Hand cut dovetails in sapele

[Trafalgar]

FWIW, Crown sell both the slender marking awl that I linked to earlier and also a shorter, stouter one. See Amazon.

Cheers.

 

[Trafalgar]

Piffle Do you actually use these tools? :lol:

Regards from Perth

Derek

Warning, messy shop photos below. We've got chairs in the hopper, a standing desk, and what will be a painted huntboard repro piece all in process. It's good to have something to do while chair parts are cooking and/or maturing in their forms. All of these I've done and sold before and this current work is on order (phew!) not on spec. And in all of this not-so-fine photography this afternoon I realize I can't find my Crown awl! The short and stout Hurwood is in one of the pics. I think my wife might have the Crown in her 'art closet.' There is another aspect to my sprawling shop complex (Ha, Ha!), an outbuilding that has a some finished parts and other assorted goodies. I'd show a picture of my bench but it is a god-awful total embarrassment. Some of the parts on the floor are for the huntboard's two drawers. They'll be planed close to finished thickness and transferred into climate-controlled circumstances in the next few days to settle in; the glued components in the photos were in this portion of the shop briefly today and are already back in air conditioning. This time of year makes for slower than usual build times because of the heat, humidity and necessary workarounds, family vacations, etc.

http://s1051.photobucket.com/user/Charl ... slideshow/

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Piffle Do you actually use these tools? :lol:

Regards from Perth

Derek

... And in all of this not-so-fine photography this afternoon I realize I can't find my Crown awl! ...I think my wife might have the Crown in her 'art closet.' ..../

She does leatherwork?

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Ttrees]

I don't see the long crown scratch awl as being very practical for marking dovetails in most furniture
components ...It looks very unwieldy for the job.
Held by the handle it would hurt my wrist.
Held like a pencil it would hurt my fingers and my wrist.
I would take a guess it is a tool that has survived from the ship building days, or other work which required
marking for huge timbers... canal locks, church roofs, etc.

 

[Jacob]

I don't see the long crown scratch awl as being very practical for marking dovetails in most furniture
components ...It looks very unwieldy for the job.
Held by the handle it would hurt my wrist.
Held like a pencil it would hurt my fingers and my wrist.
I would take a guess it is a tool that has survived from the ship building days, or other work which required
marking for huge timbers... canal locks, church roofs, etc.

I use an old dart (without the feathers).

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

I use an old dart (without the feathers).

Actually, Jacob, an old dart would make more sense than a traditional scratch awl. The dart gets your fingers close to the sharp and offers a grip quite similar to the scratch awl I designed!

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[bugbear]

Derek's tools are going to be made and suit his needs well, there can be little debate about that. It's likely it'll work very well for others too.

Bugbear, on the broader point of the how, why is now unable to be discussed properly. There just aren't the required number, of mainly skilled professional and some skilled amateurs to be able to approve it's design by constant application. Having a handful of people theorising about why a new awl, might be better than another, is interesting, but is unlikely to reach a conclusion. The last time there was enough volume of skilled workers to approve much ended roughly by WW2, and at that point the people who could approve in volume were already in decline.

Agreed 100%. The problem is the context - the users. If you're going to spend your entire life using a tool, it is overwhelmingly important that it is fast and effective in use. Little else matters.

If the tool is hard to learn, it doesn't matter. Should the tool requires near-constant practise to maintain skill, it doesn't matter. If the optimal use of the tool is counter-intuitive, it doesn't matter. All these limitations are of no consequence for a life long user, learning in Master-Apprentice mode.

I need hardly state (but I feel the need) that for a lone, part-time amateur, these would all be substantial negatives.

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

Piffle Do you actually use these tools? :lol:

Regards from Perth

Derek

... And in all of this not-so-fine photography this afternoon I realize I can't find my Crown awl! ...I think my wife might have the Crown in her 'art closet.' ..../

She does leatherwork?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Good one!

