller coaster train – and it started to go up the lift hill.

Now, sure, it may not be as dramatic as that first rush down the hill in the coaster, but why do I sometimes feel the same apprehension before trying anything new when I woodwork?

For instance, a few years ago, I was building a shadow box for my dad to house his military badges and medals. I found some choice maple that would be perfect when finished. I also found a nice scrap of cherry molding that would be just long enough to dress the piece up and serve as a glass stop. Everything was going to be perfect.

In order to make this piece extra special, I decided I was going to use dovetails. My first ones. Ever. Gulp.

No one could accuse me of not doing my homework. I read everything I could get my hands on about machine vs. hand cut. I visited every woodworking forum I could think of. I asked every woodworker I knew for their opinion.

Finally, after nearly two months of weighing my options, I went to my local Woodcraft, walking with the swagger of a seasoned woodworking veteran, and headed straight to the dovetail jigs. When I got there, I froze. The choices were staggering. Akeda. Leigh. Shop Fox. Stots Template Master. I had that blank look in my face when one of the employees walked up and asked me what I was looking for.

When I told him I was a complete novice and never had even seen a dovetail jig before, he recommended the Keller setup. I plunked down my hard earned dead presidents and headed to the car.

When I got home, there was no bravado or swagger left. I found myself staring at the manual, trying to make heads or tails of what I was reading. Tentatively, I assembled the jig and put the bit in the collet. I laid the router down, wood clamped to the jig, and walked inside.

Six days later, when I finally got the courage up to actually make a cut into the lumber I had lovingly jointed, planed and cut to length, I gingerly stepped into the shop and plugged the router in. The router whined to life and, after stopping six or seven times to ensure everything was the way it had to be, I touched bit to wood and stared cutting. Sawdust flew everywhere. Cut, cut, cut.

When I was done, I flipped the jig around and cut the pins. Cut, cut, cut.

Much to my amazement, the joint slipped together – perfectly – on the first try. I was so jacked, I took the pieces inside and showed my wife, who happened to be taking a nap on the family room sofa.

“Wha… Oh, that’s great.” She closed her eyes and lay back down to sleep.

I walked back to the shop, and proceeded to cut the rest of the joints. That afternoon, I had met dovetails, and I had kicked their butts.

When I stepped off Kumba after my first ride, I was pumping my fist in the air.

Now, THAT’S what I’m talking about!

After that, I looked at all roller coasters with a sense of anticipation. “Honey, when can we go to Sandusky, Ohio to ride the coasters up there?” I want a new challenge.

Funny how that first success can breed so much confidence…

Woodworking magazines are a wealth of information. I’ve been a subscriber to Popular Woodworking since 1998, and I have plenty of editions of Fine Woodworking, Wood, Woodcraft, Shop Notes, Woodsmith and many others on my book shelf. Every so often I trot out an entire year’s collection and look through all of the offerings. Great step-by-step projects. Excellent technique articles. Outstanding tool reviews. Each edition has much to offer.

Of course, there are the times when you’ll seem to read the same article over and over again in several editions of different magazines. “Master the Mortise and Tenon!” “Mortise and Tenons made easy.” “Cut spot on mortises and tenons.” And, those may be in three different magazines in the span of eight months. Hey, let’s face it; some topics are so essential to woodworking that you need to see them every so often.

A few years ago, there was this big push to do an article that really left me confounded. I saw it first in Popular Woodworking, then later in Wood. I’m sure it must have been in a few others. It was a wood joint torture test. The premise of these articles is a sound one – let’s find out just how much strength do each of these joints have. It’s a topic that has reared its ugly head in woodworking circles for generations. The tests were devilishly simple, and looked like they were cooked up by Wile E. Coyote of Looney Tunes fame. Basically, a sample of each of frequently used joints – dovetails, mortise and tenon, rabbets, biscuits, etc. – were placed on a work platform, and a 55 pound anvil was dropped a certain distance onto the joint.

The results, as they say, were spectacular. All of these joints, save the beefiest mortise and tenon, were demolished. Splintered. Crushed. The test did expose some of the strengths and weaknesses of each type of joint. For instance, a 90 degree box joint totally flattened out after its date with the anvil, while the dovetail did offer some resistance to the force of gravity.

My only question, however, is what exactly was the point of each of these tests? Sure, if you routinely abuse your woodworking projects, you had better build them like timber framed structures. But, for a hope chest, is a box joint necessarily worse than dovetails? The tests also showed that wood breaks away from pocket screwed joints when hit by an anvil. If this makes you believe that a mortised and tenoned face frame is superior to one that’s pocket screwed, and you have the time and determination to do all of that extra work, be my guest. However, aren’t most face frames joined to the cabinet box, gaining tremendous support from the case itself? In some cases, speed of assembly AND strength are the guiding principles.

Some woodworkers may use this test as further evidence that the ‘Old Masters’ who built furniture before us used only classically cut joints because that is the only way to do it right. But, hey, if the Shakers were so creative as to create work saving devices as the circular saw blade and the washing machine, don’t you think they would have relished the opportunity to use pocket screws or biscuits if they had the opportunity?

Am I saying that there’s no place for classic woodworking joints? Not at all.

Am I saying that there’s no place for new-fangled woodworking joinery techniques? Absolutely not.

What I am saying is that woodworking is an incredible craft, and there is an incredible array of choices available to today’s woodworker. Feel free to pick the right joint for the right job, regardless of the era from which it came, or how it fared when an anvil fell on it.