A Dovetail A Day

Practice Practice Practice

Schwarz wrote an article. I mulled it over. I waited until I had my workbench. I waited until I had my saw. I waited until I had some scrap wood. I waited until I had some free time. I even waited until I had a marking knife and a marking gauge.  It might seem like I waited too long, but I was busy.  I wanted to make sure I had enough room in my brain to really pay attention and learn.

Finally, I started cutting some dovetails by hand. I'm learning little bits here and there, but I think I skipped ahead too fast and I need to go back and do The Night of 100 Cuts, and polish up my sawing before I focus on the more complicated geometry of dovetails.

I'm getting better at handcut dovetails, but the thing I'm noticing is that my sawing isn't square across the board, resulting in a need for paring with a chisel - which introduces errors/gaps.

I keep repeating in my mind Ebenezer's lessons to John Gay, hoping they start to sink in.