Tutorial: hand-cut half-blind dovetails

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Duration: 21:41 minutes

One of the readers of the blog recently posted the following Comment to the earlier article on More great drawers:

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?

Torch, this article and video are my response to your request – perfect timing!

Although today it is considered the hallmark of a woodworking craftsman, the dovetail was not always held in such high esteem. In fact, dovetails used to be buried behind trim, as they were strictly a utilitarian joint; but they were used for their holding strength. Today we make dovetails by hand and with dovetail jigs, to get beautiful results; and they are beautiful!

In this episode I show in detail how to cut one half-blind dovetail on a narrow board. Although I managed to damage the fit on the first attempt, I recovered to shoot the chopping of the pins for this episode in its entirety. In the video I show in high speed the details of chopping the waste, from start to finish:

1. Very light chiseling at the baseline, to ensure that it stays nice and clean.
2. Once the baseline is established, more aggressive chopping can take place.
3. But care must be taken at the half-pins, to prevent splitting of the wood; typically, a narrower chisel, and lighter chisel action are required, or the board will split.
4. Slight undercutting at the baseline, about 1° to 2°, will result in better and easier fit of the tails in their sockets.
5. However, too much undercutting will result in a weak joint – as a result, avoid too much undercutting. Practice, practice…
6. Chop the bulk of the waste with the board supported by the workbench; then place the work piece in the vise, to finish with light paring cuts.
7. Cut a very small chamfer on the back of the dovetails, to easy entry into their respective sockets in the pins board.

Gary Rogowski is a great advocate of the 5-minute dovetail, a practice session to get ready for the real job of cutting the joinery on a real project. And although the exercise is typically for through dovetails, I believe it applies just as well to half-blind dovetails. In fact, I always do a similar warm-up when I use the Leigh dovetail jig – I never start cutting dovetails cold, regardless the method. Click on this link to see the Inlaid Dovetails Tutorial videos I posted on the blog in March 2008, using the Leigh D4 dovetail jig.

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