Dovetail layout with a printed template
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Woodworking Methods and Techniques / Dovetail layout with a printed template
Tagged: dovetails
- This topic has 11 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 10 months ago by
Eric Vogt.
-
AuthorPosts
-
21 June 2022 at 11:33 am #763393
Hi everyone..
I’m a woodworking software developer and have developed a simple dovetail layout designer. It allows you to visualize how your dovetails will look and prints a template which you can stick on your board and have precise lines to cut to.
Here’s the tool: [url]https://tinydesigner.app[/url] (free to use)
And here’s a video of me cutting dovetails with the printed template: [url]https://youtu.be/r0gl2HZcHjc[/url]If you have any feedback, let me know. I hope you like it!
21 June 2022 at 2:19 pm #764074Very clever tool, great work. The visualization is more valuable to me than the printable option, but I see how that would be useful to some.
I’d like to see something that defines the rake of the dovetails and the ability to toggle between different rakes (ie 6:1 vs 7:1). The tail base width is not something I usually consider.
The forum software is wrecking my replies, so I’ll try again
please forgive any duplicatesI think the tool is off to a great start, and I’m wondering if it can be used to create tails with arbitrary layouts, or must the tails be spaced uniformly?
I’m envisioning a sort of layout where there are two equal tails to the left and right, and a small central tail — can the tool do that?22 June 2022 at 9:48 pm #764243Thanks for the feedback. Setting a different ratio should be easy. I’ll have to think about where to put it in the UI though. Will keep you posted.
22 June 2022 at 9:58 pm #764244Arbitrary layouts with differently sized tails is definitely something I’m aiming for. However that’s not so easy while keeping the tool easy to use.
What I could do rather quickly is enable you to remove certain tails from an evenly spaced layout. This might allow you a bit more design freedom. I’ll try to add this in the next couple of weeks and keep you posted.
Hi Bert,
I suppose if one could remove certain tails, then one could print two, three or more different layouts, then transfer the various layouts one at a time and thus achieve the desired result of arbitrary tails, but I think that’s harder to use than virtually anything you might build into the app.
I’m sure you’ll think of something, looking forward to it!
21 July 2022 at 6:47 pm #767894I’ve uploaded a new version with following improvements:
– Nicer dialogs to input numbers.
– Ability to change the dovetail ratio (click on the ‘1 : 6 ratio’ dimension on top of the layout to change the denominator)
– Ability to hide individual tails (hover and click the checkmark) – click the ‘on/off dimensions’ button on the left menu to get a better preview.Still lots of things to improve but If you guys already want to give it a try and let me know your thoughts, that would be great!
[url]https://tinydesigner.app/dovetails[/url]
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
Bert Vanhooff.
22 July 2022 at 2:21 pm #767972Thanks for posting this and taking the time to put it together. I enjoy playing with it.
I don’t want to start a discussion of the merits of the metric vs imperial system, but I do most my work in inches and feet. Would it be reasonable to add the option to change between the units? I’d be happy to buy you a coffee for the trouble.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
Mike Conner.
9 November 2022 at 1:35 pm #779679What a good idea, the mitre gadget would be really useful as well.
-
This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.