First box – question

You produced nice dovetails, so well done! And, yes, it takes me more passes, too, than Paul. But it looks like you may be right about not being sharp. It’s hard to see in the photos but it looks like the end grain may be torn rather than cut in places, which would indicate not being as sharp as you’d like to be. I’m not quite sure because of the angle of the photo. The very middle of the cut will often tear, at least for me, but the rest should be cut instead of torn. Are you using the EZE-Lap coarse / medium / fine? You can strop on a flat piece of MDF, if you have some. Are you sure you’re getting the burr off?

Pine is a bit different than most other wood. The alternating bands of hard to soft grain are more pronounced. If the soft rates a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 the hard is a 8. This means that if you are cutting a section with mostly hard bands you hit it harder to make the cut, a chisel is just a wedge it can only move so far in. When you move to the next section it may be mostly soft wood. You hit it the same as the last. Your experience says hit it x hard. But it’s softer and the chisel being a wedge moves x and then compresses the wood because of the force you applied. This is how I see it. I keep ripping the grain same as you until I started looking at each section as a independent,and evaluated each section. Also just for pine I have a separate set of chisels sharpened
at about 18 degrees, years ago there was a school of though that said chisels should be ground as low as 15 degrees for pine and a few other soft woods. I tryed it and found it did help some. The ones I have are mismatched chisels I got at flee marts 1/4,3/8 and 1/2 the edge is very fragile and will fracture easy. Try it if you have one extra chisel it my help.
good luck
Frankj

Personally, I find pine more difficult to work than other woods. My favorites being Cherry and Walnut.

As Frank said, the alternating bands of hard and soft are tricky to work with. Just keep at it, and with practice things will get better.

As a side note, check your local hardwood store/mill for Scraps (sometime called Shorts). Mine will sell 2 foot sections for %50 off and sometimes more. They are perfect for practice projects. I will occasionally pick up a 1×6 short of Cherry that is 12″ long for $2. It is great for making a small box or even just joinery practice. For $2 I don’t even mind just making joint after joint after joint without a project in mind.

Actually, do you happen to live near Seattle? My brother works at a hardwood distributor and I get all their off grade stuff. I have feet and feet of 1×2 maple and oak; as well as a bunch of mahogany. It is all twisted and cupped beyond usability, but it great for all kinds of practice.

For reference, the mahogany I have is 12″ wide. a 8″ long piece went from 3/4″ to just under 1/4 to be flat.

Anyway, if you are close enough send me a message and I will give you some

Francesco,

I just made some dovetails for a toolchest last week. The dovetails tore out like in your photo.

I sharpened the chisel a lot and then tried again and got better results.

I have a strop made from a wide leather belt glued to a piece of pine. I put some chromium oxide on it. This is the abrasive.

After I cut a few dovetails I touched up the chisel on the strop. I now keep this right by the bench to keep the chisel sharp. If I feel the pine tear, I touch up the chisel.

For you to make a strop you can use a piece of wood with the abrasive on it. The abrasive is used for polishing metals. You may be able to find something in Italy in a store that caters to automobile repair shops.

Alternatively, see if you can get some fine sandpaper. I’ve used up to 2500 grit paper on a sheet of glass to polish a chisel before I had the strop etc. This sandpaper works well and you’ll be able to see if it helps.

Best of luck.

Hey, that’s great gallarotti. Glad you’re having more success. The box looks nice.