Stumbled on an old stat about hand-cut dovetails...

I was flipping through a 1987 issue of Fine Woodworking I found at a flea market last weekend. Turns out back then, the average custom shop could knock out a set of through dovetails in about 12 minutes. I timed myself on a drawer yesterday... took me nearly 40 minutes and they still weren't perfect. Made me wonder how much of that was practice versus just having the right muscle memory from doing it every day. Any of you old timers remember that pace or am I just slow?

3 comments

3 Comments

danielm806d agoTop Commenter

Those 1987 numbers always make me wonder if they were cherry picked from their best guy on a good day. I've got a buddy who builds high end furniture for a living and he claims he can do a drawer in 15 minutes but I've watched him take 25 on a bad one. Were they counting from the moment they picked up the saw or did that include the layout and marking too? Because my layout kills a good 10 minutes just making sure my lines are square.

simonk986d agoMost Upvoted

@danielm80 my buddy timed himself once and swore he cut a drawer in 12 minutes but forgot to account for digging out the wrong chisel twice.

jenny1986d ago

You're probably right about the layout time, but back then they timed it from first cut to finished piece.