hall of shame

this little tragedy will forever be in the hall of shame as my very first dovetailed box. i read a lot, practiced a little, and even watched a couple of "boring" (as whitney calls them) dvds on the subject. i thought i was ready to give it a shot but it looks like i'm back to the practice stock for hand sawing 102. my first and biggest mistake: not marking out the waste. i know it doesn't seem like that big of a deal but i cut on the wrong side of the line more than once and yes in this business a 64th or 32nd of an inch makes a world of difference. you can see from the picture the lack of X's on the part that will eventually be removed. not super important on this tail piece but on the pin board splitting the line makes the whole joint work.


you can see the giant gap on the top most dovetail. thats about a saw kerf away from the mark. funny how a little X on the scrap side to remind me where to cut can be such a big deal.


believe it or not this is the "pretty" side of the box. the other side is way worse and you won't see a picture online any time soon. maybe in a few years after i've made a little progress i'll post a now and then shot so we can see how far i've come. but i guess you have to start somewhere and that somewhere in my dovetailing career is at the very bottom.