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Inlaid dovetails – Tutorial, Part 2 (actually cutting tails and pins!)

October 28, 2007 By

October 28, 2007

Keywords: inlaid dovetails D4 jig woodworking contrasting wood jointIn Part 2, I actually cut dovetails and pins on the sycamore (primary wood) and on the walnut (which I am using as accent wood in the inlays). Suggestion: Watch Part 1 first, and THEN this one will make a LOT more sense!


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You will notice that I use a climb cutting technique as I start each cut, even when cutting the tails. But climb-cutting will be much more important when I cut the pins, as there is a LOT more waste to remove in the tails boards! My only advice is to take it easy and make only VERY light cuts when you make the climb cuts – if you don’t, the router WILL let you know you are taking too much material in one pass.Let me know with your comments how you like this tutorial. And remember: Part 3 will show the actual cutting of the boards to final inlay thickness.Enjoy!—— Al

Filed Under: Box making, D4, Dovetails, Education, Jigs, Leigh jig, Tutorial, Video Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Inlaid dovetails – Tutorial, Part 1, The Basics (The Pilot, too!)

October 28, 2007 By

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Duration: 14 mins., 22 sec.

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Two hard disk drives later, I was finally able to continue editing this video. What a week this has been with the laptop! The original, 5-year old, 250-GB external disk drive crashed, the replacement I bought lasted exactly 22 hours, but the store replaced it on the spot. I am back up and running, although the video editor has been a little cranky.

Now, the fun stuff:

This is Part 1 of making inlaid dovetails – it covers The Basics. I take you to the point where I just start cutting the dovetails on the tails boards. But it IS important basics, as it shows in detail HOW to open the fingers on the jig, to allow for the thickness of the inlay. Total length: 14 minutes, 22 seconds.

I winged it through the entire shoot with no script, no nothing, and it shows! If it looks a little rough, well…. It IS rough. But I did get through it, and hopefully this tutorial will help someone at some point.

Part 2 is uploading to Blip.tv as I post this, so it should be available later tonight. In Part 2 I will actually cut tails and pins, following all the introductory stuff in Part 1. And Part 3 (later this week???) will show me cutting the pin sockets in the walnut inlays, and assembling the box shell.

You can download the Leigh procedure to create inlaid dovetails at the Leigh Support Page. It is the second Technical Bulletin.

Let me know what you think, and especially leave me feedback so that I can take this blog in the direction that is of interest to many of you. Thanks for watching!

—— Al

Filed Under: Blog, Box making, D4, Dovetails, Education, Jigs, Leigh jig, Tutorial, Video Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Taking the plunge – a woodworking blog!

September 18, 2007 By

Today is the day I take the plunge into the world of woodworking blogs. I ask myself as I start this new venture: Why? Why do this blog?

To be honest, I am doing it because I am lazy. I have had a regular woodworking web site for almost two years, and have not updated content much. Will I be less lazy with this blog? I hope not… But only time will tell. All I can do is ask my readers if they think this is going in the right direction, and whether it IS worth keeping the blog. Of course, it is hard to tell if it will be worth doing it. After all, THIS is the only entry thus far. But maybe, just maybe, it will make me work just a little bit harder at keeping something up to date, related to my woodworking and cabinetmaking work.

I am certain that, from time to time, something will take me away from woodworking and cabinetmaking. To cover this eventuality, I have created a Category called Sidetracking. I will have to see how well this works.

Now, the REAL reason for THIS woodworking blog:I want to share my woodworking and cabinetmaking experience. I make stuff, from small boxes to chests, to cabinets, to entertainment centers. I will be sharing with my readers the steps in each of these, providing photos and video to convey the message and to make it a good experience for the blog readers. I still don’t know if this particular blog setup allows video… hmmm, I must check it out. I hope I paid for the version that allows video!

So, see you around the blog. Thanks for reading!

—— Al

Filed Under: Blog, General, Leigh jig, Safety

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