First dovetail joint that actually fit on try 14

Tried cutting dovetails freehand for the first time last Tuesday in my garage, and after blowing through 13 practice pieces of pine, the 14th one slid together like it was made for it. I'm not a fine furniture guy, I usually frame houses, so I guess my question is how many tries did it take you folks before it clicked or are some of you just born with chisel hands?

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barnes.jamie8d ago

Man, 14 tries is actually pretty standard from what I've seen. The whole "born with chisel hands" thing is a myth, most folks just don't post their first 40 attempts on Instagram. What clicked for me was realizing the saw setup matters more than the hand, once I stopped fighting a dull blade and started paying attention to the angle of my body relative to the cut, everything got way easier. Your framing background probably means you've got better hand-eye coordination than you think, so don't sweat the early misses.