Dovetails – Layout

Laying out dovetails is probably the simplest part, but there are a few tricks that help.

I’m doing tails first.  Apparently there are two camps, the pins-first folks and the tails-first folks.  I’m just trying to get a handle on dovetailing, and this is what is (sorta) working for me.

To do the layout you will need a red pen, sliding bevel gauge, a marking gauge and two sets of dividers.

Start by scribing a line across all four faces using the marking gauge set to the thickness of the wood.  This is your baseline, don’t cut or chisel below it.  I really like the crisp line the Glen-Drake gauge makes, but the brass leaves a black smudge on the pine and I’m not sure why.  I cleaned it with solvent top make sure there wasn’t any leftover polishing compound on it.  Maybe I’m pressing too hard against the end grain?

We’ll use one of the dividers to mark the half-pins at each end, and the other to mark off the spacing.  Jim and Tim recommended using half the thickness of the board as the width of the half-pin on the ends, so I’m going with that for now.  Set one divider to about half the thickness of the stock, and make a mark that distance in from the front and back of the board.  If you guessed half the thickness exactly there will only be one mark, otherwise adjust the dividers to split the difference. Now make a mark that distance in from each edge and set those dividers aside.  We’re using two dividers because in the real world we would be making several identical joints, like the four corners of a drawer, and we want to have them match.

Now we need to mark out the spacing for the dovetails.  You could measure the distance, divide by the number of tails and measure the difference off using a set of calipers.  Or you could use the other pair of dividers to simply step the distance off.  I’d recommend the later.

When I first read about this approach I had to read the description a few times, then try it myself.  Essentially what we’re going to do is set the dividers by eye, step off the distance and adjust them calipers.  Once we’re satisfied we’ll step off the distance, starting at the left half-pin mark and moving to the right and making a small mark each time.  Then start at the right half-pin mark and step off the distance to the left, again making a mark.

How wide do you set the dividers?  If you want 3 tails set them to about 1/3 third the distance.  Make a practice run, stepping off the distance but not making any marks.  When you get to the other end look at the amount that you’re overshooting the other half pin mark.  That overshoot is going to be the size of the space between the ends of the tails.  I usually have that set at about 3/16 of an inch.  In other words, the space between the tips of the second set of dividers is set to the width of one tail plus the width of one pin.

If you’re happy with the size of the pin, go ahead and step off the distance from each half-pin mark to the other side, making a mark at each point.

This method is very fast, and foolproof (I can do it!).

Next, draw a straight line across the endgrain with a square.

Now set you sliding bevel for whatever slope you’re using for your dovetails.  This setting, like pins-first vs. tails-first, is one of the things woodworkers like to have debates about.  Typically the angle is specified as a ratio or slope like 1:6 or 1:8.  This just means that for one inch in width the angle meets at 6 (or 8) inches up.  You can easily draw out a series of these angles and use it to set your sliding bevel gauge.

For what it’s worth, if you want to know the degrees measurement you can take the arc tangent of the height number times 10.  For example, a 1:8 ratio is arctan(8) * 10, or 14.4644133 degrees.  Ratios are easier.  The only reason I know this is that Lee Valley sells these groovy dovetail saddle squares that you can use to mark both the straight line across the endgrain and the angled line on the face in one shot.  They sell them in 1:6, 1:8 and 14 degrees.  Why?  Turns out 14 degrees is a 1:7.24460662 (call it 1:7.25) slope.  Still, it’s odd.

Here are my 1:6 an 1:8 Lee Valley gauges.  I have no idea where my 14 degree gauge is, off on a weekend rendezvous with my metric hammer probably.

I used my sliding bevel gauge to lay these out at a 1:5 slope. Or 13.7340077 degrees…oh, never mind.

Finally, mark the waste.  It’s too easy to cut in the wrong place.  Or plane your thumb, but that’s another story.

