I've never done a dovetail carcass this large so I'm open to ALL suggestions and comments on my approach. This is where my standard European woodworking bench shows it's shortcomings. Clamping wide boards like this proves difficult. On my short list to build is a Joseph Moxon Double-screw vice. Or better yet, a Roubo Workbench.
I'm in the tails first camp. Is that the Hatfields or the McCoys? Oh, it doesn't matter, it's the right camp. I don't usually do so but I created a story stick for laying out the tails. I did this because when the box is completely assembled I will be cutting it in half (so to speak) to form the doors. Thus, I created two half pins and a 1/8" saw kerf near the front of the box - you can see that in the first picture. I ganged both sides together so I could mark them at the same time (something else I don't usually do).
Here I'm just marking out the tails with dividers. I could have just projected the lines from the story stick but I like the divider holes in the endgrain so that when I pull off the story stick I can place my pen in the holes and using my dovetail marker mark the top and side of the tail at the same time. I've adopted the Rob Cosman approach to dovetailing. He is a superb teacher and following his step-by-step method makes this whole process seem a bit like cheating.
I threw this one in to show the scale of the sides. This sucka huge. You can also see the drawers that I'm replacing with this cabinet behind the boards. I actually had to get in one of these drawers after clamping all of this up.
All tails on both boards (top and bottom) have been marked out. I was taught to completely mark out your waste to avoid cutting mistakes. It takes a little longer but has never failed me yet (to this point anyways).
There is no great revelation in this picture but I wanted to throw it in so I can justify the quality of the final product. It was very difficult to get in a good cutting posture with the boards as tall as they were. This isn't as important when cutting the tails. If you go off your line on the face of the board a little it isn't a big deal. However, when cutting the pins it sure was a challenge.
Here I'm just cutting out the waste with a fret saw. My saw was being difficult that day - I snapped 4 blades cutting out the pins and tails. I think in all of the dovetail work I've done in the last few years I may have broke two blades. I suspect they were getting hot because most of them snapped when I got near the last few tails/pins. Also, I was getting tired near the end and think I was rushing the cuts and putting too much pressure on the saw. Update: I've since upgrade my fret saw to the Knew Concepts Saw. What an absolute treat that saw is to use.
More to come on the dovetails. My hands are cramping from all the sawing
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