The old timer at the lumber yard showed me something I still use 15 years later.

Back in 2009 I was struggling with drawer joinery at a shop in Pittsburgh. An older guy named Pete came over and watched me fight with a loose tenon setup for a minute. He just said 'son, sometimes the old ways are the fast ways' and walked me through cutting half-blind dovetails by hand. I still do dovetails that way on every custom piece, and it's saved me so much time and frustration. Has anyone else had a random encounter like that change their whole approach?

2 comments

2 Comments

avery_roberts6715d ago

Sometimes the old ways are the fast ways" - that stuck with me too. I was building kitchen cabinets and getting twisted up with dowel jigs until a retired carpenter showed me to just use a sharp marking knife and a good chisel. No messing with setup blocks or spacers. For half-blind dovetails, are you still doing the whole saw and chop method, or have you found a trick for the waste removal that keeps your chisel from slipping? I use a router plane for the bottom of the pins, speeds things up a ton.

theaw6515d ago

Hold up. I'm going the other way on this one. A router plane for half blinds feels like bringing a weed whacker to trim your fingernails. I'll take the extra ten minutes to chop by hand because the router always leaves those little fuzzy edges that snag on everything, and then I'm back with a chisel anyway to clean it up. Plus the noise and dust just kills the whole zen thing for me.