Sliding Dovetail Bookends

Step 6 Clean up the dovetail

Now it's time to clean things up. Use a chisel about the width of your groove to clean up the bottom of the groove. Get the corners nice and crisp at both ends. Then look down the dovetail and clean up any areas that don't have a nice corner. That is, bits of wood might be living where the side of the dovetail meets the base of the dovetail, and you need to evict them, because those strands of wood don't pay their rent. Sure, they say they're good for it, but you never see that dough. And how is it they're rollin' in a Monte Carlo with platinum rims and you can't get them to pay up?

Anyway, after cleaning things up, take some 60 grit sandpaper to the sides and bottom. I like to wrap the sandpaper around a thin piece of wood. If you have a medium grade file, that should work too. Gasoline and a match will work, but only briefly.