Dovetail practice

[Deronys]

Hi all,

I'm looking for recommendations on affordable (cheap?) wood to practice cutting dovetails in. Pine is too soft, I've been using free meranti that i had laying around but noticed that chiseling the waste often crushes the fibers.

Anyone have recommendations? Thank you

[elanjacobs]

Standard hardware store hardwood (vic ash/tas oak) should do.

If you're crushing the fibres it might be time for a sharpen. Taking shallower cuts will also help, as will using a slicing action instead of a chopping action where possible.

[tonzeyd]

I find pine to be perfect for practicing on. As getting good dovetails requires good sawing technique. Ie ability to saw to a line, wood species is irrelevant when learning this.

Second Elanjacobs comments, if you're crushing fibres you need a sharper chisel or take off smaller slivers. Which is also why sawing to a line is important, as it means less cleanup after.

[Deronys]

I thought I had replied to this.

Thanks for the tips. Smaller slivers (~0.5mm) did indeed make a difference.

I have some 63x19mm tassie oak left over so ill play with that as well. Doing my first dovetails in 42x8mm meranti probably wasn't the best shot at a good result, but a real project is always more exciting.

And tonzeyd, you're right, my sawing leaves a lot to be desired. For some reason i thought the Irwin dovetail saw from bunnings would be good to practice with, but its limitations are its tiny size. It's difficult to ensure vertical and square. I'm looking at a Gyokucho 372 or 311 as my next purchase.

[woodhog]

A local cabinet shop has a dumpster full of free scrap wood. Make a few phone calls.