Talked to an old timer at a lumber yard near me and he completely wrecked my confidence about dovetail spacing

I was grabbing some cherry for a set of nightstands last Tuesday and this guy in his 70s saw me picking through the pile. He asked if I ever do hand cut dovetails and I said yeah, been doing them for about 5 years now. He looked at my latest piece in the truck and just said 'your pins are too skinny, you're making it weak where it counts'. It hit me hard because I've been chasing tight tiny pins like the Instagram guys do, but he showed me his work from the 80s with these fat chunky tails and it just looked right. Felt like I'd been learning the wrong lesson this whole time, anyone else ever have a random stranger call out something obvious you missed?

3 comments

3 Comments

johnson.jason27d ago

Has anyone checked if those tiny pins actually hold better in certain wood grain directions?

patriciareed28d ago

your pins are too skinny" that line hit me too because I was exactly the same way. I spent two years making these dainty little pins trying to look like the popular woodworkers online. But then I saw some old furniture from the 1800s with big chunky pins and it clicked for me too. Instagram is a lie man, those tiny pins look cool in photos but theyre not built for actual use. I think that old timer was looking out for you.

brown.gavin28d ago

My buddy Dave once spent six months making these perfect little dovetails on a birch cabinet. They looked like jewelry. Anyway, he dropped a cast iron skillet on it by accident and the whole joint just snapped clean off. He sent me a photo of the pieces and you could see the pins were barely thicker than a toothpick. Ever since then I look at old farm tables and those pins are like an inch wide sometimes. They dont look fancy but that stuff survived a hundred years of abuse.