Port Townsend School of Woodworking Laura Mays - Dovetails and Small Boxes

 On 11-15 July 2022, I was fortunate to be able to take a week long class at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking by Laura Mays.  Laura is the director of the Krenov School in Fort Bragg, CA.  Laura was excellent, the school was excellent, the weather and Port Townsend was excellent.  Let's talk about my most excellent adventure.

I am not going to tell you how to dovetail.  There are lots of videos on how to do this.  My dove tails are/were ok going into this class.  Mostly, I wanted to spend a week and learn how to make them better.  What I am going to do is point out the things I learned that I thought helped me become better at making dove tails.

Without a doubt, my dovetails are now forever better.  I moved turtle slow (more about this in a future blog) but I really felt like Laura did an excellent job teaching us how to dovetail as well as teaching us about all kinds of other woodworking operations as they applied to what we were doing (how to use the jointer, sharpen chisels and plane blades, glue up, etc).  If you can, I would highly reccomend you take a class from Laura.  I would also recommend you take a class at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  Full disclosure - I paid my way for all of this so this glowing positive review is of my own volition.  Now, below, you will see the key (Dusty) Baker's dozen take aways I have; not in any specific order.  Happy to answer questions if you have any in the comments.

1.  You need to go slow to go fast.  I feel pressure to keep up and move forward.  However, if I just go at the pace i have (my woodworking spirit animal is a turtle) I am capable of, I will make more progress.  Doing each step correctly will be faster than having to go back and fix things later.

2.  I think taking notes is helpful.  There is a lot of information being exchanged.  I try and write as much down as I can and then at the end of the day and beginning of next day, I like to review my notes and add anything I may have not written down at the time.  That way, I have a good archive of what I was taught.  I like to use a formal notebook as these notes are important to me and my formal notebook won't get lost.  Also, at the end of this class or a major project, I like to write a summary of what I have learned and/or what I would do different next time.  That way, in the future when I go back to relearn/reread, I have a nice summary area.  And yes, I know so far nothing on dovetails.  Hang in there.

3.  Pins or tails first.  Doesn't matter.  Camps are likely evenly divided on which way to start.  Either works fine.  Ideally you should learn how to be able to do both.  One cool insight that drove this home was discussing which material/board is the precious one.  For example, if you are working on a drawer front (that say has nice flowing grain from one board to the next), that is the precious material.  You don't want to screw up that board.  As such, it may make more sense to do the pins first and use overlong sides to transfer and cut the tails.  That way, if you "screw up", you just cut back the sides and redo the pin transfer.  Having overlong drawer sides is a good way to minimize something going wrong.

4.  Laura Mays used a fret saw to hog out the waste and then used a pairing block to get nice square baselines.  I had never seen a 90 degree block used to pair back to the baseline and I really liked it.  It provided me with really square baselines.  To help the pairing block grip better, I had put some adhesive 200 grit on the bottom and spent time making sure the two surfaces were 90 degrees.  This will be my forever approach moving forward.  This one tip/trick was worth the price of admission for the class.  I've ordered my fret saw and can't wait till it arrives.

5.  For doing the tails first, in Port Townsend School of Woodworking, they have a 2x2ish piece of wood with a 1/4"ish thick piece that they use to both set up the pin board and then move it to the back to lay the tail board on top of.  In the past, I had always used a hand plane but this little 2x2 block was super handy and will be what I use moving forward.  In fact, I will likely take point 4 and point 5 and make one device that can do both.  I am sure that I have some nice "fancy wood" scraps laying about that would be perfect for this.  I have since I wrote the text actually made one using a 1.5"x1.5"x5" piece of birdseye maple.

6.  If one cuts pins first, Laura showed a nice set up to transfer and cut the tails.  Prior to this class, I was a tails first person so seeing how to set things up to transfer was handy.  Interestingly enough, going from tails first to pins first felt hard the first time.  That was kind of fun to have a different way to do it.  I had told Laura that I wanted to push myself and doing pins first certainly did that for me.  Moving forward, I will try to mix up the two ways just to build in the flexibility and capability to be able to do both approaches.

