'Lo Galoots Assembled,
To return to the matter of a 3/8 inch wide fishtail being too wide for small
work.  Probably the smallest dovetail work I'll ever do is in gallery of little
drawers in a spice box, or in the gallery of a Pennsylvania slant-front desk.
These are also similar in size to small boxes I've made using half-blind
dovetails.  I just measured all of the drawers in the spice box (13 drawers) and
none of them are too narrow to admit a 3/8 inch chisel, either at the base of
the socket or between the narrowest opening of the pins along the face.  Having
never used a fishtail chisel for trimming half-blind dovetails, I could see
using it to trim the inside corners from both directions, registering the chisel
flat on these surfaces and cutting with just the one tip in the corner.  Derek,
do you use your mallet with it, or just hand pressure?

I could see the fishtail chisel as a more precise and less damaging alternative
than a standard 1/8 inch chisel.  I'd like to hear more from Derek about his
fishtail chisel and how he uses in in cutting half-blind pin sockets, and other
woodworking applications.

Cheers,
John

John M. Johnston
jmjhnstn@m...
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