Learning to Cut to a Line

My friend Brian says that great woodworking requires cutting to a line accurately. I don't think it matters whether the accuracy is by hand or by machine, but I know that he was talking about hand work.

He suggested an exercise for learning accuracy with a handsaw, one I found similar to playing scales and arpeggios on the piano: deceptively simple, repetitive, but challenging to perfect. I've started doing this exercise whenever I have a few spare moments in the shop:

1. Mark a shoulder line 1" from one end of a wood scrap
   This length amplifies error enough that you can see even a small divergence from the line).
2. Using a square, mark lines from the shoulder line to the end of the board
   Make as many as you can fit across the scrap—Brian suggests putting them 1/8" apart, but I've been marking them further apart than that).
3. Wrap the lines onto the end
   This exercise leaves me wishing for a saddle square: I've found that error creeps into the intersection with almost every set of lines—it isn't obvious until I cut to the line, but then I can see that the two lines tend to be as much as 1/32" off.
4. Cut to the shoulder following the lines
   Check the resulting kerfs for square both across the top of the board and running down to the shoulder line. Initially I was cutting on the line and realized that this prevented me from judging how accurately I was cutting to the line. Then I tried cutting next to the line, which gave me enough visual feedback, but would require chisel work to complete a joint. So finally I conclude that I should strive to cut the line in half. This leaves enough pencil to judge accuracy, and when I'm accurate removes all of the waste.
5. Cut off the kerfed part of your and start again with #1
   Rinse and repeat. Brian's teacher was required to do this 200 times before being allowed to cut dovetails. I've only done it twice, and it seems like it might just take 200 times before I am accurate with this.

This exercise develops at least three skills required for cutting good dovetails:

1. Cutting square to the board end
   Tails need square cuts. And if you cut tails first, this allows you to cut matching tails at once.
   
2. Cutting to the shoulder line on both sides
   Cuts past the shoulder will show.
3. Following a line
   By following the layout lines exactly, you end up with tight joints that didn't require a lot of adjustment with a chisel.

I hope to find that this exercise has improved my dovetails next time I use them. First I'm learning the hard way how to flatten a board with a hand plane: lesson 764 in woodworking - S4S does not mean flat.

Why Blog About Woodworking?

This post departs from woodworking and considers the act of blogging. I originally started posting about woodworking using HTML, creating static Web pages without the benefit of an editor. I wrote the pages in the Notepad text editor and used a Web browser to view the result. It took a lot of time and effort to create a page, and my posts were mostly about learning to write HTML and post it on the Web. The woodworking was just an excuse. You can find those early posts at http://www.robertkarl.org/pages/Workshop.htm

When I started the blog, I had some hope of being widely read, but I've since learned that for all but a select few bloggers, readership amounts to family and friends. The process has to contain value outside fame or fortune to justify the time and effort spent on it.

So why do I post about woodworking if I'm not an expert and I'm not widely read? I'm obviously getting something from the activity, and today I read a blog entry about Blogging as Reflective Practice (well outside the Woodworking blogosphere) that clarified what that is.

It turns out I'm not really looking for fame and fortune. In fact, as stated in my profile, "A Woodworking Odyssey is my way of thinking about and sharing the experience I gain." I think my real intent as it has developed is to use blogging as a regular reflection that also propels me to greater knowledge and productivity. It works to develop me as a woodworker.

Three years after starting regular posts, my writing experience informs every aspect of my woodworking experience and helps me learn more quickly about new techniques and deepen my knowledge of familiar ones. It makes me more considered and systematic in approaching a project:

• If I'm having difficulty, I write and think about it (and sometimes receive a comment from much more experienced woodworkers, like Chuck Bender and Tim McReady).
• When I work on a project I stop to take pictures of each stage—a habit that prevents me from making as many mistakes. That short photo break makes me look at what I'm doing, identify what steps are distinct and important, and try to find the best angle and focus for capturing the action. In the process, my thoughts shift from doing the work to observing it and I often learn about something before regretting it.
• Afterwards, when I write about a process, I'm engaged in the reflective activity that Gina Minks wrote about in Blogging as Reflective Practice. I process the actions and thoughts I've had, refine them, and become expert in the process itself and in my approach to a project.

Awareness of this process may move my focus toward the learning process on each project. I think that will be a good thing for you and me—the only two people reading this blog ;)

One Reason to Hate MDF

Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) isn't just for counters and insta-furniture any more. I've seen it used as a veneer base and structural component by woodworkers doing stunning work, and there are many things to recommend it, like stability, consistency, and affordability.

