Unpopular opinion: Hand-cut dovetails are becoming a lost art

Thomas Wright · 2026-03-06T11:45:38.947608+00:00

We're sacrificing craftsmanship for speed with all these pocket hole jigs.

Can I still be a real woodworker if my dovetails look like a toddler drew them?

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My grandfather spent days teaching me to hand-cut dovetails. Now I see online tutorials where they slap a piece together with pocket holes in ten minutes. It makes me sad how much skill is being tossed aside. A hand-cut joint lasts generations, but I've seen pocket hole projects fall apart in a few years. The rush to finish fast is killing real woodworking. We're trading quality for convenience and it's a bad deal.

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faith_price77mo ago

When did picking the fast way over the good way become our normal choice?

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