"Gerald Ross" wrote in message
...

My live center is 1 1/2" diameter and most of my dovetail recesses are
about 2". My dovetail scraper is straight and the tailstock is in the way.
Even if I had a 1/4" wide dovetail scraper with a dogleg shaft, I don't
believe I could center it as well as laying a template over the oval one.

Leave a pillar next time you're roughing and give the pin chuck a shot.
Only "special" thing about leaving one is making sure you have a bevel to
steady when plunging and pulling center to rim for hogging. Pictures
available, though there's nothing earth-shattering there.


Folks, this is not a new religion I'm preaching, just a report of
something I tried and found it works using what I already had on hand,
other than the router bit. If you have a system that works for you, keep
it. I used to use tenons exclusively, and lost a few bowls that departed
the lathe. I have so far not lost any off a dovetail chuck but it probably
will happen. Repairing an out of round tenon is surely easier than a
dovetail recess so comparing the methods of doing so doesn't really work.


I find the tenon loses bowl depth, behaves poorly in wet sapwood (abysmally
with crush types), and of course, unless you use smooth jaws, takes an extra
step to make things presentable after you have your work sanded up and
ready. Fred mentions how to misuse a chuck in either mode by
overtightening. Dovetail people normally relearn quickly what wood workers
have always known, that a round peg in a round hole will split wood, because
it presses evenly all around. Of course that's also the strength of the
smooth jaw - doesn't require that you smash wood to get a grip, just a snug
fit.

I'm chopping dovetail mortises for a set of KD shelves this morning. In
this case through tails, but fox-wedged tenons are a feature in furniture
the world around. Same principle as an internal dovetail.