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“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
— Abraham Lincoln
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Sometime this week we are going to open the pre-order window for our new HP6v2 Tapered Sliding Dovetail System. Thanks to all who commented last week regarding this tool. This has really been a rewarding project–the very thought of making an extraordinarily difficult joint brain-dead easy really excites me.
Because this concept is new, actually foreign might be more descriptive, I thought it would be helpful to answer some of the many questions that we have received (in addition to those unanswered questions on this Totally Awesome and Worthless blog)…in no particular order
Why did you spend time developing this tool?
Tapered sliding dovetails are almost always made with a router, and that is how I made them years ago. I thought the HP6v2 could do the job, and always wondered why the traditional methods left so much to be desired. It is a hard tool to do research on but I did find a little tidbit in The Handplane Book by Garrett Hack where he does not share much love for the Stanley 444. I have never seen this plane up close and personal but the solution seems primitive to me. I don’t know, I just assigned myself the challenge of finding an easy solution–it is an incredibly useful joint that is grossly underused.
Will this system do stopped dovetails?
Yes but it is not obvious. Simply band or add material to the edge where you do not want to see the joint after assembly. This will take a bit of planning but works well.
Can I make dovetails shorter than .300″?
Yes, but you are on your own in making the shims for the soles. Totally doable.
What if I don’t want centered dovetails?
No problem–you just need to figure out your centerlines. This entire system works on centerlines.
Does the joint lock together where I might not need glue?
A 1/2 degree tapered dovetail self-locks and frankly they sometimes are easier to assemble than take apart. So yes it locks.
Can you go through the steps again?–I have read your blog a dozen times and it is still not completely clear how this works to me.
You start by making the male dovetail first as in ALWAYS. There is no debate here. The dovetail sole of the HP-6v2 is fixed to cut a dovetail that is 0.300″ tall. You set the iron to cut about 0.005″ (it cuts from the side, not the bottom) and attach either one or two tapered dovetail guides to your stock with clamps. Next identify the end of your stock that will be at the back (we always slide dovetails from back to front). Next, you will set the fence so the cutter just makes a clean dovetail at the back (the dovetail gets narrower towards the front). The idea (most of the time) is to remove as little material as possible. Cut until the plane quits cutting and repeat on the other side–when completely, your tapered sliding make dovetail will be centered on your stock.
Now we empirically determine the narrow dovetail width using the dovetail gage. This gage needs to be flush with the front of your stock. Lock in place and slide off.
Using a caliper, measure the distance between the flanges on the top of the dovetail gage. This is the width of the groove you need to make for the female dovetail.
Let’s say that width is .582″. At this width you need the 1/2″ dado in the HP-6v2, under .5″ you use the 3/8″ dado kit. (We really do recommend using a second body for this joint to avoid breaking down and resetting the dovetail kit.) Retract the iron, set it in the setup gage and drop the depth fences to the top of the gage and lock all four screws. Next set the iron to cut about 0.002″.
Using our new Adjustable Fence, set the Vernier to 0.00″. Using a square, lock the fence exactly 1″ away from the centerline where you want the female dovetail.
Now here is the really cool part; once the fence is clamped to your stock, adjust the fence 0.041″ (one half of 0.082″–we are only dealing with the material in excess of .5″). And make your first complete plow cut. When complete, adjust the fence to the exact same setting on the other side of zero and make the remaining groove cut. Your 0.582″ wide groove is now complete and centered. How cool is that? You NEVER need to unclamp the fence from your stock.
Take the locked dovetail gage and place the flange into your groove–it should fit perfectly, a nice, no wiggle fit. Make sure it is flush with the front face of your stock and the arrows are aligned correctly indicating that the gage sides are indeed narrow at the front and wide at the back.
Next, clamp some straight wooden guides to your stock with the edges aligned with both edges of the dovetail guide. This guide knows the “geometry” of the dovetail sole. Once the guides are in place, start cutting until the sides of the plane rub on the guides and quit cutting. That is it. Your joint should go together dead perfect.
John, I don’t like the idea of setting the tapered dovetail guide with that red gage. It looks like a major pain in the ass. Can’t you do better?
I hear you. Two changes; one we are going to offer the tapered guides in two lengths, 12″ and 24″ so you have a choice. And for those that don’t want to do two clamp ups for a single male dovetail, we have modified the design as below, the little orange hangers will be an accessory for those that want them. Once clamped, slide them off and plane up one side and down the other with two guides clamped in place. And for you picky DSN members, here are the guides in gray… we may go back to purple just to be ornery.
I don’t understand the geometry of the iron–care to explain??
