Monday 19 November 2012

Dovetail Alignment Boards


I've run out of my dovetail alignment boards, so time to make some more.
Pictured above is a traditional Sun Child saw with extra hard teeth and a deeper blade than normal saws. With its universal teeth it cuts dovetails in hardwood like a knife through butter. This blade has cut more than 10,000 dovetails and is still going strong!


With the thicker stock, the extra weight of these Barr Quarton chisels comes in very handy. The hard tool steel is wonderful, I only used two chisels on this batch and they held their edges right to the end.


Here I'm removing the waste from the pins with a fine fret saw by Knew Concepts, once you've used one of these you won't want to use any other saw.


Most of the boards went together first time with no paring or filling needed. The dovetails take 20 - 25 minutes to cut and fit in 16mm stock, I wouldn't want to try this without my magnetic guide!


Here are all 11 boards waiting for the fences to be fitted.
The wood I use is a type of Mahogany used for window boards, it is stable and cheap but the rowed grain can be a bit of a pig to plane, it needs light cuts and a razor sharp blade.


3 comments:

  1. David,

    Too bad you don't ship those way over here, been planning to make one for a while, just have not had a chance. Simple but very workable design.

    Rich

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  2. Hi, Richard they are just too bulky to post, the Post Office won't take take it and carriers are in a different price league! All the best, David.

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