DT gauge, simple cheap and handy

[David C]

Pete's gauge has the huge advantage that one uses one implement for slope and square line. I used a bevel and square for many years and am delighted to have stopped!

Similarly I can see no merit in the traditional layout method involving, sloped ruler, and parallel lines back to the end. This only gives center lines, which would encourage one to want one of BoB Wearing' more complex adjustable gauges. The divider method is simpler, quicker and more accurate method for laying out dovetails.

Moving stuff around in the house. Two chests of drawers. In Every socket the slopes are sawn past the shoulder line.

Best wishes,
David Charlesworth

 

[Jacob]

......
Similarly I can see no merit in the traditional layout method involving, sloped ruler, and parallel lines back to the end.

I agree. It's not traditional anyway, it's just somebody's "good idea" which is best avoided! Slow and clumsy. As I've said before - there are a lot of dodgy "good ideas" kicking about.

....The divider method is simpler, quicker and more accurate method for laying out dovetails.

Yes definitely. Dividers are brilliant and much more useful than they look. They probably get overlooked a lot of the time.
Though free-handing can be good. Never perfect, but always good enough, with a bit of practice.

 

[DTR]

Indeed - to follow up the OP (that's me!) here's the picture.



BugBear

I use something like this (no idea what the angle is), but mine has a square tenon on the other end as well.

And for marking the spacings, I use dividers.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Indeed - to follow up the OP (that's me!) here's the picture.



BugBear

I use something like this (no idea what the angle is), but mine has a square tenon on the other end as well.

THAT'S a good idea! One little home-made gauge marks both angles and straights.

 

[DannyEssex]

Only a newbie here, but I made one of these after I found this, after watching some Paul Sellers videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPb_5KF ... 8pqe3y3ayM

Being a newbie, I was a bit clumsy using my bevel gauge. I find it a lot easier with the template, although I'm still trying to get to grips with the sliding bevel.

 

[Trafalgar]

It's useful to saw to a long line as you can use it to sight the saw, and it's traditional (and very useful) to cut just past the gauge line, so that you don't have to clean out the corners. So if you are working to a line that's two good reasons for extending it.

So am I the only person to do them freehand? Not that I'm doing any currently but I certainly have in the past.

One can certainly saw just past the gauged line on the pin board (both gauged lines) of a lap dovetail or past the gauged line on the inside of a through dovetail and not have the oversawing show in either case.

I don't do them freehand because the goal of freehand is something similar to what you get by setting a gauge. So, I skip what more or less amounts to the pretense of doing them freehand and use a marker or a bevel gauge for the angle.

I do space them by eye. The most time consuming part is setting spacing, anyway. Grabbing and using my Kell marker for the angle takes no additional time whatsoever.

 

[Jacob]

.....
I don't do them freehand because the goal of freehand is something similar to what you get by setting a gauge. So, I skip what more or less amounts to the pretense of doing them freehand and use a marker or a bevel gauge for the angle........

The goal of freehand is to do them really quickly. That's all there is to it. Freehand you can cut all the sides of the pin holes for several sets of drawers in a fraction of the time it take to even do the marking up. Sounds contradictory but dividers can also be set freehand without measuring anything, with surprising precision, and are very fast for marking up the spaces, so it's easy to remove random errors in that respect at least.

 

[DTR]

Sounds contradictory but dividers can also be set freehand without measuring anything, with surprising precision, and are very fast for marking up the spaces, so it's easy to remove random errors in that respect at least.

That's the whole point of using dividers, no? Step across the board and adjust the dividers until you have a number of exact, equal divisions. No need to measure anything.

 

[bugbear]

Only a newbie here, but I made one of these after I found this, after watching some Paul Sellers videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPb_5KF ... 8pqe3y3ayM

Hah. Sellers may be an Ellis fan - either that or the idea is common practice.

BugBear

 

[Jacob]

Sounds contradictory but dividers can also be set freehand without measuring anything, with surprising precision, and are very fast for marking up the spaces, so it's easy to remove random errors in that respect at least.

That's the whole point of using dividers, no? Step across the board and adjust the dividers until you have a number of exact, equal divisions. No need to measure anything.

Well yes. There are two useful details. You correct the error on you first attempt by dividing (visually) the discrepancy by the number of divisions and adjust the dividers (up or down) by this amount. 2nd attempt usually spot on near enough. The other thing is you can set the width of the pinholes by widening (or narrowing) the dividers by the width, and marching them from both ends - making two marks instead of one. Sounds fussy but it's the work of seconds once you have it.

 

[Grahamshed]

Oh dear, I can sense whats coming but cannot resist.
Why do you want to have your DT exactly the same size and exactly equally spaced ? that will just make them look machine made instead of hand made.