At this point you’re ready to cut the tails.  We talked about sawing yesterday, so let’s skip that (and chopping/paring) and mark out our pins next.  This is easy.  Clamp the pin board in your vise with it level with a plane or other spacer, then set the tail board on top.  Line up the two sides, and align the baseline on the tail board with the inside face on the pin board.  If you marked the baselines exactly the width of the stock you can just align the ends of the tails with the face of the pin board.  Make really light cuts at first so that your knife doesn’t follow the grain, but follows the tail.

In case you’re wondering, I HATE that marking knife for laying out dovetails.  I’m going to buy or make a spear-point marking knife.  The problem is that on the left side of the tails the bevel of the blade is in the wrong place and it leaves the mark in the wrong spot.

Finally, use your pen and square to draw in vertical guidelines from the knife cuts down to the baseline.  Thats about it.  Marking the tails is pretty failure proof.  Marking the pins from the tails is a little dicy because if you don’t have the two parts perfectly aligned they won’t fit properly in the end.  There is a trick to help this, which I’ll experiment with and cover in the future.  The idea is to cut a shallow rabbit on the inside of the tail board, right at the baseline, before laying out the tails.  This gives you a shoulder to align the two parts.

Dovetails – Sawing

Two weeks ago I attended a Hand Cut Dovetails class at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  I’ve wanted to write about what I learned ever since, but life has conspired to delay that.  A visit from my parents, my son’s chorus concert at school (he was very cute) and a dozen other things — all good, but time consuming.

When I was doing power tool woodworking years ago I couldn’t imagine doing dovetails by hand.  I had a router table with a fancy-schmancy Jointech fence and template system.  I could make all kinds of fancy dovetails with that, but with a saw and chisel?  Uhmm, not so much.  The idea of hand made dovetails seemed unobtainable, as if it were reserved for master craftsmen.  So learning how to do this has been something of a focus for me.  As much as an adult with ADHD can focus on anything anyway.

One of the things I came away from Port Townsend with is that there are basically four things you need to know how to do to cut dovetails.  Maybe five if you count stock preparation, but let’s gloss over that for the moment and just say that it’s a given.

1. Layout
2. Sawing
3. Chopping
4. Paring

There are a number of steps, a cookbook-able process to follow for any style of dovetail joint, and if you can perform these four basic skills you can cut a dovetail joint that will fit.  If you can do them with a high degree of accuracy, consistently, then you can be like Rob Cosman and glue them up right from the saw without test fitting.  Note that I have no illusions about being Rob Cosman (or John Malkovich), I’m totally a beginner and am just sharing what I’ve learned.

Of these four procedures, sawing was the one that caused me the most trouble, and if you can’t do that accurately then you’re going to be frustrated.  I know, ask me.  I could generally have the cut square across the end of the board, and follow the line down the front face, but the cut on the back would consistently be off.  The instructor, Tim Lawson, even had Jim Tolpin test my saw to make sure it wasn’t bewitched.  It wasn’t of course, I’d already anointed it with chicken blood and performed several ritualistic chants.  I just needed some critique on my technique and some practice.

So let’s start with what I learned about sawing accurately, then we can move on to the other basic dovetail skills in future posts and hopefully put it all together at the end.

You’ll need a decent dovetail saw.  I got a Lie Nielsen dovetail saw for Christmas this year, to replace my cheap gents saw.  You can get a cheap saw and tune it up, but if you don’t know what you’re doing why start with an unknown?  The LN isn’t cheap at $125, but it’s a solid piece and has a good reputation.  It’s beautiful tool too.

At the school they had the Veritas dovetails saw.  It worked well too, and it’s half the price (literally) of the LN.  I don’t care for the looks personally, but I’ve got an aesthetic hang up when it comes to tools.  The over-moulded back just doesn’t work visually, but as I said it cuts just fine.

In case you haven’t noticed, I tend to get caught up in tools.  I’m sure I’m the only one that does that, so it’s OK.

Here is the sawing process that Tim coached me through to resolve the Crooked Cuts(TM).

First, we need something to practice with.  I’ve been using some squishy White Pine from the local big box store.  I pick through the stock and find the straightest pieces.  Cut them to length and shoot the ends square.  Don’t leave your left thumb sticking out when you’re shooting the ends with your right hand.  I’ve already learned that lesson, no point in you having to repeat it.