 

[Trafalgar]

Watch this video to see where a short-bladed stout awl excels. Fascinating stuff, really. I think she's Australian!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LYSzhk5p_4

 

[D_W]

I don't see the long crown scratch awl as being very practical for marking dovetails in most furniture
components ...It looks very unwieldy for the job.
Held by the handle it would hurt my wrist.
Held like a pencil it would hurt my fingers and my wrist.
I would take a guess it is a tool that has survived from the ship building days, or other work which required
marking for huge timbers... canal locks, church roofs, etc.

I use an old dart (without the feathers).

That's not a bad idea! They already come pointed, hardened, and sharp.

 

[Trafalgar]

"If the tool is hard to learn, it doesn't matter. Should the tool requires near-constant practise to maintain skill, it doesn't matter. If the optimal use of the tool is counter-intuitive, it doesn't matter."

This describes 95%+ of the tools used in woodworking, perhaps with the possible exception at times of the counter-intuitive part. Everybody looks inept, with almost any tool, at first. They're all hard to learn to use correctly and efficiently. Just when you think you've learned how to use one you see somebody else using the same tool and it looks like they came out of the womb with it. There's usually a reason designs have been around for a while, some for centuries.

I'm of the unabashed opinion that upholstery foam and athletic tape make a plane handle better but I'm thinking most would disagree and would criticize how I hold a plane. Still, my hands remain convinced.

 

[swagman]

PINOCCHIO :---)

https://bluesprucetoolworks.com/collect ... ixed-blade

https://www.vespertools.com.au/marking- ... hen-knife/

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You could of course turn a ferruled handle to hold a dart. It could look (and be) quite neat.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Phil, don't tempt David ... he'll start on an infilled version

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

PINOCCHIO :---)

https://bluesprucetoolworks.com/collect ... ixed-blade

https://www.vespertools.com.au/marking- ... hen-knife/

Here are some rather ornate versions of the tools we've been discussing:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/54887689185838894/

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Blue Spruce also sells a scratch awl for marking along these lines ...

They also sell a full system ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Trafalgar]

Here's a monster, if your taste leans in that direction:

http://www.venacavadesign.co.uk/product ... rsetry_etc

These still come in different shapes and sizes for different trades!

Harness awls, stitching awls, etc.:

http://www.zackwhite.com/Awls-Hafts_c_237.html

 

[G S Haydon]

[/quote]
Agreed 100%. The problem is the context - the users. If you're going to spend your entire life using a tool, it is overwhelmingly important that it is fast and effective in use. Little else matters.

If the tool is hard to learn, it doesn't matter. Should the tool requires near-constant practise to maintain skill, it doesn't matter. If the optimal use of the tool is counter-intuitive, it doesn't matter. All these limitations are of no consequence for a life long user, learning in Master-Apprentice mode.

I need hardly state (but I feel the need) that for a lone, part-time amateur, these would all be substantial negatives.

BugBear[/quote]

Interesting theory, pretty groundless though. If something needs to be fast and effective it is unlikely to of evolved into something that is overwhelmingly hard to use. It is likley to of devloped into a concise tool and method. How you could make a link to effective methods are linked to counter intuitive practices is beyond me, although I am impressed with the overthink. The whole point of a Master, Apprentice method was to avoid making things more difficult than they need to be, to be effective.
Take a look at decent part-time amateur woodworking books from the likes of Hayward etc. Concise and to the point. Further, there is a level that all of us work to, and that approach will require constant application. Woodworking is an art, there is a knack to be learned that's part of the fun. It would be a shame if the creative arts and crafts were reduced to paint by numbers, just because, on the odd chance something might take a bit of deddication and practice.

 

[Trafalgar]

Blue Spruce also sells a scratch awl for marking along these lines ...

They also sell a full system ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

These things remind me of the miniature baseball bats you could get from the souvenir stand at a Major League game.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Charles, you know you said the very same thing all those years ago when I first posted a picture of my marking knife

Regards from Perth

Derek