 

[MMUK]

Personally I do like neatness. However, a lot depends on the situation. If the piece is going in a modern setting I will make the dovetails to look like they're machined - evenly spaced and symmetrical. If the setting is more classical I try to make things more subtly random.

 

[David C]

If fine pins vary too much there may be trouble with chisel size bruising the edges of the fine sockets.

Dovetail variation less troublesome.

David

 

[DTR]

Sounds contradictory but dividers can also be set freehand without measuring anything, with surprising precision, and are very fast for marking up the spaces, so it's easy to remove random errors in that respect at least.

That's the whole point of using dividers, no? Step across the board and adjust the dividers until you have a number of exact, equal divisions. No need to measure anything.

Well yes. There are two useful details. You correct the error on you first attempt by dividing (visually) the discrepancy by the number of divisions and adjust the dividers (up or down) by this amount. 2nd attempt usually spot on near enough. The other thing is you can set the width of the pinholes by widening (or narrowing) the dividers by the width, and marching them from both ends - making two marks instead of one. Sounds fussy but it's the work of seconds once you have it.

That's exactly how I do it And once one board is marked out, I transfer the marks off that onto the other board(s)

 

[Jacob]

Oh dear, I can sense whats coming but cannot resist.
Why do you want to have your DT exactly the same size and exactly equally spaced ? that will just make them look machine made instead of hand made.

It depends how you feel on the day!
I had some DTs on a table at a show and one little old woodwork enthusiast asked if they were fake as they looked too perfect like bits of marquetry set in. They were real, freehanded, and funny angles too. :roll:

 

[Trafalgar]

.....
I don't do them freehand because the goal of freehand is something similar to what you get by setting a gauge. So, I skip what more or less amounts to the pretense of doing them freehand and use a marker or a bevel gauge for the angle........

The goal of freehand is to do them really quickly. That's all there is to it. Freehand you can cut all the sides of the pin holes for several sets of drawers in a fraction of the time it take to even do the marking up. Sounds contradictory but dividers can also be set freehand without measuring anything, with surprising precision, and are very fast for marking up the spaces, so it's easy to remove random errors in that respect at least.

It usually takes me a little over an an hour to mark out, cut, fit, and glue the parts for an average drawer in a chest of drawers meant to hold clothes. Dovetailing all the drawers for a five drawer chest of drawers is less than a day's work. That's as fast as I want or need to be and still have the process be moderately enjoyable.

If I skipped using a marker my guess is that I might be able to save a little less than ten minutes per drawer.

Doing these efficiently, for me, means chopping to remove waste (rather than the coping saw/paring chisel cha-cha-cha), slightly undercutting when chopping so as to avoid paring endgrain everywhere except for half-pin sockets on the tail board, and sawing closely enough there so that paring is minimized. Paring end grain for a level floor is too slow. I doubt there has ever been a dovetail joint in the world that has failed because sockets were slightly undercut rather than pared level through the thickness of the workpiece. I see no need to futz with end grain when doing so is easily avoided.

 

[Grahamshed]

Oh dear, I can sense whats coming but cannot resist.
Why do you want to have your DT exactly the same size and exactly equally spaced ? that will just make them look machine made instead of hand made.

It depends how you feel on the day!
I had some DTs on a table at a show and one little old woodwork enthusiast asked if they were fake as they looked too perfect like bits of marquetry set in. They were real, freehanded, and funny angles too. :roll:

Just about every antiques program you see has someone looking at a drawer and saying, yep, that must be old. the dovetails are obviously hand made.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Just a thought, a length of aluminum T section like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-1-2-x-1-1-2 ... 3f239113ad would make many dovetail markers, you could do one for each angle.

Pete

I've done the same thing, but with L-section. I just trimmed it on the mitre saw, which has a good TCT blade. It's so easy, you can have pairs for the complementary angles, label them, drill a hole through and hang them somewhere on a bit of string. Likewise for a 'square' to carry lines across.

Yup, uber-cheapskate mode!



E.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Several years ago I posted here brass dovetail markers I made. I still use them.

There is a set of 4: ratios of 8, 7, 6, and 5.

The section behind the dovetail angle is square. The markers allow one to draw the outline in a single stroke. The marker may also be reversed to scribe a square line.

I find that I prefer the 1:7 ration for drawers where I make slim dovetails. this is a good compromise on a 1:8, which can look like a box joint, and a 1:6, which can be too fat.

Even further back I made this dovetailed dovetail marker for a lark ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[custard]

Moving stuff around in the house. Two chests of drawers. In Every socket the slopes are sawn past the shoulder line.

Best wishes,
David Charlesworth

If I were an Edwardian cabinet maker on piece work rates, with a relaxed foreman, then I'd saw past the line too!

But in this day and age surely the only reason to hand cut dovetails is to do the job really, really well. Which pretty much precludes any sawing past the line.

For everything else there's always Blum!