Put a square on it and see if the bottom cut is off or the drawer face is bowed.

 

Are you hand cutting or using a "store bought" dovetail jig?

Most jigs come with instructions of how to correct this problem.

George

 

George I'm using. Hand saw

 

Very commendable keeping up the old ways. Cutting dovetail joints are just difficult. It's how the dovetail joint became popular. A couple hundred years ago adhesives weren't so good so the solution to keep a drawer box from coming apart was the dovetail joint. Because then all of them were done by hand and difficult people used to judge the skill of the craftsman by his dovetail joints. The assumption was if his dovetail joints were good the rest of the woodwork would be equality as good. From then good dovetails were a sign of quality. Now fast forward to now the machinery today can make perfectly fitting dovetail joints you could almost train a monkey to run it but still people look to the dovetail as a sign of quality. Now today with modern adhesives the dovetail is not necessary and actually produces a weaker joint than a butt joint. The joint will last for decades without any repairs and those drawers that do have the dovetail the pins normally break off requiring you to replace the drawer sides to make the repair.

 

Consider when making dovetails, it is most important to scribe the cutting lines with a very sharp marking knife - rather than a pencil which IMO leaves a wider line. Be safe.

 

I've been making "drawer lock" joints with my shaper for over 40 years and have never had one come apart. I do have an Omnijig, but the shaper is much faster

 

Does anyone have any insight towards the gaps in the base line? Lol

 

Did you try putting a square on the joint. The part in your left hand may have a slight cup warp or perhaps you cut a little too much off the bottom part of the side.

 

Yes. I think the baselines are not square where chisel down

 

You did better than I would have. I go years between occasions I use a hand saw.

 

First, nice job! The fit on those looks quite good, despite the gap.

I've had a few issues lead to base-line gaps.

1) Cutting below the line. This is easily the problem I have most often. Especially on the edge of the board, it's easy to cut in just a little too deep, which means there will be a gap.

2) Not cutting square across. Is there a gap on the inside? If not, you angled the cut a little bit.

There are others, but they don't actually make sense here. On this board, I'd check to see if there's a gap inside. If so, you cut below the line. If not, you didn't make the cut square across the tail board.