First, the dovetail walls are 10 degrees off vertical. The iron is bedded at 55 degrees in the HP-6v2 body. The “V” groove combined with a 15 degree back bevel creates an edge angle of 26.6 degrees, and we do not use a micro-bevel.
The iron works exactly like a skewed block plane, and in this case, the skew is 35 degrees. Combined with the bed angle of 55 degrees, the actual attack angle of the edge is 40.2 degrees. This is a great compromise for doing the male and female cutting of the joint. Here is an example of how much little material is actually removed to create the dovetail–depending on your material and blade setting, it might take anywhere from 8-15 passes per side, but they are light passes;
“Where do the shavings go?
Think of the HP-6v2 Dovetail Kit as a block plane on it’s side. The front throat is adjustable and shavings exit the other side which has been relieved for that purpose.
“How long will that little scoring cutter last?
I don’t know–depends on the material and frequency of use. It does not spin, so when it gets dull, rotate it about a 10 degrees.
“Will the tapered sliding dovetail kit fit the old brass body?
No.
“What can go wrong using this system?
From a math perspective, and as long as our components are in tolerance, any error will be user error.
“Will spare irons be available?
I tried my hardest to make this a dual iron but it didn’t work out. Now, this may come across as blatant hucksterism, but this is one kit where we actually recommend a spare iron. There I said it.
Thanks for the questions! If you have more let us know and I will update this post. Lastly, we are really excited about this plane kit. Literally one of the most difficult joints to do by hand is now almost as easy as a rabbet joint. The secret is this little iron, which by the way, now will allow us to design a kit for making “T” slots in wood. 🙂
–John
“Will Peter be getting a kit?”
John,
I have only used a sliding dovetail on two projects: a music stand, for the legs; and a dresser for the drawer frames to the case. I used my least favorite tool, the router and I didn’t taper them. Thinking this through and please tell me if I’m off base, but it seems to me that setting up and dialing in a router to make a sliding dovetail, might actually take more time than using this kit. Although once you had it setup, you could blast them out all day- all peace shattering, music less, dusty day!
-Rutager
Rutager-
You might be right. I have made about 30 of them, most common use was in making desks where the cabinet insides were hung via sliding dovetails from the top.
Also used them on cases where I needed the shelves to keep the sides true–no clamping cauls required which is great for a one-person shop!
-John
John,
Not just a “T” slot, but any profile that undercuts. How cool would a locking tambour joint be that was made by hand?
Rutager (Always thinking.)
John,
I think I have finally got everything figured out; the last piece of the puzzle for me was that I couldn’t figure out how the adjustable fence, that is only adjustable to a half inch could work if you placed it one inch away from center. It needs to be one inch away to take into account the width of the HP-6 and skids, right? Please tell me I’m right, then all will be understood.
Rutager
Rutager,
Your second bingo of the day!
Congrats!
John
PS: our new motto should be “We Will Undercut Everybody-Literally!”
A locking tambour is totally doable..I think. Cool idea.
Not so fast cowboy,
Making the locking tambour would obligate you to design a hand tool to cut a curved track too.
Best,
Rutager
No it wouldn’t. Do the math and think outside the box.
🙂
Dang it,
Just as I had everything figured out on the dovetail kit, now I got to figure this one out- I have no clue at this point, I’ll have to do some thinking. Unless, we use the DJ-2 offset and mortise a track around the curve?
Rutager
Insert annoying 110 decibel buzzer sound HERE.
Silent woodworking studios don’t have routers- we’re going to need some sort of small router plane with a tight radius cutter and a curved fence.
-Rutager
Insert annoying 110 decibel buzzer sound HERE.
-Your Friendly and Obnoxious Tool Potentate
Hee hee. This is fun!
— Peter
I doubt that I’ll ever do enough sliding dovetail projects to justify buying this wonderful setup however I can see many uses for the adjustable fence(s) and I may want two (2).
I haven’t read a vernier scale for something like 40 years (aside from teaching students how to read them). So, when is the digital version coming out??? 🙂
For us who are a bit lost in the imperial world. Will you produce the AF-26 with a metric scale?
– By the way, I think that this sliding dovetail is a fantastic thing when it comes to taking care of wood movement! Such in the 1800 century style swedish (and more) table top. I have no idea of how they made it back then, but for sure with less accuracy than presented here. Nevertheless, still impressive with the tools available at that time.
Yes, we will make the adjustable fence in a metric version.
-John
Not to be too didactic (or take away from your accomplishment), but isn’t:
Will this system do stopped dovetails?
Yes but it is not obvious. Simply band or add material to the edge where you do not want to see the joint after assembly.
