(First three attempts, in order of left to right)
First Attempt
- Massive gaps on both the walls and valleys of the joint
- Used wood glue and sawdust to fill in holes
- Tried to sand the walls of the fingers without clamping the work for some dumb reason
- Even worse, I tried to put a screw through the joint lengthwise??? Burst the joint but I guess that's a lesson learned
Second Attempt
- Used a chisel length to mark the bottom of the joint to get a consistent line on both sides (I don't have a marking gauge)
- Walls had issues coming together but fitted together with only one gap
- Valleys of the fingers had significant gaps, but isn't the part of the joint that exerts strength anyways so that's mostly okay
- Cut the fingers proud so I could sand them back but ended up taking a huge chunk off the surface of the wood when I was careless with the plane
Third Attempt
- Still had issues cutting the walls perfectly straight, still tending to curve left as I go down but left enough waste that I could sand it back and still get a tight fit
- Ended up cutting one side first, sanding it flat, and then transferring the edge to the other side to use as a more accurate guide (previously I was marking one edge, transferring the lines and then cutting them separately.)
- Both walls and valleys of the joint fit together tightly, should come together nicely after the glue up.
- Notable improvements to technique include: using the saw edge to reshape the valley corner after sanding down to get a tight 90 degree. Bringing the saw line all the way down to the base line so chiselling out the waste was easier.
All in all, amounted to about 2 weeks of work, 2 hours a day. Progress is good and I feel good enough about how tight the joints are to start actually using them in the project I have planned.
