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1st Attempt at Dovetails

3K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  bigredc 
#1 ·
With my incra Ultra:



Looks decent right?

I’m not showing you the hammer it took to get this together… Or this:





So I learned a few things tonight.

1) If a test cut with two dovetails is a “little tight” a row of tails is going to be VERY tight. I thought I had it perfect, but this is a live and learn situation.

2) If I find pieces of poplar that are far enough away from each other in color (heart wood vs. sap wood) I won’t have to stain of dye the corner posts (I was attempting a corner post dovetail box).

Oh well, tomorrow I try again!
 
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#6 ·
Hand Cut? What's that? :)

While the Incra documentation is GREAT, I think it was a little deceiving to test the bit depth with 1 ½ dovetails as the write ups show. My 1 ½ tails fit together very snug and I thought I hit the nail on the head. When it came to putting together a row of them, well you see what happened. I’ll do my next test cuts with 3-4 tails instead to get a better idea of how the final cuts panels will go together.

Good news is I have plenty of left over wood for a few more test corners. Once I “perfect” my technique I’ll attempt a box.
 
#7 ·
Tonight’s effort:



While not perfect, I at least got the bit height closer to where it should be. Maybe it was a little loose this time. I dyed the post with India Ink.

This boosted my confidence high enough to go out and buy another piece of lumber to try 4 sides of a box next!

I’ll report back when I have something together.
 
#9 · (Edited)
hello nickbee and all, i notice on your first set of pics that your wood you was using was`nt the same thickness througout the width of your board it gets narrower where the problem dts are (at least thats what it looks like:smile: )that could of been the problem. also a small tip if you`re not already doing so put a piece of timber across the row of dts when hammering them home it will reduce the chance of you getting tearouts plus you`ll get a more even force acroos the width.
 
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