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Rant: My old boss called my dovetails sloppy, now I cut them by hand on purpose
I used to swear by my router jig for every drawer box, cranked out 40 of them a day back when I worked at a cabinet place in Boise. My old boss watched me run one and said the corners looked machine cut, not hand cut, and that customers notice. I blew him off for two years until a guy at a woodworking meetup in Nampa showed me his hand cut dovetails and I couldn't tell they were done with a saw and chisel. So I tried a set by hand on a maple drawer front, took me 3 hours and one bruised thumb, but the fit was tighter than anything my jig ever gave me. Now I do hand cut dovetails on all my face frame drawers and charge $75 more per box, and nobody has blinked at the price yet. Has anyone else ditched the jig after getting called out, or am I just stubborn?
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theas5711d ago
Had the same thing happen at a shop in Caldwell years back. Boss said my jig work looked too perfect and flat, no soul to it. I switched to cutting them by hand on anything visible and never looked back. The trick for me was sharpening my chisels way more often than I thought I needed to. Once the edges were truly sharp, the corners cleaned up fast and the fit got tight enough that I stopped reaching for the jig at all.
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