Why does nobody talk about how we used to cut dovetails by hand vs now

I started in my uncle's shop back in 1998 and we cut every dovetail with a fine tooth saw and a chisel, maybe 12 drawers a week if we were lucky. Now I run a router jig and knock out 12 in an afternoon, but the gaps on the old ones were tighter because you had to sneak up on the line by hand. The jig gives you a uniform look, sure, but it also lets you get lazy about grain matching and layout. I still keep a small saw and a 1/4 inch chisel on the bench for the exposed joints on face frames, because customers notice when the pins look machine made. Last week a guy in his 70s picked up a jig cut drawer and ran his thumb over the baseline, then just nodded and said nothing. Do you still hand cut anything, or has the jig taken over your whole shop too?

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christopherh7914d ago

My grandfather had this old Disston saw hanging in his garage that he never used, just kept it there because his dad gave it to him. One summer I asked if I could try it on a scrap piece of walnut and he just laughed and said the teeth were set for green wood or something like that, I never really figured out what he meant. Anyway I spent a whole afternoon on one corner and it looked terrible, but he kept that little chunk of wood on his workbench for years. That old saw is in my shop now and I still can't cut straight with it, but I pull it out sometimes just to hear it ring when I flick it with my thumb. The jig does the work but it doesn't have a sound like that.

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