Cutting dovetails with a flash light
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- This topic has 8 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 2 months ago by donhatch.
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Anyone else have issues seeing the cut lines for dovetails? I have no issue on the outside of the line / my body but really struggle on the inside angle trying to position some lighting.
I started using one of those small flashlights that you can easily cup in your hand and it really helps.
Just currious if anyone else has a similar issue and how they have solved it.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.I have had some trouble with this too. One of the problems is that there is not enough light, but another is that there is too much and it glares off the wood, obscuring the pencil lines. I have even had problems that at the start of the cut, a light positioned on the outside of the saw glared between the teeth of the saw as it rested on the wood. This can obscure the pencil marks as well. My solution is to have a number of moveable light sources around. I have several clampon desk type lights (the ones with the long adjustable necks) that can be positioned around my bench as well as on a table behind and to the right of me, in case I want some light from that angle. I also have some storage cabinets behind my bench (it is against a wall) and I have clamped a small light to one of the cabinet’s doors hanging down. That door can be swung out moving the light to where I need it overhead. Not elegant, but effective.
13 November 2018 at 4:35 am #553172Blue tape. Aka the Mike Pekovich tape trick.
Asumimg you have cut the tails and are marking the pins, put some blue tape on the ends of the board and then knife the cut lines.
Lift off the tape where the waste should be. The pins will be in bold contrast. Use it wherever you can’t see your knife lines.
Saved my skin before cataract surgery.
Paul used it for marking on endgrain with knife which is otherwise hard to see. In case anyone is looking for blue, he used white tape, but the same idea. Though I wonder what he thinks of using tape on face grain too as suggested here.
See the workbench drawer videos with half-blind dovetails — especially the bit about he missing the line in the first round due to poorly visible knife mark on endgrain, and then came back with the tape suggestion.
29 September 2020 at 4:23 am #680025I like the tape idea and will give that a go. I recently bought a “head lamp” for cutting dovetails when the daylight is poor or at night. It’s a little lamp on an elasticised head band. I bought a 400 lumen model and it works quite well. Lots of brands at all sorts of prices – $30 to almost $300 (Australian). Mine was about $40. I’d want the $300 model to pour me a beer as well as light the work…..
29 September 2020 at 5:48 am #680029The tape not only makes things easy to see, but it acts as a mini knife wall for that first light strike with a mallet.
Look LED video lighting banks. They range from $20 USD ring lights to flat panel units in the $45-$125 range. Sho- prices are all over the map in I got on e for $45 I’m pretty happy with.
They mount on a tripod, camera mount or mike boom.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Larry Geib.
I use a small flashlight on a 9 inch flexible neck with a magnetic base about 2 inches in diameter ( I bought it to use with my drill press). I stick the magnetic base on the cast iron face of my bench vise and by bending the neck and rotating the magnetic base I can shine it on the line I’m cutting. I can also move it so the angle of the light is optimal. The flashlight is one of those that you can rotate the head to change the size and intensity of the beam. It has helped me a lot.
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