7.  I think spending a bit more time on layout of dovetails can be helpful to make them look a bit nicer.  I had been a big fan of using dividers prior to this class for symmetry the whole way across the board.  Having seen Laura's work, I think there can be a bit more artistic expression have having variable size tails and spacing and further compliment/demonstrate that this was done by hand.

8.  I found that by developing a process to go systematically and slowly and checking for square across the tails was helpful.  It wasn't anything complicate.  When I has happy that something was square and trimmed properly, I just put a little check mark and moved onto the next one.  That way, it was easy for me to see which ones I had checked and was happy with.  In the past, sometimes it felt a bit overwhelming to keep track of what was good and what still needed fixing.  Slow, steady, and systematically.  I am sure there are other ways to do this but for now, I need a route process to follow so I don't miss something.

9.  Shellac is a great finish for the inside of a box.

10.  Lots of light and some magnification (1.5x) really helps quite a bit.  Moving the light around sometimes can make a profound difference in which the raking light captures a shadow suddenly making something easy to see such as when deciding where to locate the paring block.  My eyes are decent but in my 50s things are a bit harder to see than when I was younger.  Unfortunately, toolsforworkingwood.com were out of the Optivisor (one Laura has used).  I found it on Amazon and have the 1.5x magnification.  Beware you don't get too much magnification as Laura has found that really forces you to have to hunch over more closely to your work.

11.  My personal preference is to cut a shallow rebate on the back of the pins so that I have a good solid registration when to transfer to make the tails.  I learned how to align in this class without the rebate.  I used a flashlight (that I have kept in my pocket for 20 years - not the same one now as 20 years ago) underneath.  When getting the pins aligned, you want to see just the thinnest of light.  Not hard to do but before this I wasn't completely certain how to align things.  Now I feel confident in what I should be striving for.  

12.  If I am going to put grooves on the inside for the top or bottom of the box, I am first going to assemble the box and make sure all 4 sides are flush top and bottom.  That way, the grooves will register properly.

13.  Prior to this class, I had tried a bunch of different ways to cut dovetails.  What I really liked with using a marking knife and a chisel to create a knife wall so that way when I saw, I am in a notch.  When I did this, I found I got things much more square off the saw.  This will likely be come my go to approach.  For transferring tails to pins, I can still use a knife and then create the notches with a chisel.  Again, I was getting much better fits this way and it will be my default approach moving forward.  Of course, never say never for other approaches but I am confident and comfortable when I can do it this way.

14.  Have both the pins and tails very slightly proud (two pieces of blue tape worth) when laying things out.  After glue up, if possible, use your hand or block plan to then trim while the glue is trying.  Plane in the direction to that any spelching of the proud pins and tails fills any gaps.  Worked really nicely and was the other singular time worth the price of admission.  Obviously, I am very happy with what I learned but this and the paring block mentioned above really are game changers for me moving forward.

15.  On small boxes, it can be difficult to get them apart due to tight joints and the inability to get the hammer face on the inside to strike them apart.  Larua showed us a little jig she made.  Basically it's a scrap piece of wood slightly smaller than the pins.  You can use this to hammer down the pins carefully and evenly.  It works well.  I made mine at home in minutes from a scrap of walnut.  Marked this "tool" so I don't toss it out though it wouldn't take long to make one.

16.  During glue ups, with proud dovetails and pins, it can be trick.  One can make custom sawn cauls but these takes some time and can be bit fiddly and then just specific to the one box.  There is potentially a better way.  What Laura does is apply some 2 mm cork to wood.  There is enough sponginess in the cork so it sinks into the proud pins and tails and makes good contact.  She's been using these for years with great sucess.

Without a doubt, there was noticeable improvement in my dovetails from having taken this class.  I learned some things to look out for and feel much more confident in what I am doing and should be looking for.  I am going to noodle on all of this and to see what I can even generalize more so to help me with other joinery.