Understanding Softwood Dovetails

I have made dovetails in pine literally thousands of times and that is in thousands of dovetailed boxes, drawers for cabinets and cabinets themselves; I think I understand every type of dovetailing there is, but equally important is to understand the many types of woods we use for these projects because they all react differently to the processes of creating them. In my hands-on class workshops, I have taught 6,500 students alone to cut dovetails on their projects. In most of those cases, we mostly used pine. My Shaker-style candle box came about in 1986, so 40 years ago to date. In the USA we used the softer Eastern white pine, but here in the UK we used Scots (European Redwood Pine). The Eastern White pine is very evenly textured, with only minimal difference between the hard and soft aspects of the growth rings. It pares like butter and barely resists planing. Scots Pine on the other hand, and by comparison, is tenacious, highly resinous and variable in density between the hard and…