Project Information
A few months back, Lost Art Press featured a dovetail marking system from The Solution At Hand. I thought it was pretty neat and asked some of my swap buddies if anyone could help me by CNCing the brass piece which is almost all of the work. John McClure offered to help, so I sent him a few pieces of brass. He promptly broke a handful of bits on his CNC, but eventually figured everything out and sent me back a few cut brass plates. Thanks, John!
The angles on the brass are 1:4 (or pretty near 14°︎) since that's what I use for most of my dovetails.
Today I got the rest of the hardware and wood to finish these off. I had some ebony that I bought for another project and ended up not using, so I cut a piece 1/2" by 1" by about 3.5" long. Sanded it up, drilled a couple holes, chiseled recesses for square nuts, and put the parts together (though I'll replace the gun screws I'm currently using with nicer thumbscrews at some point). It's a handy little gauge, and since I don't have a real shop at the moment, it was nice to knock out a small project and get something done.
I'm planning to leave both the brass and the ebony unfinished for now. I might shellac the brass on the next one I build, but I suspect that won't look very good once it starts getting scuffed from use.
The angles on the brass are 1:4 (or pretty near 14°︎) since that's what I use for most of my dovetails.
Today I got the rest of the hardware and wood to finish these off. I had some ebony that I bought for another project and ended up not using, so I cut a piece 1/2" by 1" by about 3.5" long. Sanded it up, drilled a couple holes, chiseled recesses for square nuts, and put the parts together (though I'll replace the gun screws I'm currently using with nicer thumbscrews at some point). It's a handy little gauge, and since I don't have a real shop at the moment, it was nice to knock out a small project and get something done.
I'm planning to leave both the brass and the ebony unfinished for now. I might shellac the brass on the next one I build, but I suspect that won't look very good once it starts getting scuffed from use.