I’m not sure this is the best material for learning dovetails – it is so soft that the chisel work requires uber sharpness and a careful touch.  But it’s readily available and more-or-less ready to go from the store.

Starting with the tail cuts, it’s critical that the cuts be square to the face of the board.  If the cuts aren’t square you’ll spend a ton of time paring them to get them square.  At best it will waste time, more likely it will be a joint that won’t fit well or will look uneven.  Or both.  Likewise, the pin cuts must be absolutely plumb.  If the sawing isn’t accurate you’re starting out with a big disadvantage.  Spending time practicing accurate sawing before attempting to make a dovetail joint will save you a lot of frustration.

Mark a series of practice cut lines on the end of a board.  I’ve scribed a shoulder around the part so that I have a target to stop at.  These are a 1:6 ratio, but really any angle is OK as long as it’s the same for all cuts.  We will look at layout later, right now we just need a consistent set of lines so we can practice making consistent cuts.  Spacing doesn’t make any difference at this point.

I’m going to deviate slightly from what Tim recommended.  His advice was to orient the board so that the cuts are plumb – in other words the board would be tilted to the left for the first set of cuts and to the right for the second set of cuts.  Try it and see if it helps.  The idea is that then you just need to learn to saw plumb, and the weight of the saw helps with that.  I want to be able to cut without having to re-orient the board, so that’s what I’m practicing.

Aside from the orientation of the board, here is what Tim recommended (seen through a filter of the Ian Kirby Dovetail book and several Rob Cosman videos):

First, use the thumb and index finger to pinch the board next to the cut line.  We’re going to use these two fingers as a guide to keep the saw in place as we start the kerf.  It also helps stabilize the board, and ties your body, the board and the saw into one connected unit.

Hold the saw gently with a three finger grip, your index finger pointing down the length of the blade.  This was described as “imagine you’re holding a baby’s hand”.  I’d add, it’s not a newborn, but a baby that is just starting to walk and needs something to hold on to.  Your hand is relaxed, but not limp.

Stand in front of the board, to the side of the cut so that your saw arm is in a straight line with the layout line.  Your wrist is locked and your arm is going to move forward and backward like a piston in an engine.  You also want to lift up on the saw so that perhaps only 20% of it’s weight is on the teeth.  I imagine I’m tickling the end grain.

Now gently press the saw against the thumb and forefinger of your off hand.  Squeeze your guide fingers to push the blade into position.  The blade should be on the waste side of the line, and your eyes should be on the opposite side of the line.  Looking on the non-waste side, you should see the entire line with the blade parallel to it.  You want to make your cut exactly next to the pen line.  If you try to cut on the line it won’t be as accurate.

Begin sawing at one corner, either the front or the back.  Try both and see what works best for you.  Let’s assume you’re starting at the back corner.  As soon as the saw begins a kerf at the corner you want to begin lowering the handle, watching the layout line on the end grain, walking the kerf square across the board.  As soon as you have a tiny kerf started,  stop.  Sight down the sawplate and make sure your aligned with the angled line on the face of the board.  Take another few strokes, just enough to bury the teeth.  At this point your kerf is perhaps 1/16″ deep or slightly more.

Notice that you can see the reflection of the end of the board in the saw plate.  If the reflection is lined up straight with the end of the board you’re square.

Now continue sawing, pivoting the blade around the back corner, and walking the kerf down the front face.  Don’t let the saw come out of the kerf at the back, but also don’t saw any deeper there.  Stop at the baseline, or just a hair above.

When you reach the scribed baseline pivot the saw around the front corner of the cut, bringing it down level.  This uses the kerf you’ve accurately established to guide the cut on the back.  Make sure you’ve reached the baseline on the front and the blade is horizontal.  If you always saw from the face side or outside of the part then any tiny overshoot of the baseline on the back won’t show.  It’s actually not that hard to hit the baseline, getting the cut square and on the correct angle is the magic.