But I just can't like MDF, and after using it for reference boards to test and adjust my Radial Arm Saw (RAS), I can't say that I like it any more than I did. I will continue to use this product for sacrifice tables on the RAS, for reference boards used to test its accuracy, and for some jigs, but I aim to avoid using it as much as possible. Here's why:

If you don't know what you're looking at, it's dust. Not regular saw dust, but the finest powder I can imagine that still looks like it might be a wood product. I sometimes forget a dust mask when working with real wood, but never with MDF. After one cut, I'm ready to put the ventilator over my face—even on the hottest most humid day.

Two new rules developed this week while I was adjusting the RAS. These are good rules for any power sawing, but essential when working with MDF:

1. Clear surfaces of all but the tools required for the current job. This makes it easy to vacuum up afterward, and prevents the dust getting in the working parts of your tools.
2. If it can be closed, close all tool storage completely (Even if it is nowhere near the saw). Again: an ounce of prevention will keep most of this dust out of your tools.
   

One final sad fact about MDF: while you can plane it (and to make the reference boards I found it necessary) you cannot make shavings. Even with a sharp blade, MDF will only produce dust. Blade dulling, throat choking (the plane's, not mine), dust.

Fettling a Jointer Plane

My shop contains few working power tools. I'm not really a Neanderthal, but the shop has developed accidentally with an emphasis toward hand tools. This is partly because of my penchant for getting things used or free, and partly just bad luck.

For example, I would love to have a working jointer, but the little bench top model I bought for a "bargain" was setup incorrectly by its previous owner, and so far I've been unable to release the blades to adjust them properly (the man must have been a beast, because those screws are not budging, even after multiple WD-40 and Kroil applications). There's no point in trying to joint with blades that are set out of square.

I believe learning a task with hand tools teaches me more about power tools than learning it with power tools teaches me about hand tools. This may or may not prove useful some day, but I've been betting that it will. Hand tools also fettle more quickly than power tools (are power tools fettled?). My band saw, for example has much larger parts and labor requirements before it works to a fine standard than a any bench plane will.

So when it came time to glue up the bench tops for my bench project and I had a choice between driving the three hour round trip to my friend's house to use his power jointer or spending the time fettling my jointer plane and doing it by hand, you can guess which one I chose.

The plane had promise, but it needed some help.

My sole aim was to have both sides of the mouth in the same plane. Right, well even if the puns are unintended, I wanted to make sure the front and back of the mouth would contact any board I'm flattening. To ensure that, I made reference marks in front of and behind the mouth using a Sharpie and started flattening the plane on my "reference" surface.

The reference surface is a cutoff piece of marble that I got free at from a local granite counter manufacturer. It works well as a flattening surface and is heavy enough to hold a length of Klingspor Gold Cloth Roll under the ends using just gravity as an adhesive. The Klingspor sand paper is fairly expensive, especially at this width, but it is so worth the cost. It can be torn to an appropriate length using just a straight edge, it has a good tooth, and you can vacuum it clean and keep using it for quite a while.

With the plane assembled—no blade of course—I planed the surface flat on the sand paper. Here it is: flat enough, with just a hint of the mark left at the front of the mouth (all of that is in a scratch pattern that would take ages to sand flat, so I called it "flat enough").


The blade had apparently been sharpened and polished by its previous owner on a grinder with a felt wheel. Even though it looked good with a finely polished surface, it wasn't good. I had to flatten, square, joint, and resharpen the blade to get it going right.

I'm not going to comment on how this was done, except to say that I don't have a grinder (remember my lack of power tools?) so almost all of this was done on the Gold sandpaper. Ages ago I had purchased a sharpening jig from Lee Valley, and this made it easier to redefine the bevel at the correct angle. I also acquired a really thin metal ruler last year, which made polishing the back of the blade much easier than it might have been: I used the David Charlesworth trick of laying the ruler on one side of the oil stone to hold the back of the blade at a consistent angle and focus the polishing on the end of the blade. It was the first time I had done this, and it worked wonderfully. I'll cheerfully do it again when flattening plane blades, which don't get used as reference surfaces.

After honing on the oil stone, I hoped for the best. And fine, frothy shavings emerged. Success. I was ready to start jointing.

Box Assembly

Yesterday night I returned to the shop. The bottom and insides of the cherry dovetailed box had been finished with two coats of Tung oil finish and a coat of wax. The finished cherry glowed almost golden, practically begging me to glue it together.

Having come this far without incident, I wanted to be sure to get the glue up right. I checked my labels, still visible on the outside of the box, and laid out the parts in relative position with the bottom in the center. I placed the sides with the bottom slots of each piece laid alongside the bottom. I had clamps ready if I should need them; also a 12" rule, a mallet, four pine blocks cut with fingers slightly thinner than the tails, glue spreaders and glue cup cut from a small paper cup, a spray bottle of water, paper towels, and scraps of cherry created when I cut the dovetails.