The same thing as: No. It won’t. But you can band or add material….
John,
Looking over everything, I have one more question: is the dado tapered too, or does the taper happen when you run the dovetail?
-Rutager
The dado is not tapered.
On a really long dovetail, you could taper the dado to make the dovetail cut more efficient. Smaller lengths it is not worth the added work.
–John
I have to say, I’m liking this a lot! Now that I understand that the dado is not tapered, the whole thing makes a lot more sense to me. Deeply cool, John.
And yes, Rutager, I may be in. I can see a lot of really interesting uses for this. It’s not a joint I’d typically use. But now that it’s possible….
— Peter
Peter,
All the cool kids are doing it.
-Rutager
John,
If we’re taking votes on colors, I’m really liking that champagne color on the depth skids.
Best,
Rutager
I will BET MONEY that once this joint is done a few times and it delivers what our tool potentate says it will, we all will be building this into our designs. I have used sliding dovetails a few times when a.) it was the most practical thing to use for strength of a piece, b.) when I decided to make them to proove to myself that I could do it, and c.) when I wanted to “spare no effort” to make a piece to the highest quality standard I could.
a.) This is a very strong joint. It will hold forever without glue. Imagine what it will do if you DO apply some adhesive!
b.) Making cool jointery is very satisfying. Even poor sliding dovetails are cool, I’m trying to imaging the feel of six shelves sliding and locking at the exact place where they should. AWESOME.
c.) Stop and really think about the application of this joint if it can be executed efficiently. In my opinion this really IS a step change in product quality almost at our finger tips. The dovetail joint which is the proclaimed apex of jointery (not really so) is simply a joint that connects things at a right angle. It does not work in the center of a board. You resort to dados and straight tenons. These can work as long as there is something else holding the piece together.
I’m getting more excited about this bad boy each time I review it. My hat is really off to you on this one John. I’m not sure we comprehend the application of repeatable sliders just yet…
DJ
As enthused as I am by the cleverness, and the siren song of John’s pitch…I’m a bit put off by the lack of evidence of some prototyping. I’m seeing things like how will “the math” wIll fare agaInst small imperfections in the stock preparation given the number of devices mechanIcally referencIng multIple surfaces of the workpiece at multiple angles. Or how a new blade desIgn wIll wear and sharpen and maIntaIn Its lateral placement after wear.
John may complete the job of cutting off my hand in Cinci that he started in Atlanta in 2010 if my profound idiocy is showing.
David:
There was prototyping done–I milled and tested an iron personally. I stand by my song, and suggest you wear Kevlar gloves to WIA!
The lateral placement of the iron is adjustable. All irons wear, and if the user some how changes the geometry (10 degrees) that too will not matter because the iron makes both mating cuts–so they will match. As mentioned, a spare iron might be a good idea, the cutting length is short.
We also mocked up the dovetail gage for length to make it as short as possible yet long enough for the user to feel solid with the registration of the guide stock.
Stock prep we cannot control. But making this a centerline driven system, that too should not be an issue unless of course the stock for the male is tapered then the system is worthless.
Thanks for the comments. You may be many things (Doubting Thomas comes to mind 🙂 ) but an idiot you are not.
-John
Aw, shucks. 😀 I note that in my lawyerly way, I said “lack of evidence” as opposed to “lack of prototyping.” I imagine the prototypes and experiments aren’t as slick as the CGI, but I love seeing process, so if it’s not too much to ask, might we see them?
I was curious as to the origin of the phrase “Doubting Thomas, which turns out to be a reference to a guy, Thomas the Apostle: “someone who will refuse to believe something without direct, physical, personal evidence.”
http://goo.gl/0o7l1
David-
The pic below are two prototype irons-the “V” groove iron, one of three I made–this one the tip is burned on purpose so I could see if I could break it off by hammering into end grain. The other iron works awesome on face grain and awful on end grain. This is how the “v” groove geometry came to me. FYI, most of the prototype work we do is “proof of concept” work and hence is rarely pretty.
–John
I’d go for empirical ugly over CGI pretty any day! Thanks for sharing the sausage filling, John.
— Peter
John: Thank you for the picture–it helps me understand the v-groove in a way that the computer images didn’t, although it’s taking some thinking to understand the engagement with the wood and the flow of the waste.
Let’s see if I can do a better job explaining what many are having difficult grasping. If I hadn’t been so close to this project, I don’t think I would get it either.
