Precision Dovetails

They are the Holy Grail of every amateur woodworker. When your peers check out your work, they always look at the dovetails first. My friend, Otto, says that it is possible to hand cut them. He's the kind of friend that every woodworker needs. He owns his own shop, and comes from a long line of Hungarian woodworkers and furniture makers. He learned his craft at his father's knee without power tools.

He says he distinctly remembers watching his father handcut dovetails for drawers by clamping 2 pieces of 3/8 in stock back to back in a bench vise and making 4 diagonal cuts with a back cut saw across both pieces. He would turn one side into pins and the other into pockets using a wood chisel, and then assemble the drawer.

I cannot get my mind around how to do this. There must be some additional wood removal from the pins to get them to fit into the pockets! Otto says he does not remember his father doing any additional wood removal from the pins.

Is there anyone out there who knows how this could be done? I find the idea intriguing.