"Fixing a hole in the ocean,
Trying to make a dove-tail joint - yeah
Looking through a Glass Onion"
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| Dovetail on a Router Table http://w-ww.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=4482 |
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| Author: | Dickey [ Wed Jan 11, 2006 10:49 am ] |
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Someone asked how I do my dovetails, so here goes. Pics will have to follow, later, but here is a description. I use two standard torture devices for the dovetail, one for the neck blank and the other for the body rimset. I don't have a clue why I didn't do it like everyone else, but I use the router table with moveable jigs to accomplish the task. So, I clamp the neck blank into a post with a .25" spline on it. The base is hard rock maple and includes the dovetail pattern. I fire up the router and make three cuts. The first two cuts are using a straight router bit guided by a bearing follower. The purpose is to remove much of the stock without hogging too much wood directly with the dovetail bit, which I think is a lot of cutting, the flat plus the entire angled cut all at one time. So cutting in three bites of the apple made sense to me. The bits are both 1/4" shaft. I make the dovetail cut into the rimset once it's glued up. The jig base contains an outside pattern, four locking clamps, and a cutaway holder for those rimsets which renders two of the clamps useless. I generally do the same on the cutting, first with the straight cutter then switch to the dovetail bit. Rough fit of the neck into the body leaves it about 3/8" proud, that's when the fun begins. My first dovetail was on a Martin Kit, it took me eleven hours to work it and glue it. Numbers 2 and 3 took about three hours each. Finally on numbers 4 and 5, it only took 1 1/2 hours to fit and glue, which includes rough in and final. Doing dovetails can be likened to learning to ride a bicycle. You get better and less apprehensive as you go. You just jump on and never look back, shirt-tail a-flyin'. |
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| Author: | Dave White [ Wed Jan 11, 2006 11:10 am ] |
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"Fixing a hole in the ocean, Trying to make a dove-tail joint - yeah Looking through a Glass Onion"
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| Author: | Dickey [ Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:00 pm ] |
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Tradition told me so. I figured if I couldn't do dovetails I had no business building guitars. But you are right Dave, it's a double compound miter, in both male and female joints, blind. Very satisfying. |
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