Thread: Trimming a dovetail to fit

hi there Dengy, hang in there , gifkins is a great D/T jig , like all tools has a learning curve and tiny errors can produce ill fitting joints like you describe . Pare the pins as you mentioned , fit will be perfect, im up to 50 boxes or so and still get out the instructions and double check every step, cheers rossco

Thanks for the encouragement, Rossco, very much appreciated.

I put the offending board back in the jig ( luckily I had left it set up) and run it again, not much difference there, but swapped the sides around until I got a better fit, but this time with a gap or two, so collected lots of fine sawdust for filling the gap later with PVA glue.

I find that my neglect of basic hand tool skills has caught up with me.

Spent the afternoon making the top and base for the box, these two each having 4mm grooves around the rim which fit in 4mm grooves around the top and bottom of the box perimeter, like the sketch below. The fit was so tight that after dry assembling the box with top and base fitted, it took me over an hour to separate the box, and in doing so broke off the 4mm wide top edge of one of the box sides. Will work on the top and base tomorrow to make it a better fit with room to move with expansion and contraction.box lid.JPG

HI Dengy,if your not doing the shooting board thing to trim the base and lid,cant think of a better way as half a mill can make all the difference, also chamfer the edges to start the fit as these will be hidden.Also difficult to fit 4mil edge into a 4mil trench, little sanding or trimming there helps cheers Rossco

Found the main problem, as rossco points out, is to make a 4mm top edge fit into a 4mm groove, so I lowered the slotting bit by smidgeon of a mm and re-did the grooves on the top and bottom of the box, and on the lid and base, and it all fits quite freely

The top edges now measure 3.8mm, and the groove 4.2mm, and is neat fit.

Still not game to dry assemble the box, as it is so difficultt to separate when it is all closed up - no finger grips to prose the dovetails open

Hi Dengy, perhaps if you dry fit the lid and in a separate op dry fit the base you can be confident that they will fit together and proceed with the glue up.unlike most of the box making crew i use a fine flush cut saw, mine from Stuie from tools from japan, to remove the proud pins,fine sanding is usually neccessary in any event with finger marks etc.I prefer another gifkins design due to that double lid / base prob. dont mean to hijack , sorry rosscoP1050189.jpgP1050184.jpg

thanks for the suggestion of a double dry assembly, woodsurfer, makes sense

I agree with the use of a flush cutting saw, that's what I ended up using as stated in my other thread here.

I liked the box you made, looks really neat. What are the timbers, and what hinges and stays did you use