The 5 Dovetailing Personalities
I’ve taught a lot of people to cut dovetails through the years, and I’m convinced there are five different personality types of people who learn to cut dovetails. Here is my short list. Morgo [...]
Video: Not Sawing, But Nibbling
Aside from Bender, Zapp Brannigan and Hypnotoad, my favorite character on the show “Futurama” is Nibbler – a cute little alien that can swallow an entire elephant in one bite and then poop [...]
My Trashiest Dovetails in 10 Years
Today my worst nightmare as a teacher came true during a dovetail demonstration. As I knocked together the components of the joint under the watchful eyes of 18 students and two video cameras at [...]
Different Dovetail Joinery
You’ve read a number of posts on this blog about our upcoming book based on furniture, photos and information found at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) and in Old Salem. I’m [...]
Spiral Blades: Good for Dovetailing?
While packing my tools to teach a toolbox class in Germany, I knew two things: 1. The students had to cut a lot of dovetails in 7/8”-thick material. 2. Coping saws are uncommon on the Continent. [...]
An Awfully Tough Build
This weekend, I made a small walnut and maple box. In my six years of woodworking, it’s the toughest project I’ve ever built. Last Friday morning, I had to say goodbye to Cleocatra, [...]
More Hand-cut Dovetail Cheating
This past weekend I was in the magazine shop working on a project for the August issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. The only hint I can give about the project is that the piece I’m working on [...]
Hand-cut Dovetails 2.0 with Rob Cosman
If you’re interested in learning to cut dovetails by hand, boy do you have choices. Google hand-cut dovetail videos and the returns total more than 100,000 (no, I didn’t count them). Yesterday I [...]
New Video: ‘Cheating at Hand-cut Dovetails’
As I’ve written before in this blog, many woodworkers are amazed to learn that I hand-cut my dovetails even though I consider myself mostly a power-tool woodworker – I would say I’m about 70 [...]
Learn Dovetails from the Best
It’s been nearly two decades since I set up a booth for my first show – a Folk Art & Crafts Show held at the Sharonville Convention Center in Ohio. There were just more than 100 [...]
Dueling Dovetails
One of the unsung heroes of our Woodworking in America conference is Mike Siemsen. Mike is an accomplished woodworker and teacher from Minnesota, and his enthusiasm is unmatched. He runs the Hand [...]