JoeSawing2

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As it turns out, for the tails, if the angle is off it doesn’t matter – as long as the cut is square to the face of the board.  That is because when we get to actually making a joint we will use the tails to layout the pin cuts.  For now, just mark and cut a few practice boards to get into the rhythm of sawing and practice getting it straight.

Here is the front of one of the practice boards from my 11 year old son.  H, I and J look pretty good on the front.  Ignore the H cut that is to the left of the line, that’s just miserable.  Ditto on A, C and D.  F and G fail because the go below the baseline.

A, B, C, H, I, J all look pretty good from the back too.  But check out F for example.  It looks good on the front  and top (other than sneaking past the baseline) but it drifts waaaay off on the back.  Using the technique that Tim recommended helps with this, K0lya was mostly just charging straight down – the ones where he worked down the front first came out better.

I’m going to go make some more practice cuts, then we’ll take a look at layout, chopping and paring.  I’d love to hear how you do dovetails, as I said I’m just learning and this is what is working for me at the moment.

–Joe

Dovetail Class Report

I spent the weekend in Port Townsend for a dovetail class.  It was a lot of fun, and really helpful to have someone look over my shoulder and point out what I’m doing wrong.  Jim Tolpin taught the first morning, and Tim Lawson taught the rest of the weekend.

The school is well equipped with hand tools and nice solid workbenches.  And the weather was beautiful.

The best thing about the class was having Tim watch what I was doing and make suggestions on what I was doing wrong, that was a huge help.

Tim covered through dovetails and half-blind dovetails, and we had a lot of time to practice.  I’d have preferred a little less time practicing and a little more instruction.  I’d have liked to see full blind dovetails, houndstooth, and other variations demonstrated.

I plan to post some step-by-step instructions later based on what I learned, but I’ll just leave you with one tidbit of wisdom for now:  Don’t let your thumb stick out when holding a short piece of wood on a shooting board.  Ask me how I know.

Making a Marking Gauge, Part 2

A while back I started making a marking gauge.

I set it aside for a while – in part I’ve been working on my bench, but also because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for the cutter on this gauge.  I’ve seen folks use a pointed piece of drill rod, but that doesn’t work well across the grain.  I’ve seen instructions on how to sharpen this kind of cutter to make it more of a knife part, but it still looks too thick to slice through the wood fibers nicely.  David Charlesworth write about this in one of his books, this picture is from a Popular Woodworking article:

I really like my Glen-Drake gauge, I like the way that it slices through the wood and leaves a crisp line.  I’ve seen marking gauges that use small blades and even X-Acto knife blades.  The downside of that approach is that the attachment is a bit more fiddly.  I wanted this to be simple and fast, here is what I came up with.

I’m using some 5/32″ O1 drill rod — this is an oil-quench tool steel.  I chose the diamater because I wanted to fit it into a 1/8″ hole and have it be a snug fit.  I cut a few short pieces with a hacksaw and de-burred them ends.  Note that I filed one end flat and a small dome on the other end. (I swear, this was in focus when I took it)

I heated the rounded end using a propane torch, the hottest part should be right at the tip of the inner flame cone.  I’m holding it a little too far into the flame in the picture, but I’m juggling the part and the camera at the same time.

Heat the tip until the first 1/3 or so is a cherry red.  I’m going to forge the end into a flat, fan shape.  Forge might be too strong a word, this is pretty light work.  I used light taps and re-heated it after a few taps.  Between the small size of the part, and the mass of cold metal in the hammer and “anvil” it cools off really quickly.

To get the shape I wanted I need to hold the hammer at an angle, and hold the part at the edge of the anvil so that the hammer can hang off the edge.  This is a posed shot of course, I couldn’t hold the hammer, vise grips with the red-hot part and the camera all at the same time.

What I’m working toward is to thin the metal at the tip, tapering back to a round cross section, while widening the metal at the same time.  It’s harder to type than to actually do it, trust me.  It took me maybe 3 or four cycled of heating and hammering to get to the shape I wanted.