Here is an image of the iron as pitched in the HP6v2 body;
This is the iron in relation to the dovetail sole kit;
Here is an image highlighting (red) the only portion of the iron that actually cuts;
This is a straight on front view of the iron and sole;
If we rotate the plane 100 degrees so the dovetail face is horizontal, your familiarity with block plane geometry should kick in;
From the top, you can see the 35 degree skew angle clearly as well as the chip cavitiy;
Now we can look at the iron attack angle, and this should look somewhat familiar–you can also see the leading circular cutter which cuts the dovetail shoulder;
And here you can see that it all comes together to work exactly like a skewed block plane. The iron cuts from the bottom of the dovetail up which does two things, the shavings are driven out of the cavity and the plane sole sucks down on the reference surface;
So, what our new iron design does is allow for us to make planes that can do things (back and undercuts) that have never been done this easy before.
Does this make sense now? I hope so, because developing this concept was a lot of work and a lot of fun!
–John
Makes good sense – its all about the relative position of the knife edge to the wood surface. The rest is about getting this angle to fit into the plane body.
DJ
John,
Rutager here, not sure we’ve met, but I like to do me some thinking, big thinking. Thinking about big dovetails and how the SS Crowning Shoulder Plane has a replaceable sole- see where I’m going here? So John, if you made a dovetail sole for that plane, would it work with all the other accessories to make some beefier sliding dovetails?
Thanks,
Rutager
The pitch of the iron is too low–and because that is pitched at 12 degrees, that would make a 72 degree skew and that creates an extended point on the iron that I can’t guarantee.
Keep thinking. Besides Rutager, your dark days are coming– there is a HUGE bacon shortage coming in 2013.
Depressed yet?
Which will be proceeded by the localized bacon shortage at WIA Cinncinati Embassy Suites breakfast buffet right after I’ve gone through the line. Better get there early folks!
I wonder if the zoning folks in St. Paul will have any issues with me raising pigs on my 1/3 acre lot?
-Rutager
I’ve been watching for this tool for a while. I like what I see.
Have you built a functional prototype and cut joints with it yet?
I’ve always been fascinated with the Stanley 444 even though Garret Hack and Patrick’s Blood & Gore both panned it.
Thanks, John. I think I got it. The key for me was vIsualIzIng the tIny “transactIon” between the tIp and the worpIece.
@28 I’m sorry you hammered your tip until it was burning, but glad you made sure of the tIp’s stamIna. I was concerned your tip might not be able to keep the tIp up for plowing the female grooves after cutting the male tails. 😀
We build proof of concept prototypes. We will film a complete step-by-step video when first article components arrive.
Anybody who has cut with our dado kits knows the cut is insanely efficient regardless of grain, including pure end grain plows. This dovetail cutter is only removing 0.053″ of material at the widest point. In other words, the dado cut removes the vast majority of the material for the female. The male is just plain easy.
–John
John,
Not sure I get the:
“this one the tip is burned on purpose so I could see if I could break it off by hammering into end grain.”
comment.
If I understand this correctly, you “burned” the tip before hammering to test its durability. If so, then the burning drew the temper, softening and toughening the steel from its more brittle, harder state. So did this accomplish what you wanted or have I got something wrong here?
John
Hi John-
Yes the temper is drawn out but the part that turns blue is more brittle not less.
-John
Sorry John, but I’ve got to disagree. Here’s a table from a wikipedia article on blacksmith forge tempering giving oxidation colors, corresponding temperatures and the tool for which these tempers are appropriate:
Faint-yellow – 176 °C (349 °F) – engravers, razors, scrapers
Light-straw – 205 °C (401 °F) – rock drills, reamers, metal-cutting saws
Dark-straw – 226 °C (439 °F) – scribers, planer blades
Brown – 260 °C (500 °F) – taps, dies, drill bits, hammers, cold chisels
Purple – 282 °C (540 °F) – surgical tools, punches, stone carving tools
Dark blue – 310 °C (590 °F) – screwdrivers, wrenches
Light blue – 337 °C (639 °F) – springs, wood-cutting saws
Grey-blue – 371 °C (700 °F) and higher – structural steel
Working down the table, the higher tempering temperatures are for tools needing less hardness, more toughness. Your dark blue is appropriate for screwdrivers and wrenches – not particularly brittle.
John
John
Just thinking about other uses. One that comes to mind is a possible breadboard end that would hold across the end of a panel yet allow expansion and contraction while holding tight.
How would you this with this setup?
neil
John,
I think I read on one of these posts that the effective stock thickness is between 3/8″ to 8/4; not having much experience in sliding dovetails, what size stock would you think from a design stand point would look the best using the .3″ depth?