Surveying the scene, I ran through the process in my head. It seemed that everything I needed lay in front of me. I used some poster putty to temporarily attach the paper glue cup to the bench top (have you ever chased a glue cup under the bench while your open time was ticking away? I have.). Then I poured enough wood glue into the cup and started spreading glue on the long grain of the pin boards. Perhaps I should have also spread glue on the tail boards, but I chose not to do so. I knew the tails had a fairly tight fit, and I wanted to minimize squeeze out.
After adding glue to all the pins, I lightly inserted one set of tails into the corresponding sets of pins, first on one side and then the other. Using one of the pine blocks to protect the cherry side from the mallet, I tapped the end home, working alternately from one edge to the other. When that end was set, I turned the box over and slid the bottom into its slot, then repeated the process of inserting the tails and driving the second end home.

I now had a box. Using the 12' rule, I tested for square. Then I looked at the inside for squeeze out. At this point I realized two sections were not driven all the way home, so I applied the mallet just a little bit harder to drive them into place. The box was still square, and there was only one spot of squeeze out. Since the inside was already finished, cleaning this was no big deal. I sprayed a paper towel lightly with water and wiped away the glue spot.

At the last, I looked at the dovetails critically. Only one spot looked like it needed significant help, so I made a small wedge from one of the cherry scraps. I dipped this in glue and lightly tapped it into the gap (making sure to line up the grain so it would appear to be part of the pin – I think end grain hides better than edge grain and its easier to make the wedge that way). So now the assembly is done. My only worry is that I may have driven this wedge a little too far and deformed the tail enough to be noticeable. We'll see tonight when I trim it flush.

First Quality Ash: Surfacing Reveals a Treasure

Back in November I wrote about picking up what I hoped was top quality ash (firsts and seconds). It was rough cut, so even though my first impression was that it was a bargain at 95¢ a board foot, I couldn't be sure. This isn't a great shot, but here's what it looked like then:

A few weekends ago I pulled about 5 boards for a bench project (more on that later). I marked out the lengths I needed for rough cuts and set to work jointing, chopping, ripping, and planing. When the work was done, I was very happy with my purchase. Here's what those 5 boards look like now:

I don't know what I expected, but this is better than I imagined. The wood has been in the shop acclimatizing for a couple weeks. I'll soon start glue up for benches that are real furniture, but break down entirely. These will replace the cheap folding camp chairs we have to replace every other year.

Sketchup Construction Plan for a Barn Loft

Yesterday I temporarily abandoned the Inkle Loom project plans and started in on a project that my friend Sean had sent me. We're both learning Sketchup at the same time, but he has been a bit further along. Having learned the Move and Rotate tools though, I felt ready to try the complex joints he was trying to portray in this drawing. After all: there were no roundovers any where in the plan.

Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, here are several pictures:

This is Bryce (the Sketchup guy) standing next to the loft construction.

This shows all the loft parts in an exploded view.

Finally, this shows the complex interlocking joint that holds the structure together. It's hard to see, but the post has been slotted on both axes. One two-by-four has a notch in the top and sets in the slot first. The next two-by-four has a notch on the bottom and slides into the other slot. The notches inter link to hold the whole structure together.

I'm feeling fairly confident that this project could be built from these plans, and I'm pleased with the precise fit (which was a challenge on earlier attempts).

Woodcut Preparations

Against all expectations, woodcuts top my project list. My friend, Bill, offered his printing facilities and his help in creating some type-height blanks (.918199 inches tall). Boxwood, Pear, or Pine are commonly used, and another friend, Sean, offered a piece of boxwood.

The boxwood turned out to be a bit narrow for the blank size I intended. I cut the board in half, jointed the sides, and glued the parts into a plank of adequate width. I found hand jointing a little tricky: what seemed like a a slight crown kept appearing at the center of the boards. After about an hour of planing, testing, swearing, and planing some more I thought to check for wind. Sure enough: either the board started with wind, or I had introduced it. That turned out to be most of the problem. The next day I breezed into the shop, spent 10 minutes on glue up and was done.

Striving for Woodworking Mastery

If you don't know me–and even if you do–welcome to A Woodworker's Odyssey, a blog in which I'll detail as much as I can about the path to mastering woodworking. You should know that, as of this writing, I am far from an expert woodworker. But I've had success with my projects and have a passion for excellence. I plan on one day making beautiful things full time. This blog lets me process experiences as I work toward that goal and hopefully provides information, inspiration, or just interesting reading for you.

The road really began three years ago when I visited a friend in Texas. He had opened the garage door, parked the cars outside, and set about converting the space to a workshop. He showed me some of his work, handed me some "extra" hand planes, and inspired me to begin working with wood. To see the shop that inspired me, visit his site at Clubwielder.com