Next I needed to harden the metal so it would hold an edge.  There is a lot of science in heat treating, and a fair bit of black magic when it comes to making edged tools.  I’ve forged a handful of knives and chisels in the past, forging edged tools is a bottomless pit of austenitic temperatures, molten salt baths and cryogenic cycles.  For the purposes of making a pointy thing to leave a deep scratch in a piece of wood, simple is fine.

Heat the part to a medium cherry red.  If you have a magnet handy the part should loose it’s magnetic attraction at this temperature.  Then stick the part into a small container of oil and swish it around.  Done.  Technically it should be “tempered” to draw out the brittleness, but it’s not necessary for this.

Please use caution if you do this yourself, it’s all too easy to burn yourself or set something on fire if you’re not careful.

You can confirm that you’ve hardened this by using a file.  A slightly dull file (I have several of those left over from retoothing my saw) should skate across the hardened area without cutting.  Compare it to a piece of the same material prior to hardening it.

Then I worked the tip with a grinder, then an oilstone.  The tip is wide and thin, less than 1/16″ at the edge.

I still need to sharpen it, and finish the rest of the marking gauge, but I think this will work out well.

Marilyn’s Miterbox

Marilyn over at the She Works Wood blog mentioned recently that she’d picked up a miterbox that needed a little TLC.  I volunteered to lend a hand, so let’s get this knocked out.

Marilyn and already scrubbed the grease and dirt off, and disassembled it.  Bless you, that made my life much easier.

There are two broken parts I needed to repair.  One of the stands has a mounting tab broken off, and there is also a crack through the main part of the miterbox where the wood platform is supposed to attach.  You can see the broken foot in the picture, the crack in the main part is hard to see (and harder to photograph) until it’s cleaned up.

First things first, let’s get rid of the antique paint and rust.  My weapon of choice for this sort of thing is a bead blast cabinet.

Cleaning this part, the main casting, was the most time consuming part of the whole job.  This is cast iron, and fairly porous.  The paint and rust is down in the pores and would have preferred to stay there.  Me and the glass beads had other ideas.  Now that it’s clean you can clearly see the crack in the base.

Cleaning the rest of the parts was the same exciting operation, with one exception.  The two posts that hold the saw need to be a nice, slop-free, smooth fit into the uprights.  They look like they were chromed or perhaps nickel plated originally.  I didn’t want to bead blast that area, but I wanted to make sure it was smooth and clean.  I used some white lightening rouge  and a spiran-sewn buff to polish off any burrs and discoloration.  I didn’t overdo it because I didn’t want to mess up the fit.

Then I masked off the polished part and bead blasted the rest.

Before:

Polished:

Masked & ready for blasting:

After everything is clean it’s time for repairs.  I really, really (really) prefer to work on clean parts.  Here is the crack in the main casting.  I opened it up with an abrasive cutoff wheel.  The crack goes right through the attachment hole.

Then I TIG welded it using Silicon Bronze rod.  Some people call this Heli-Brazing.  Cast iron can be welded, but it can be fussy too.  Silicon Bronze rod is very strong, at least as strong as the original cast iron, and should make a good solid repair.

Here is the repair after grinding.  There are a couple of tiny pits in the bronze, but they match the pits in the cast iron.  I’ve heard cast parts described as “structures made of sand, inclusions and gas pockets joined together with molten metal”.

I welded both sides, and also welded the edge of the mounting screw hole.

Last step, fixing the foot.

This actually isn’t too bad.  The way the break happened the foot still sits level, so I just need to graft on a new tab.  Usually I layout the repair part, grind it to shape and weld it on.  Since it was so small in this case I decided to weld on a larger piece and then finish it to size.

I used a piece of hot rolled steel about 1″ square.

It looks klunky for the moment, but it will work out well in the end.  Welding on a tiny part can be problematic, if it shifts just a bit in welding (and it will) then it won’t look right.  I ran a bead of Silicon Bronze across the top, flowing it into the joint.  Then I welded the sides, and across the joint on the bottom.

I ground away the bulk of the bead so it would match the transition on the other feet.  Then I flipped it over and painted the bottom of the repair with Dykem layout fluid.  I clamped the good foot to the repair, scribed the shape onto the repair and used a transfer punch to mark the location of the mounting hole.

