Woodratters Help Please

[The Gent]

Hello,

I have just made a fatal error by getting my dovetails the wrong way round when making the pins.

Does anyone have a surefire method of marking and moving material to and from the woodrat to make sure that everything lines up?

Thanks and hopefully some advice to keep my blood pressure down.

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[moz]

It's a long time since I made any on the Woodrat but, assuming you're talking about through dovetails, a good tip when making the tails is like so: Line a tail board up to cut the end half socket then cut all tail boards without moving the machine - cut one corner, rotate the piece and cut the opposite corner, cartwheel the piece end to end and repeat, then repeat for all other tail boards. Then, wind the tail board along in the Woodrat to line up with the next socket and repeat the process, without moving the machine, i.e. cut, rotate, cartwheel. repeat as necessary. Where there is a central socket (i.e. an even number of tails), position the piece to cut as centrally as possible, cut the socket then rotate and cut again. This ensures a truly central socket. Following this procedure means that all joints are exact mirror images in all directions and will go together either way round, upside down or whatever. It also helps, for example, when you end up with some annoying breakout to be able to reverse the piece if necessary. For pin boards, you just need to ensure the outside face is to the fence and you can use any of the tail boards as a template since they are all the same. I hope that helps and hope I've explained it OK.

John

 

[Orcamesh]

Hi Kevin

I think John has already explained it really well but just in case, have a look here if it helps at all?

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/ash-wall-mounted-display-cabinet-wip-t49560-15.html

I can add a few more photos of the boards in position during cutting if you like?

cheers
Steve

 

[Orcamesh]

Hi Kevin

I think John has already explained it really well but just in case, have a look here if it helps at all?

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/ash-wall-mounted-display-cabinet-wip-t49560-15.html

I can add a few more photos of the boards in position during cutting if you like?

cheers
Steve

Hi again

In case you hadn't noticed, I have just updated my other post with many more photos showing various stages of cutting dovetails on the Rat.

Hope it helps?

cheers
Steve

 

[The Gent]

Thanks Gents,

Excellent tips there you can't go wrong with those.

If you were looking for non even spaced dovetails you would have to think a little bit more about the method, but to start with I think that I will take this and make all my drawers using this method to get started with.

Thanks again, lower blood pressure predicted this weekend.

Kevin