Laying Out The Pins — Joint Variation: Double Dovetail

Begin by making a platform for your tail piece. Clamp your pin piece in the vise (outside face towards you), so that the top is level with a smoothing plane on its side. Once the vise is tightly secured, move the plane further away to give you a better registration. Then bring your tail piece and lay it on top, making sure that the shoulder of the tail piece lines up exactly with the inside face of your pin piece.

While holding the tail piece down with one hand to keep it steady, trace around the tails with a sharp, pointed pencil*. Make sure all four lines are clearly defined and then take the piece out of the vise and square down the lines with the square side of your dovetail template.

*Note: On hardwoods, a knife is more precise for tracing around the tails, but on softwoods, the fibres tend to close up again, making it difficult or impossible to see. That is why a pencil is used instead.

Mark the two waste pieces (tail recesses) with an X, if you are worried you might accidentally remove the wrong sections.

A plane on its side level with your pin piece in the vise makes a good platform for your tail piece

Align your tailpiece with your pinpiece and trace around your tails with a fine pencil line

Square these lines down to your depth line

Mark the two waste sections (tail recesses) with an X to avoid any errors