Which show just what needs to be removed to make this foot match the other three.

A little quality time with the disc grinder and we have a fixed foot.  Note that the original foot next to it is a tad shorter than the one I scribed from, there is a lot of variability in castings.

That was fun.  I like tools.  Now I want a miter box…

 

–Joe

The Sad Saw, Part 3 (Not So Sad Anymore)

OK, it’s done.  Well, maybe a few more coats of Tried & True on the handle.

When we left off a few days ago I’d used up 3 files re-toothing the saw, starting with cutting starting notches in using a spacing template.  I ordered more files from McMaster-Carr, and they were waiting at home after work.

Initially I thought to cut finer teeth on the first 2 inches – which is why those teeth are further along — but along the way they ended up evening out with the rest of the teeth.  I got all of the starting notches pretty accurately spaced out, although there were maybe 3 spots where where one tooth was off a little.

I filed every tooth, trying to even it out checking from the side of the saw plate, and from above.  I was looking for discrepancies in the depth of the gullets and in the flat left on the top of each tooth.  That helped even things up and kept me from over-filing in any one area.

Then jointed the teeth lightly – until I had a flat on all of the tips of the teeth – and painted the teeth with some blue Dykem.  Then I filed each tooth one stroke.  Then I went from end to end looking for flats that were different widths.  I filed these even, applying pressure to either the face or the back of a tooth depending on which direction I thought it needed to move to even out the flats.  Then I jointed it with just two strokes, applied more Dyekem and filed again, keeping my strokes even for an entire pass, then adjusting teeth as necessary to even out the flats.

One more jointing, just a single stroke with a mill file, more Dykem and I filed every tooth the same amount, leaving just the tiniest hint of blue on the tip at the most.  I set the teeth, inked the tips of the teeth a final time and filed them all to a nice sharp point.  Looking at the teeth close up I can see some small discrepancies, but the tips of the teeth are all  in the same plane, the toothline is straight and it feels sharp.

I gave the handle nuts a quick polish and assembled the saw for a test drive.  It’s filed 10ppt rip, because I wanted a fine rip panel saw.  I made several test cuts in a piece of 4/4 white pine, and also in 1/2″ claro walnut.  It cuts great!  It leaves a smooth edge, no tear out on the backside and tracks straight.  I’m really pleased.

I know the teeth could be made more even, but it cuts twice as good as the Vaughn pull saw I have.  It’s really comfortable in my hand, and the length is nice.  I’m also thrilled to be cutting something thinner than 5″ after doing all that sawing on my workbench project.

 

I’m still in the process of putting more finish on the handle; I just applied another coat, which is still wet, before this picture. I want about this much sheen when it’s dry.  Probably two more coats.

But it’s officially a “user” saw now, and it lives in a pile with my other saws.  It’s time to build some proper saw storage.

 

 

The Sad Saw, Part 2

I made a little progress on the Sad Saw today.

I put a coat of Tried & True oil/varnish finish on the handle.  This is the first time I’ve used this product, and I was surprised at how thick it is.  It’s the consistency of molasses.  Or maybe corn syrup.  The instructions say to apply a coat, let it soak for an hour and then wipe it all off, letting it cure for 24 hours.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Probably two or three more coats to get the results I want.

I worked a bit on the saw plate while the first coat of varnish was drying.  First I sanded both sides with 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper and WD-40.  I just wanted to have it look like an old sawplate, with a little patina.  I went for a brighter finish on the D8, but this project is really about learning to sharpen (and re-tooth, apparently) an old saw.

Next I needed to do something about the wavy toothline.  Hey, I know…let’s cut it off.  I used a shear because I have one.  You could do this with an abrasive cut off wheel, a grinder, aviation snips…lots of different way.

But, Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that black junk on the saw plate?  Didja miss cleaning a spot?

No, actually that is Dykem.  It’s layout fluid, basically dark blue thin lacquer.  You can scribe through it to make accurate, clear layout lines in metal.  It’s the metalworking equivalent of a marking knife.  I laid out a decorative nib and round over at the front of the plate.

