Glenn, one of the readers of my blog, saw the following photo of the first great drawer I made for the stand-up desk. The joinery on the back of the drawer is shown, with no glue, and the surfaces not yet planed even – in other words, pretty much as the the dovetails came off the saw:
Glenn wrote me a short note, asking how I am able to get the shoulder on the half-pin sockets as nice and square as I showed in the photo above. As I worked on the drawers yesterday and today, I documented how I do it. My old way of doing was fashioned after the technique of Frank Klausz – simply line up the saw with the baseline marked on the edge of the shoulder, and cut it off. Most of the time it works just fine, but sometimes I miss and cut a little beyond the line – and that creates a gap I dislike very much. My fault, of course. If you are not familiar with the pins-first technique to hand-cut dovetails, I suggest you view the three videos of Frank Klausz I shot during the Woodworking in America conference in Berea, KY, in November 2008.
I much prefer the new way I do the cutoffs these days; I wish I could tell you where I learned to do it this way, but I cannot remember. I start by carefully and lightly chiseling the baseline on the edge of the board; then I cut off a very small and shallow sliver – this leaves a nice channel for the dovetail saw, and a nice reference edge on which I can rest the saw to start the cut:
I then carefully place the saw in the channel, and saw off the half-pin to create the half-pin socket for the pins board (practice, practice, practice, to learn to saw really close to the scribed base line):
The photo above shows my preference to cut pins first; once the pins boards are done, I mark the dovetails from the pins. Note: This applies only to the through dovetails on the back of the drawers.
I chisel out the waste on the remaining pin sockets by carefully removing very thin slivers at the baseline, as in the following photo:
Today’s work: the through dovetail joinery on the drawer backs, for three additional drawers – two drawer backs fit very well right off the saw, and one required a little paring work:
Now I can start on the joinery to the drawer fronts. These will require half-blind dovetails, similar to the first drawer I made:
Once all the drawer joinery is done, I can start machining the drawer slips for the hardwood bottom panels. I will cover in detail the making and fitting of the drawer slips in another article.
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About Al Navas
Could you add ‘Cutting Pins by Hand for Half-Blind Dovetails’ to the list of topics to cover? I fully get how to cut pins and tails for through dovetails, but half-blind pins I can’t seem to wrap my mind around. Is it all chisel work? Is there a sawing technique I don’t know of to cut 80% through the thickness of a board?
I will, Torch. In fact, I will shoot some video, and edit it into a reasonably short viewing and downloading time. But, in summary, you cut the tails on the side boards, then mark the drawer fronts from the tails boards; careful sawing on the waste side of the marks is a must, to get the best-looking fit. The sawing is done at an angle, and just down to the base lines marked on the pins board, although some workers cut way more than that, into the wall of the sides. After that, it is all about chiseling, carefully. I think the video will make it much more clear.
Hey Al,
That’s exactly how I do this operation!
However, I don’t worry too much about cutting extremely close to the line with the saw. The little bit that may be left after the saw cut is easy to clean up with a sharp chisel. I don’t take it all in one bite – I just pare it away in small sections until I make it across the entire thickness of the board. In addition to the line on the edge of the board, you can also use this technique at the baseline to get a crisp edge.
–Mark
The Craftsman’s Path
Mark,
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Right – it also applies at the baseline of the regular pins! I am glad *that* is the way you do it. I just wish I could remember where I first saw it done this way with the saw, for the half-pin…