Calling It Good

The tail side of the dovetail.

Ok, so the tails I decided after some deliberation, to cut on the WoodRat.  Took some experimentation to do it since the weight of the wood exceeds the capacity of the WoodRat.

They make this large high speed steel dovetail bit with an elegant slope to the cut.  In solid wood it just cuts so nice and easily.  I did hog out most of the cut first with a straight bit and came back with the dovetail bit to sliver off the angle.

 It came out beautifully.

The pin side of the dovetail.

The white tape method proved to be workable so I employed it on the pin side as well.

There are many methods of hand cutting and I don't always do it the same way each time.  But this time I did it like this.

This is a handmade rip Dozuki from Hida Tools in Berkeley.  

I committed to cutting to the line rather than wide of it and sneaking up on the line with chisels.

After the saw cuts I roughed out the top portion with a chisel to about a 1/16" from the back edge.

Sharpened the chisel for the final cut to the finished line.  Roughly halfway through the top side.

Flipped the board over (with the help of Paulie) and did the same to the bottom.
Got ahold of Paulie again and he biked back to flip back with the good side up.   Initial test to see if the pin side aligns with the tail side.

Surprisingly not much fiddling to do.

I usually don't do a total dry fit as it's hard to get apart most of time.  So I push it in a bit to see if it will go.  And I'm calling it good.  Will glue it up on the jobsite.