Even though I immensely enjoy the end result and the sense of accomplishment that comes with well executed, hand cut dovetails there are parts of the process that are a drag. In my case, the most tedious part is also arguably the most important part of the whole process: the layout.
When I first started I marked, by hand, the depth line as well as each point of the tails and then draw the line using a ruler. Then I picked up a template which gives me a couple of angles to choose from for the tails. With the template, I only have to make tick marks along the tail-depth line, lineup the template and mark my line. So it reduced the amount of marking by half.
Most recently I received my marking gauge- now marking the depth line is a breeze. Just set it and draw it across all four sides of the board on each end. Between the template and the gauge, my marking time dropped dramatically.
After marking the first side up completely for the tail layout, I realized that I could streamline the process for the remaining boards by using a story stick. I fashioned one up as a ‘T’ so that I had a constant reference for making the marks on the board. I then trasferred the marks from my first completed side to the storystick using my marking knife. From there, it was a simple matter of methodically trasferring the storystick marks to the remaining boards, then using the template to mark the tails.
The other benefit I gained was consistency. By transferring the layout to the storystick, I greatly reduced my opportunity for layout error. I also eliminated a lot of the minor variations that would have otherwise cropped up while re-measuring the layout for each board.
Lastly, I marked up all 6 boards, both ends, in about an hour. As a sanity check I lined up all 6 boards and eyeballed the marks to see how the registered with one another. They all lined up perfectly. Can’t argue with results like that.