Dovetail Daily: Day's 19-25

By matthew

Aug 26, 2012

So my goal of posting a daily write up and picture of the latest dovetail seems to be getting off to a rocky start. I could go into all the finer ~~excuses~~ details but I won't bore you with them. However I do have one good excuse, and that is that I've been busily working on several stock items for the Etsy shop as well as a custom order or two. So my procrastination hasn't been all for naught.

Still...

I have no excuse and I promise to do better. Pinky swear!

With that behind us, lets take a look at this weeks dovetails so far.

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Day 25

A couple of trivia points for you: Day 23 was another distracted day and as such a distracted joint. Thankfully it wasn't too bad and still fit fairly tight, but it could have been better. Day 21 was cut in less than 3 minutes as I raced out the door to cover an emergency at the day job (in this case, night job as it resulted in essentially working a double, of which one shift was the grave shift...yuck!) Even still I was able to focus and churn out a decent joint. What's even better is that the following day after a few hours of sleep and still dead tired I was able to cut a really nice joint...hmmmm maybe that's the secret to fine woodworking, do it when you're tired. It would certainly help thin out the herd a little, what with natural selection and power tools and all.

I wish I had some progress on a new set of chisels that I could gush over for you, but that didn't happen either. Not so much for my drooling over my keyboard as I searched out various makers of Western and Japanese version, but more for the lack of the all mighty dollar. It's amazing what a good quality tool costs, but once you make that investment it's sure to pay dividends for the rest of your life. The problem is just coming up with the cash for that initial investment. Either way, I hope to have something in the mail this week (cause I need to make this a reality sooner than later). I'm seriously considering picking up a set of the re-release of Stanley Sweetheart 750's. I've heard good and bad about these, but at the price I've found them , I don't think I can say no. If I have my way, these will be my go to utility/all around chisels while I slowly build up my stock of Japanese chisels. I'm also seriously considering placing an order 2 or 3 Iyoroi Blue Steel Japanese versions to assist with my dovetailing processes. So with fingers crossed that this is the path I'm heading down this week, I think I'll head back out to the shop now.

Tags: Daily, Wood, Woodworking, soft wood, Dovetail, dovetail daily, year, year of the dovetail
Posted in Let's Talk Wood, Daily Dovetail | 0 Responses to "Dovetail Daily: Day's 19-25"

Dovetail Daily: Day 11-18

By matthew

Aug 19, 2012

This week has absolutely just slipped right past me. One minute I'm prepping to head to a Board meeting in Wisconsin and the next I'm not due to a cancellation. But man what a week it's been. Between the day job and trying to stock up my Etsy presence things have just gotten away from me.

So with that behind us lets take a peek at day's 11-18...yeah..that would be a weeks worth of postings...

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

As the days have passed by I've found that my saw and chisel work is getting stronger and I'm much more confident in my cuts. I have also noticed that if I'm not into the process in any way that the joint suffers immensely. I'm not sure what happened but on day 15 I completely lost focus and the joint is probably one of my worst yet. It's big, gappy and lopsided. If I'm not careful in how I hold the pieces it will just fall apart into two shamed chunks of wood on my bench top...yeah...it's that bad. But I recovered on the last few days and things are back to a nice tight fit with tight joint lines all the way around.

As I start digging deeper and deeper into this process I'm finding that my original set of Crown bench chisels; while they have served me very well over the years, are limiting my progress. They don't hold an edge quite as long as I would like to see...even cutting in soft material like the pine I'm currently cutting the daily dovetail in they are blunting far to quickly. I'm also having trouble with the side bevels being too thick. While the overall thickness of the chisel is nice and gives some great stability I find myself having to be extra diligent that I'm not denting the edges of my tail boards as I cut away the waste. I think one of the next shop purchase is going to be a few nicer chisels. Some Lie Nielson's maybe, or perhaps a trial run of the new Stanley Sweethearts, or maybe I'll delve into the world of Japanese chisels, either way I think I need to make my purchase as soon as possible as my work for Etsy and various clients is suffering from the limitation of my Crown pieces as well.

Now if you'll excuse me I have a dovetail to go cut...

Tags: Daily, Woodworking, soft wood, Dovetail, dovetail daily, year, year of the dovetail
Posted in Let's Talk Wood, Daily Dovetail | 0 Responses to "Dovetail Daily: Day 11-18"

Dovetail Daily: Day 10

By matthew

Aug 10, 2012

Today's dovetail actually came together very nicely and only required a slight paring of the pins to fit snugly together. I think I might be getting the hang of dovetailing in soft woods.

Alright, in all honesty I have no idea really if dovetails are harder to cut in soft or hardwoods. Both are challenging but for me at least I seem to have more success much more quickly with harder woods. For some reason the soft stuff is proving more of a challenge. Might be due to the fact that I've never really had any formal training in cutting the joint other than a few tips from my grandfather on how to lay it out and cut it. His method of teaching was more along the lines of learn by doing and he would correct what he thought needed it. Other than that I was on my own. I've just recently picked the process back up (a few years ago with the production of the bow front kane tsugi table) and what a way to pick up the old torch...half blind angled dovetails. The first set I had cut in years...in fact probably the first set I had cut since those days monkeying around in my grandfathers shop. Not sure where I'm going with this thought; it's just one of those sweet memories that you let linger a moment longer before getting back to work.

Anyway, I'm glad that I've jumped back into dovetails. There's just something greatly satisfying about cutting this joint, especially when it fits snug darn near right off the saw.

Day 10

Tags: Daily, soft wood, Dovetail, dovetail daily, year, year of the dovetail, hardwood, hard wood, grandpa, grandfather
Posted in Let's Talk Wood, Daily Dovetail | 0 Responses to "Dovetail Daily: Day 10"

Dovetail Daily: Day 9

By matthew

Aug 09, 2012

Let's take a peek at day 9 in our Year of Dovetails. Nothing special today...no frills and no hoopla. Just a dovetail, plain and simple.

Day 9

I was lucky enough to come across a couple more sticks of this lovely extra soft pine to keep me challenged for at least another week. Should be interesting...don't you think?

Tags: Daily, Wood, Woodworking, Pine, soft wood, Dovetail, dovetail daily, year, year of the dovetail
Posted in Daily Dovetail | 0 Responses to "Dovetail Daily: Day 9"

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