Then I grabbed a file and started removing the extra metal.  I’ve done a bit more refining to the shape since this picture was taken, but this is essentially what it looks like.

Now comes the hard part, re-toothing the blade.  I’m pretty nervous about this step because no matter how pretty I make the saw look, if it doesn’t cut well it’s useless.

I printed off some tooth spacing templates I found on the Norse Woodsmith blog and used those to start filing in the new teeth.  I made a couple of mistakes in the spacing, but I think as I file in the teeth I can correct that problem.  If necessary I can lightly joint the toothline and fine tune some more.

I bought 3 files, and by the time I had all the teeth roughed in they were dull.  It’s not that long of a saw (anymore), so this surprised me.  They aren’t clogged, but they don’t cut properly anymore.  Next time I’ll use some lubricant on the files and see if that helps.  I’ll pick up a few new files so I can finish the saw plate off.

I probably spent 45 minutes roughing in the teeth, and I’m sure I’ll spend the better part of another hour getting them all shaped correctly and even.  I want a power tool for this step.  I found this video of a Belsaw-Foley Retoother in action.  I want one, although finding one with all the attachments at a reasonable price might be tough (Jeez, I hope my wife isn’t reading this…)

The Sad Saw, Part 1

I started out on the road to hand tool woodworking with an inexpensive pull saw from the big box store, then I restored a Disston D8 and had Dr. Phil at Bad Axe sharpen it.  Now I’m Hooked on Hand Saws(TM).  I won’t bore you with the saws that have recently feathered my saw nest, but I decided that I needed to learn how to sharpen saws myself.

Currently all the saws I have are razor sharp, so I needed something to practice on.  Again, eBay to the “rescue”.  I got this gem for under $20 with shipping.  This is the picture from the eBay listing, but I added the red line.

The price was right.  It’s a Diston with brass fasteners and a nice handle that looked to be in good shape.  The blade, no so much.  I actually didn’t notice that the toothline was so far out from being straight.  It’s worse in person.  The tip is also bent slightly.  The bent tip isn’t a huge concern because my plan was already to shorten the saw an inch or two — I want to make a “panel saw”, with a fine tooth rip pattern.

Here you can see the disaster that passes for a toothline.  The heel and toe are resting on the surface, there is at least 1/4″ rise in the middle.

Before the saw arrived I was thinking that I’d re-sharpen and re-shape the teeth, but after looking at the saw it really needs to be re-toothed.  I’m thinking that I’ll scribe a straight line from the heel to the toe and shear it off, then file in new teeth.  But first I think I’ll sleep on it.

I don’t know how well you can see this, but about 2″ back from the toe there is a distinct bend in the blade.  It could probably be straightened, but I’m pretty sure I’ll just shorten it.  If I shear the toothline so it’s straight the tip of the saw will come to a point anyway, shortening the length will mean less metal to remove along the working edge.

I really like the shape of the handle.  It’s not in terrible shape, although it has it’s share of nicks and dings.

So, after work tonight I disassembled the saw.  I striped the handle with lacquer thinner and steel wool.  That got a lot of dirt off, and the tiny bit of finish that was still on the handle.  Then I sanded out the worst of the nicks and chips, and gave the handle an overall sanding with 220 grit.  There is a little loss of detail in the carving, but it’s not as extensive as the picture makes it look.

And finally I dropped the handle in a bad of “danish oil” to soak for a few hours.  I’ll pull it out later and let it dry overnight before putting some varnish on it.  I used a similar procedure on the handle for the D8 that I restored and it really seemed to bring out the color in the handle nicely.  Tomorrow, time permitting, I’ll start on the saw plate.

 

Planing the Last Face of the Workbench Top

A couple of weeks ago when I started on this workbench project I had essentially no experience using hand planes.  Looking back, this has been a great learning experience.  I feel pretty confident now that I can get a surface true with just hand tools.  Planing the first two edges to glue up the first section seemed to take forever, but ya gotta start somewhere.  I ended up adding a #8 jointer plane to my kit because I was having trouble getting the edge flat with just my #6.

