Manual of Purpose-Made Woodworking Joinery

Dovetail joints 39

But, even with good sawing skills, this can lessen the
quality of the joint.
The chisel- paring of these outer shoulders and
of the remaining waste between the tails, in the pin
sockets, is often reckoned to be done from both sides
of the work, with the work lying flat on a chopping
board of waste timber. But my experience has taught
me otherwise. I find that if the end- grain fibres are
pared and thereby pressured from one direction, then
the other, they often break off in the middle area and
lessen the integrity of the joint. Therefore, my method
is as follows:

End- grain chisel- paring technique

Whether making a dovetailed item in hardwood
or softwood, I use an offcut of close- grained, dense
hardwood as an underlying buffer/chopping board to
remove the pin- socket waste. The tailed- end rests on
this, face up on the bench and the end- grain waste is
removed by near- vertical paring, taken through to the
chopping board and gradually adjusted to vertical-
paring back to the knifed shoulder lines. For the
reasons already given, I do not turn the work over and
pare from the other side – but there is a need to keep
lifting and turning the work briefly to check how close
you are to the knifed shoulder- line on the under- face.
If competent at vertical paring, this method works
well and is fast and efficient. It also eliminates any
risk of damaging the face- side shoulders. I use newly
sharpened, ordinary bevel- edged chisels for this work,
but the shallow, square side- edges of these do not
ideally suit the acute angles of the pin sockets and
often leave small upstands of waste in the corners.
However, it is quite easy to modify a small- sized
bevel- edged chisel by grinding and/or stoning the
shallow side- edges from 90° to about 80°. Otherwise,
Japanese chisels, with an isosceles sectional shape, can
be used.

Marking out the dovetail sockets

The dovetail sockets and pins required on the two (P)
pieces of the box can now be marked from each corre-
spondingly numbered set of dovetails. This numbering,
usually encircled with (1) (1) to (4) (4), is pencilled on
the face- sides of each end of the box to avoid mixing
up the matched sets. And each set is cut separately.
To do this, place each (P) piece in the vice, with the
joint number (and face mark) in front. Place a 70mm
block of wood – or a 04½ smoothing plane on edge
(my method) – on the bench, initially up against the
workpiece and adjust the work to meet the level of the
plane’s height. Then push the plane back from the (P)
piece to act as a rear bearer and lay a dovetailed piece

on top, with corresponding numbers and face marks

visible. Check that the (D) piece is seated evenly on

the plane and the (P) piece in the vice.

Whilst supported like this, keep some hand pres-

sure on top and adjust the piece carefully to line up

the shoulder lines and side- edges. Because the edges

are not easy to line up, you should test for side align-

ment with a small straightedge (a piece of wood meas-

uring, say, 150 × 20 × 20mm) and then mark the tail

sockets with either the specially- sharpened carpenter’s

pencil or a marking knife.

Sometimes I reinforce these marks with the aid

of the dovetail template. But if you do this, you must

realize that there may be slight inaccuracies in some

of the dovetail slopes you have cut – so, be prepared to

follow the first marks, even if it means making slight

adjustments to the true- seating of the template as you

re- mark.

Next, square down the marks onto the face side,

at least 12mm past the pencilled shoulder line – for

visual guidance mentioned previously – then roughly

shade in the waste areas to highlight which side of the

line to cut. This, in my opinion, is an essential practice

for beginner and expert, as experience is no defence

against a momentary lapse in concentration.

Cutting the dovetail sockets

Figure 3.34: With a 75mm or so projection in the

vice, cut the tail sockets down vertically and carefully

to the shoulder line with a gent’s saw. When start-

ing the cuts (in the waste area!), keep up close to the

end- grain knife- marks (or knife- like pencil marks)

and take care in leaving a fraction of the pencil lines

showing on each side of the pins. When complete,

release the work from the vice and apply a try square

to the pencilled shoulder line on the face- side (but

with particular reference to the faintly- knifed shoulder

line on the face- edge) and deeply knife all intermit-

tent parts of the shoulder lines between the pins, i.e.,

the dovetail sockets, where the dovetails will be seated.

Then, back in the vice to finish the sockets in a

similar way to the pin sockets, i.e., make a gent’s saw

cut in the mid- waste area and use this to remove the

Figure 3.34 Removing the waste material from the

dovetail- sockets.