So with that behind us lets take a peek at day's 11-18...yeah..that would be a weeks worth of postings...
Day 11
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Day 11[/caption]
Day 12
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Day 12[/caption]
Day 13
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Day 13[/caption]
Day 14
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Day 14[/caption]
Day 15
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Day 15[/caption]
Day 16
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Day 16[/caption]
Day 17
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Day 17[/caption]
Day 18
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Day 18[/caption]
As the days have passed by I've found that my saw and chisel work is getting stronger and I'm much more confident in my cuts. I have also noticed that if I'm not into the process in any way that the joint suffers immensely. I'm not sure what happened but on day 15 I completely lost focus and the joint is probably one of my worst yet. It's big, gappy and lopsided. If I'm not careful in how I hold the pieces it will just fall apart into two shamed chunks of wood on my bench top...yeah...it's that bad. But I recovered on the last few days and things are back to a nice tight fit with tight joint lines all the way around.
As I start digging deeper and deeper into this process I'm finding that my original set of Crown bench chisels; while they have served me very well over the years, are limiting my progress. They don't hold an edge quite as long as I would like to see...even cutting in soft material like the pine I'm currently cutting the daily dovetail in they are blunting far to quickly. I'm also having trouble with the side bevels being too thick. While the overall thickness of the chisel is nice and gives some great stability I find myself having to be extra diligent that I'm not denting the edges of my tail boards as I cut away the waste. I think one of the next shop purchase is going to be a few nicer chisels. Some Lie Nielson's maybe, or perhaps a trial run of the new Stanley Sweethearts, or maybe I'll delve into the world of Japanese chisels, either way I think I need to make my purchase as soon as possible as my work for Etsy and various clients is suffering from the limitation of my Crown pieces as well.
Now if you'll excuse me I have a dovetail to go cut...