As I’ve worked more with the planes I’ve gotten a better feel for which tool I should be using at any given time.  At this point I have one face flattened, and all four edges square and straight.  Time to flip it over and start on the last face.

The first thing I did was to find the thinnest area of the top, and then draw a guide line all the way around the edges.  The goal is to plane down to this line so that I end up with a consistent thickness.  I used my combination square to do this because my marking gauge was too short.  I need to make a panel gauge, it’s on the list of projects.

The next step was of course to work across the face with the scrub plane (“traversing” according to Moxon, Schwarz, et. all).  The alignment between the glued up beams was off on one of the beams by about 1/16″, so I brought that down first, then worked across the entire face to remove the rough exterior.

I worked in sections, here I’ve finished the first 1/2 of the bench top.  It’s really gratifying to take of big, chunky chips like this.

After traversing with the scrub plane I worked lengthwise, with the body skewed to the direction of the plane.  My goal was to remove more material, but have the plane read more of the surface to keep from getting out of control.  I’m watching my red thickness guide line, and checking with my straightedge.  Note that the near corner (bottom right in the photo) is marked off so I avoid it.  That is the thinnest part of the bench and I want to bring the rest of the surface down to that.

I worked as much with the scrub plane as I dared.  In hindsight, I could have gone further with it, but as I get so many grooves on the surface I get concerned about overshooting the mark.  So I switched to the #5 jack plane that I restored working first across the surface, than at about a 45 degree angle, then along the length of the surface.  In the picture you can see the marks from traversing the surface.  With a little wax on the sole the plane just flys over the surface.  At first it’s just cutting the tops of the grooves, then it starts taking large shavings as it removes the troughs from the scrub plane.

I worked everything down close to my thickness line.  The line isn’t as accurate as I’d like, but I’ll check measurements as I get closer.  At this point the top is approaching the correct thickness, but has an uneven surface from the heavy work with the jack plane.  I also used my #6 plane a bit, it covers more of the surface and I have a slightly cambered blade in it.

Finally on to the #8 jointer plane.  At this point I’m fairly out of breath (read: gasping for air), but the surface is coming together nicely.  I’ve been working it lengthwise, with the body of the plane slightly skewed.  I need to work out a few small problems, which will probably require working it at 45 degrees with the #8.  But I’m beat, and it’s dinner time.  Three sides and one large face planed, plus shuttling my son to various activities and helping him with his Math homework makes for a full day.  Frankly, I think the homework took more out of me than the planing.  ”We” don’t like homework.

Veni, Vidi, Planie

I came, I saw, I planed.  And planed.  And planed.  Lots of planing today.

After squaring the two ends I stood the workbench slap on edge on the pseudo-bench and marked the areas of the rip-sawn edge that weren’t square to the true face.  To support it I clamped offcuts from my leg blanks to the slab and the pseudo bench.  Remember that the pseudo bench is also clamped to a 150 pound cast iron angle plate to dampen the wiggling.  Very Rube Goldberg.

Here you can better see the areas I marked that were out of square from the true face.  I pretty consistently had the rip saw canted slightly.  It was about 1/8″ off along this edge, but mostly straight along the length of the rip.  The dark spot at the far end is from some oil I’d put on the saw blade to protect it.  I used wax on the saw plate, and I’ve started using was on my plane bottoms — I was really surprised how much of a difference it makes on planes.

I peeled off the extra material with the scrub plane, working lengthwise.  That is pretty much effortless.  I switched to the low angle jack with the toothed blade and flattened the knots and high spots.  Then on to the #8 jointer plane to flatten things out.  That is pretty much not effortless.

As I worked I checked that the edge was square to the true face, square to the two ends that I’d planed up this morning, and straight (using the same 10 pound straight edge…I gotta get something lighter!)

The blue tape at the far end is a small chunk that I chipped out, and glued back in.  After the glue dries I’ll go over the edge once more to make sure everything is clean.

I just have the one face of the workbench slab to flatten, I’ll have that done this weekend for sure, and if I hustle I may have time to cut some practice leg joints.

-Joe