I’ve never been one to learn the basics and progress level by level in order to reach my goal, I always want to get to business straight away. I’ve been like that all my life and not planning on changing. Has my ”stragedy” failed me? Abso-fucken-lutely, but it had also worked more times than not.
My latest obsession is home improvement and I want to learn how to make my own cabinets that fit my exact needs and wants. Longterm goal is to perform a complete kitchen renovation myself, cabinets and all but I have other storage needs first.
I have quite a few pieces of antique furniture and I have always loved how well they are build and admire the beautiful dovetail joints on the drawers. I really do believe it’s the proper way to make drawers that actually last daily use for a century (or two).
And so like the maniac I am, I decided to try doing a dovetail joint with basically no actual experience in woodworking. While this is not running to make a complete chest of drawer like I’d want to, it’s definitely not a woodworking skill one should start with.
11pm:
2am:
4.15am:
6.40am: DONE!
After 8 hours, one thriller audiobook, two alcoholic bevarages, numb shoulder and fingers (still numb after two days) and few drops of blood, this is what I have to show for it.
Final notes and observations:
Dovetails are very difficult, but not impossible. I might be able to do a nice box with basic dovetail joints one day but when I eventually renovate our kitchen, I’ll buy a router and a dovetail jig for the sake of my sanity, what ever is left of it.
The joint looks looser than it actually is. Since it’s very uneven the tails are fatter in the middle so it’s actually pretty snug but just doesn’t look very pretty. If I were to put this to use with little glue I think it would actually last very well.
Pine was a shitty choise because it’s so soft with big open grain that it went to mush very easily. Might work if doing a really tight joint and then using brute force. I’ll try that and/or move to birch.
I’m absolutely rubbish at sawing! I’ve hand sawn maybe 5 times in my life and it shows, go figure.
I need to get a really good joinery saw. I used a Ryoba saw the man had but I really did not like it at all and ended up just using a shitty coping saw which was more accurate in my hands but painfully slow.
It would be helpful to have more different size chisels and a sawing quide but it’s not necessary.