Dovetail template set

[Christophe Mineau]

Here it is, Christmas has already passed and now I can safely show my recent works, as they mostly were presents for my family.

I have made a special present for my daughter who has just turned 20 the very day of Christmas. She is studying cabinet making and I chose to make her a nice set for dovetail making.

Here are the dovetail templates I have made for her and how I made them.

I was particularly inspired by the solid brass templates made by Derek Cohen and shown here, on his Website, but I have the chance to have a mill in my shop, so I used it, as well as my CNC for engraving works.
I will start from an angle brass bar, 40mmx40mm, 4mm thick.

It all begins with some CAD drawings. I will make all the pitches from 1:4 to 1:8, as well as a right angle square.
All the necessary angles and dimensions are quoted.


I have used my nice tilting vise, which I tilt along the X axis to the desired pitch angle.


I rough out the milling using an end mill, and I finish out with a fly cutter.


All faces are angled, including the top face which show a perpendicular face looking from above.
The squareness is double checked and adjusted if necessary by tilting along the Y axis using gentle taps with a small hammer.


Here is my engraving setup on my CNC bed. I use two 123 blocks stacked and screwed down to the bed slots. The work piece is
clamped on the 123 blocks using a C clamp.


And here is the finish product after some polishing with steel whool :