Several readers requested a video on how I remove dovetail pin waste with a drill press. Today I was making more dovetails for my next campaign chest and shot this short video. Enjoy! Or hate!
Read the post and see the video here.
— Christopher Schwarz
Nice! Thanks so much for sharin’. I’m glad I have my drill press. And it looks like you’re happy you kept yours. 🙂
how did you hold the camera and move the wood and operate the drill press? Strapped to your head, tripod or assistant?
I shoot and edit my own stuff with the help of a tripod.
You edit with a tripod?
Whats with the over-butchered saw cuts? Maybe my prima donna posterior doesn’t dig any appearance of sloppiness. Or maybe I learned to file a square edge on my card scraper to remove the burr and produce sharp edges, then slide it into the saw kerf and hammer it to the baseline (crushes the fibers instead of splitting the board). Either way, using the quieter spinny thing is less nerve racking than the trim screamer.
Take a look inside (yes, INSIDE, those over cuts won’t be readily visible) a vintage piece. Chris isn’t being lazy or sloppy (well not in this instance anyway), his technique is historically accurate.
Sure, so were beavered tails. Hurried craftsmen working for a paycheck often look for ways to justify the means. There has always been rough work, and insides don’t show until you look for them. Pick up a philadelphia chair, notice how the rough bowsaw cuts were left on. But, given that the majority of people reading this are hobbyists (and by that I mean doing it for the pleasure of it) shouldn’t we emulate the best craftsman of yesteryear, rather than follow the path of the workaday craftsmen?
Graham,
I’ve seen overcuts in the finest pieces, including Shaker and lots of 18th c high-style pieces at Winterthur.
I’ve used the scraper method and it indeed works. This is personal preference grounded in my own experience with antiques.
Graham,
If building for ourselves, I think we should do whatever we like.
Chris
It needs to be said again:
The pieces I build are for other people. The way I build them is for me.
You make it look easy!!
fair enough. Try the scraper method for kicks. Yes, it is a tad slower than plowing on through with the saw, and in show work, it may be worth it. in the blind recesses of a case corner, maybe not. We can all use a little feedback, positive and negative, to encourage each other to do our best.
Don’t like seeing a hand used as a hammer – yeah, we all do it. But my surgeon tells me that’s part of the reason why my hands have bone damage and cause me pain. He’ll be fusing a few bones in the heel of my hands and putting a screw or two soon. Take care of your hands.
Chris is that an Incra Wonderfence?
No clue. A friend of mine gave it to me a decade ago. I’ve never even looked at the brand name.
Hi,
Very nice use of your tools! Your final, very brief clean-up, with a flat “fish-tail” chisel (gouge) was probably the most “out-of-range” behavior for most of us. I have wood-carving tools though, so I myself, would forgive it. Using your drill press is a no-brainer though.
Have a nice day,
Antti
Chris, do you ever use this method on through dovetails? I guess you’d have to flip the board and come in from both directions to avoid chipout. Or, because of how fast you can cut away with a fretsaw, would this not be as much of a time saver on a through dovetail?
Chris,
I just use a coping saw to clear waste in through-dovetails. I tried the drill press for it – once. It is very hard to aim the bit when you are working on the exterior of the carcase. You have to bring some lines around…. For me, a coping saw is faster.
It’s nice to have a vacum going to suck away the chips. I got a cheap one from Peach Tree Woodworking Supply: http://ptreeusa.com/dpdustcollector.htm
Vacuum… one of the letters got sucked away with the chips.
It doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you get there!
I always thought the drill press was the most underrated tool in the shop. I wanted to post this the last time you blogged about it but, wow, the complaining. It would personally be the first power tool I’d buy.
Really great post! Thanks for sharing.