Thanks,
Rutager
Rutager-
The tapered system we have developed will make tapered dovetails on stock that is approx. 1/2″ to 8/4 thick. All are restricted to a dovetail height of .3″.
If the dovetail is going to be exposed then I would try my best to make the the proportions pleasing.
Hope this helps.
@John-Thanks for the chart reference. I stand corrected.
–John
John: I was wondering what the widest dado the adjustable fence could theoretically measure off. Would it be 1.5″: vernier set at +.500″ first cut, vernier zeroed for second cut, vernier at -.500″ for third cut?
You are correct–the largest dado we can make with current HP-6v2 dado soles (without breaking down the fence clamps) using our new adjustable fence 1.5″. This will change next year when we introduce the 5/8″ and 3/4″ dado kits.
–John
The more I think about it I doubt adding a digital display for the adjustable fence shouldn’t add excessive cost but would add the flexibility of being both metric and imperial along with faster adjustments — not to mention making it state of the art instead of old fashioned analog technology.
Ron, completely agree. Where the rubber meets the road however is a different beast–we need minimum order to contract out the chip to make it affordable is staggering.
–John
John
See my question 42 above. Thoughts?
Thanks
Neil
Neil:
Sorry, I missed your question. So for a breadboard end, not sure I would use a sliding dovetail–depends on the length.
But let’s say you did use a tapered dovetail–I would “hammer it home” and pin it in the center, species plays a role here. That’s one reason teak is a popular kitchen wood.
We can use the new system for straight dovetails and I will detail this when I return from WIA next week.
Good question–and you just gave me an idea…
–John
John: After looking at the kits, at peril of leaving my other hand in Cinci…I’ve sussed out from the pics and explanations what is needed outside the deluxe kit to get to “easy”:
Bare functionality obviously requires a first HP-6v2 (duh!), a dado kit, the adjustable fence, and a version of the “lateral” fence to ride the male dovetail guides.
Getting to easy requires a second dovetail guide to avoid duplicative clamp-ups and a second HP-6v2.
Two irons are a luxury/insurance.
Am I being fair here?
–HFD-1 (Hands-Free Dave)
HFD-
You are being fair. The vast majority of HP-6 owners have multiple bodies. When we announced the larger dado kits we were upfront that they would be required for a silent solution in making tapered dovetails. BTW, both of those dado kits are wicked fast and accurate–really fun to use, but they are not the only way–there is the 120 decibel alternative…
If you value your time, and most BCTW customers do, then yes, using two dovetail guides is faster.
Wasn’t that easy?
If will be fun catching up at WIA–which of course will require both hands.
–John
I’m wondering why you didn’t make an 18″ dovetail guide. Most of the panels I make (the ones I could imagine sliding dovetailing) are 8-14″ wide. So a 12″ and an 18″ would do the trick for most of them.
Is there no chance of making guides that could be joined together to make longer guides? I guess you’d lose the correct angle on them if you did that. But I bet there’s a way around that…
Also, I couldn’t really figure out where the holes were in the sliding parallel fence – they don’t show up on the renderings (at least that I could see). But perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place? I was looking at the blue extrusion…
But seriously: WOW! It’s all just too cool.
— Peter
Peter-
We discussed length of the guides at length… just had to say that.
The short answer is we can make them–anybody else who reads this totally awesome and worthless blog want 18″ long dovetail guides?
The holes are indeed there–the resolution for the web is too low to see them.
–John
John: I’ve got two bodies for my 17 distinct personalities 🙂
I also have all the other non-kit stuff–including the dado kits. Did you realize you’re the only dado plane maker of any sort I’ve identified this side of Australia?
I was phrasing my accounting as a question because I didn’t want to come off as accusatory while alerting you to what I see as dark patches in the description.
John,
Maybe I’m the only one who noticed or maybe because of an information leak several months ago by one of your key people; the new sole is aluminum rather than brass. What are the key differences? Cost, weight, no lead, others?
Quick fence question: it appears that the height of the dovetail guides for the male portion doesn’t matter much it just needs to be level, correct?
FYI, called Consuelo today and got the deluxe kit plus vernier, extra 12″&24″ guides, and two extra blade/scoring sets. I asked for an 18 month payment plan- line went quiet, she said she would need to ask Michael, I told her I was joking and besides Michael can’t count to eighteen.
Best,
Rutager
Rutager-
Brass is through the roof–as are all copper based alloys. I like the aluminum look for this kit.
As for your second question, the height of the dovetail guide(s) does matter, the fence cannot hit the raised portion of the guide and if set too low you will not have the fence register fully with the guide.
Your observations regarding Michael are meritorious. He asked me yesterday if I had change for a nickle…
–John