Donzoid

I read somewhere that dovetails with a few smaller pins shows off a woodworkers abilities. But it seems like this would make a much weaker joint than lots of evenly spaced dovetails. Back before they had power tools I can see why less dovetails would be practical.

Any opinions ?

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Joe Lyddon

IMHO, usually when you see them like that, the wood used is high quality and on the harder side, not soft & weak, and have a tendancy to be good & strong at the same time of 'showing off'.

I like dovetails... With a little practice, they're fun to cut by hand also... More sense of accomplishemnt too.

Roefa

None of my hand-cut dovetails ever measured up to what I thought was "true craftsmanship." I tried and tried; practiced a bunch. I finally quit trying and just use the routers and dovetail jigs. Saves me a lot of frustration, grumbling and self-admonition. Ha !

R

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Donzoid

Last night, for fun, I tried cutting a 1/4" mortise in poplar with a chisel. My hand cramped up and I hadn't even gotten 1/4" deep. I think I'm also a power-tool guy.

Joe Lyddon

One of these days, I'm going to try using this Band saw jig for dovetails... doesn't look too bad.

http://www.woodworkstuff.net/bsdtj.html