Dovetail and box joint templates
Set out the joint, print it at true size, and glue the paper to the board. Everything here is drawn in inches and nothing is scaled to fit — check the printed ruler before you cut.
= 0.5"
= 0.25"
The hardwood slope. Less flare, stronger corners, and the one that looks refined in walnut.
Dovetail layout
Tail at the end
1 3/16"
1 1/16" at the baseline
Pin at its narrowest
1/4"
3/8" at the inside face
The joint in numbers
- Slope7.1° off square — set a bevel gauge to this
- 1:8
- Taper each sideOver the depth of the joint
- 1/16"
- Baseline depthScribe it at the mating board's thickness
- 1/2"
- Half pinsAt the narrow end, one at each edge
- 1/4"
- Tails
- 4
- Full pins
- 3
Templates, at true size
Fits one sheet. Print at 100%, check the ruler, then stick them down with spray adhesive.
Put a tape on the printed ruler. If it does not read exactly 6 inches, the print was scaled — set the print dialog to 100% or “Actual size” and print it again. Do not cut wood from a template that failed this.
Tail board template for a 6" board
Wrap over the end of the board so the middle band lands on the end grain. Hatched areas are waste.
Pin board template for a 6" board
Stick this on the end grain with the outside face of the board at the top. Hatched areas are waste.
Printing this properly
In the print dialog, set the scale to 100% or “Actual size” and turn off “Fit to page”. Then measure the printed ruler with a tape before you touch the wood. A driver that quietly scaled to 96% gives you a template that looks perfect and produces a joint with a gap at every second tail.
To get a PDF, choose Save as PDF as the printer — the page is vector all the way through, so the PDF stays crisp at any size and prints true from anywhere.
About cutting dovetails
- How do I print a template at exactly 1:1?
- Set the print scale to 100% or "Actual size" and turn off "Fit to page" — the default in most browsers and drivers is to shrink slightly to respect an unprintable margin. Then measure the printed ruler with a tape before you cut anything. A template that came out at 96% looks perfect and produces a joint with a gap at every second tail, and the ruler is the only way to catch it.
- What dovetail slope should I use?
- 1:6 for softwoods and 1:8 for hardwoods, traditionally — more flare where the wood is more likely to crush, less where it is not. 1:7 splits the difference and nobody will ever measure it. The slope matters far less than consistency: a joint cut entirely at the wrong angle looks fine, and a joint cut at three different angles does not.
- How many tails should a drawer side have?
- Enough that the tails are roughly two to three times the width of the pins, and no more than that. On a 6" drawer side, four tails is a comfortable, traditional look; five or six reads as finer and takes proportionally longer to cut. Narrow pins are a flex — they are harder to saw and chop, and they are why hand-cut dovetails look different from a jig's.
- Should I cut the pins or the tails first?
- Tails first is easier to learn, because you saw all the angled cuts on one board and then trace them onto the other, so any wander in your sawing gets copied rather than compounded. Pins first is what most British training teaches and gives slightly crisper baselines. This generates a template for both boards, so either works — what you cannot do is cut them independently and hope.
- What if my two boards are different thicknesses?
- The baseline on each board is set by the thickness of the *other* one, because that is how deep the mating piece has to reach. A 1/2" drawer side going into a 3/4" front gets its baseline at 3/4", and the front gets its baseline at 1/2". Generate the template twice, once with each thickness, and take the tail strip from one and the pin strip from the other.
You might also need
- Mortise and tenon sizingTenon thickness and shoulder by the rule of thirds, and the length a blind or through mortise allows.
- Wood movementHow far a panel expands and shrinks with the seasons, and what that means for the joint holding it.
- Cut list optimizerLay your parts out on a sheet of plywood and get the cuts in order. Accounts for blade kerf and keeps the grain running the right way.