Thread: Dovetail markers - good guide?

Ian, having made the Seller's pattern template I doubt I'll ever bother fiddling around with making anything more complex. It was so easy to make and comfortable to use I can't see the need for anything more complex. I just offer up another of Wearing's suggestions as an option. I use the marking method he describes for keeping track of drawer elements during construction and I haven't gone wrong yet when doing multiples.

I have no desire to aim for a machine production looking result myself. It seems as long as the saw cuts are square to the board and the marking of the mating pin or socket is done accurately from the matching piece, there is not a lot that can go wrong.

I don't have the muscle memory to make a consistent angle cut without a guide mark but I have tried the all by eye approach without any layout lines other than the board thickness before and even with the resulting somewhat irregular dovetails all seem to have looked and worked and held well enough. I doubt 1:6 1:7 1:8 etc is really all that critical and as you say the pin spacing is as much a matter of design aesthetic as structural integrity.