Cosman is a great teacher. He gives details which are very helpful in mastering dovetails. These people are good to learn dovetails from in your woodworking journey:

Paul Sellers

Rob Cosman

Frank Klausz

Christian Becksvoort

The progress after my first try is sporadic but consistent. It's down to refining technique at this point, and confidence.

Looks good John. If you can master dovetails in pine, everything else gravy.

43 minutes ago, Zack said:

If you can master dovetails in pine, everything else gravy

I'll yell ya what Zack, I'm staying away from pine for awhile, it was frustrating as heck as seen in my first attempt! 😄

40 minutes ago, John Morris said:

I'm staying away from pine

My first piece of "furniture" was a copy of a bedside stand to match one we already had. Made from pine and other pieces followed. At that time my tools were limited and pine was plentiful/cheap. The carpentry instructor at our school was also a cabinet/furniture maker and I mentioned what I was making and using. His first advice was- "stop using pine and work with harder wood". I found that to be good advice. Cuts were cleaner, fewer accidental dents, scrapes and scratches and stronger joints.

The little prayer box I made was originally designed to have half blind dovetails in eastern cedar. After a couple of hours of sharpening, honing and practicing the wood was just too soft/dry to create decent dovetails, with my abilities.

The difference in hardness between the early wood and late wood growth rings in pine really makes it difficult to do any kind of fine work. Cedar is kind of the same but not as bad. I like working with cedar though.

If you want to dovetail in pine, look for some like this:

The orientation of the hard vs soft makes it easier if it's rift sawn. I think this was just #2 stuff from Home Depot if I remember correctly.

I usually have to pare to fit a little. Nothing wrong with that unless you're being paid for your time.

Not to argue with using poplar of course, just saying that pine can work out ok too if you have the right piece!

Edited May 2May 2 by JWD

I have been thinking a bit about this thread. What would I do differently if I were learning to cut dovetails by hand all over again?

If you consider that the pins are the most important part of this joint I think I would approach it differently.

No matter how you cut the dovetails the pins have to match them. On the dovetails the only thing you really have to stress over is that the lines on the top are 90° straight across. That way when you drive it down into the pin board to assemble the joint you're not creating a wedge action and splitting things.

So if I were learning this joint all over again, and by the way I am going to do this myself just to get better. There's always room to get better. But if I were learning this joint all over again what I would do is cut two tails in a tailboard. Get them as good as I can and then what I would do is cut pinboard after pinboard to match that set of dovetails. Because cutting the dovetail part of the equation is not the important part. You only really have one line to worry about. With the pen board the line across the top that gives the angle of your dovetails and a 90° line straight down the face both have to be pretty much perfect. So that is the joint that matters in this joint. Or rather that is the cut that matters in this joint. So what I would do once again is cut a tail board, say with two dovetails, and cut pin boards over and over to match that tail board. If you get good at the pin board then you will conquer this joint.

My humble opinion. For what it's worth.