Thread: New storage box for chisels

Reminds me of this video.

At the 13 minute mark, he pounds out blind dovetails without effort!


江戸指物 - YouTube

I wish you hadn't posted that, WP!
I've just been struggling with cutting dovetails in some very old, very crumbly red cedar - they did not go together with quite the precision of the ones in that video!

Cheers,

Hehe. Every time I'm feeling a bit good about myself and my skills, I watch these kinds of things.... wellllll shhheeeeettt... Nope. No skill compared to these people.

I thought the way he very casually hammered out those dovetails and banged it together with his hand was unreal.


BTW, I DO enjoy reading your posts very much

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Hehe. ....... and banged it together with his hand.....

That was the bit that got to me - he seemed so nonchalant & confident that the fit was perfect - tight, but evenly so the whole way. We didn't see any preliminary checking or paring, it may have happened off camera, but I suspect it wasn't necessary.

I always proceed very carefully with the test-fit, a few thumps of the fist, then check all is well, a couple more whacks & check again, etc. It's too easy to saw one or two sockets with an ever-so-slight taper that (depending on how hard the wood is) can jam 3/4 of the way home. And if that happens on an outside socket & I get too enthusiastic, the half-pin can split away. Had it happen too many times in my early career, so I always pay particular attention when sawing those two outside sockets. My old cabinetmaker mentor used to say "split the line" for these cuts to get a clean, but not-too tight fit. That's tricky enough when your eyesight is excellent, but far more challenging when you can barely see where the wretched line is!

I'm sure if you spent 9 hours a day cutting joints you'd be able to do similar feats with ease after a year or three.....

Cheers,

P.S. One useful tip I took away from the video (I'm actually pleased you linked it, thankyou! ), was the way he finished the mitre on the blind D/Ts. He pared the two ends with his simple paring-guide to a perfect 45*, then planed the wood in-between to match. I have always pared the whole mitre with a long chisel, but it's quite difficult to get a perfectly flat, even mitre that way, so on my next set I'll be copying his method. So simple when you think of it, I just didn't...

Hi Derek,
a question for you - do the rare earth magnets cause the chisel blades to become magnetized to any degree?
Thanks
Paul

Paul, not that I have noticed - but perhaps it is too soon to know (only about 9 months).



Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by IanW

P.S. One useful tip I took away from the video (I'm actually pleased you linked it, thankyou! ), was the way he finished the mitre on the blind D/Ts. He pared the two ends with his simple paring-guide to a perfect 45*, then planed the wood in-between to match. I have always pared the whole mitre with a long chisel, but it's quite difficult to get a perfectly flat, even mitre that way, so on my next set I'll be copying his method. So simple when you think of it, I just didn't...

Not a full blind mitre, but the principal is the same ...

For chiseling, use a mitre guide. This is just a 45 degree saw cut. I made a double-ended guide - to use on opposing sides ..





Mitred through dovetails with inner bevels ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

Derek, yes, I've used a similar guide for trimming glazing bars etc. often enough. But for some reason I hadn't managed the small leap of logic required to apply it to blind dovetails. When I saw the way the man in the video did his mitre, I just had that "of course!" moment.

As I said, obvious once you've thought of it, but at that point, I hadn't....
Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

P.S. One useful tip I took away from the video (I'm actually pleased you linked it, thankyou! ), was the way he finished the mitre on the blind D/Ts. He pared the two ends with his simple paring-guide to a perfect 45*, then planed the wood in-between to match. I have always pared the whole mitre with a long chisel, but it's quite difficult to get a perfectly flat, even mitre that way, so on my next set I'll be copying his method. So simple when you think of it, I just didn't...

Ian . Interesting plane set up . A skewed rebate with a guide fitted on the side to slide on the DT ends.


2.jpg 3.jpg

This sort of plane by the looks .

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Any ideas what you may use to do the same thing ?

sure does look like one of those Kiwa Ganna, with a fence screwed on that's cut at 45° to ensure the inside face of the cabinet is perfectly flush and kept true.

Capture.JPG
I'd think a Skew Block plane and fence would do the job, and be easier to set up! e.g. Veritas Skew Block Plane RH with A2 Blade (New - Unused)

Watching these videos CONSANTLY reminds me I don't need 80% of the crap I have.

Originally Posted by auscab

Ian . Interesting plane set up . A skewed rebate with a guide fitted on the side to slide on the DT ends....

...Any ideas what you may use to do the same thing ?

Rob, I haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking for just one small box or similar, I could get away with using a small shoulder plane & just carefully plane down the mitre freehand after establishing each end with a guide & chisel. I don't have any rebates to which I could easily attach a fence (I suppose I could add an angled fence to my 78 but it's a bit too crude for this sort of job, I reckon). I think I could manage without a fence, if I worked very carefully and it should still be easier & more accurate than paring them with a long chisel as I've done in the past. Having a guide of some sort would make the operation safer & easier, no doubt, so maybe instead of a fence on the plane, clamp a guide to the workpiece?

Dunno - it's one of those things that I need to actually do - it might turn out to be a lot less easy than I visualise. I'm curious now so I'm going to have to find some small project that needs full-blind d/ts & give it a go sometime soon.

Of course, another alternative would be to make a plane specifically for the job, but that would be too OTT even for me, so I don't think that's going to happen. I've done full-blinds exactly twice in the last 30 years, so I don't think I'll do that many more before I put down the tools for the last time....

Cheers,
Ian

The greatest problem with full blind dovetails is that they require a video show each time you show off a piece of furniture that uses them.

Who is to believe you? Well, I recall the story of a German cabinetmaker in his final examination (all require a Master's degree to practice), who handed in a case he stated had been made with full blind dovetails. He had laboured over this piece for months. Now everyone believed him, and it was true that he had done so, however the examining committee were obliged to saw off a corner of the cabinet to ensure that this was indeed so.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

.... the examining committee were obliged to saw off a corner of the cabinet to ensure that this was indeed so.....

I guess that's bureaucracy for you!

One way to tell would be to simply wait a while - a simple mitre is bound to let go under a bit of stress sooner or later, but a well-made set of blind D/Ts should hold, even if the glue deteriorates a little.

But seriously, there is a way to tell a simple mitre from a set of blind dovetails. If you examine the inside corners very carefully, the corner of a clean mitre will form a straight line. With dovetails, you will usually see that they don't form a perfect straight line, there will be tiny dips where the socket edges are, due to very slight bruising or because the chisel moved back a teeny fraction. It may be very subtle for a well-made joint & you need to know what to look for to spot it, but I reckon it would be exceedingly difficult to get the inside line of the corners so perfect that not the slightest hint of a socket was visible. And of course if it really matters, get it X-rayed, that'll settle the question....

Apart from paring the mitred edges of each part of the joint to perfection, the most difficult part of doing full-blind dovetails that I found was scribing the pins accurately after cutting the tails. I have only made thin box sides, and seeing what I was marking & getting some sort of scriber in the tiny gaps available was tricky. Iirc, I ended up sharpening the end of a long thin scribe into a knife-edge. It should be quite a bit easier with 19mm thick material for a full-sized chest carcase, but I haven't made any full-blinds at that scale - plenty of half-blinds, but they are a doddle by comparison.....
Cheers,

Dear Derek
Love your work! I've only recently cut my first through dovetail with mitred top corners. I had to pare down the mitres to finesse the fit of the dovetails, as expected. How do you do that task? I have read of a mitred shoulder paring block but get stumped on how to make one with power tools and worry about its accuracy if made and tuned up with hand tools ( & have the same hesitancy in the construction of a donkey ear shooting board).
Regards
Adrian from Glebe