"jtpr" wrote in message
oups.com...
OK, I have decided to try my hand at dovetails for a jewelry box I am
making for my wife. For some reason I would like to learn to do it by
hand. I have an appropriate saw, but I wanted to use a marking knife
to make the lines. They have one at Lee Valley for $22. Of course,
while on their site, I looked around. Why do I do this???? Anyway,
they have a dovetail cutting aid that sells for about $50, or they have
marking guides for $20 (2, one for hardwood, one for soft), or another
set of guides for $10, not sure yet of the benefits of the more
expensive ones, have to look at that.

My point is, am I silly to be spending money on this stuff? I mean,
for a few dollars more I could get the dovetail jig on sale at Rockler
for $59. I don't do things at a production level though, so do I
really need something like this. Is it really that hard to manually
cut dovetails? From reading it sounds like the holy grail of joinery.

Personally, I don't think these single purpose tools are needed. A saw,
square, marking gauge, bevel gauge, chisel or two, and pencil or marking
knife are all that are needed. A scale (ruler, framing square, tape measure,
etc.) is useful for setting the bevel gauge and/or laying out pin spacing. A
set of dividers is useful for laying out the pin spacing and may be
preferable to the scale for that purpose.

A bevel gauge is a multi-use tool whereas the specialty layout gauges and
cutting aids are single purpose... more bang for the buck with the bevel
gauge.

Also, with a lot of experience you wouldn't need the square, bevel gauge,
scale or dividers... as demonstrated on film by Frank Klaus and Roy
Underhill. Pin layout and sawing would be done by eye!

I put pictures up on ABPW of my tools and sample dovetail joints. The joints
include through, half-blind, full-blind, hounds-tooth, and compound-miter
dovetails. All the joints were laid out and cut using the tools shown. The
sample full-blind, hounds-tooth, and compound-miter dovetails are the first
ones of each type I ever cut. Once you learn to saw straight and saw to a
line (or split a line), and chop out waste, it's simply a matter of figuring
out how to lay the complex types of dovetails out!

John