Have I picked the wrong hobby?

[Trevanion]

The fact that so many different machine-based solutions for dovetails exists suggests that it is not simple - people cut them using a table saw, which is just madness, and on my list of things to try out.

I think this might be more up your street TN

[youtube]dyXFE_biEwc[/youtube]

 

[lurker]

Well at least on short lengths like that, a riving knife is not essential.

 

[Garno]

@ AES
Thank you for the encouragement and you hit it on the head saying it can be frustrating (hammer) (hammer) (hammer)

@ Trevanion
I cant believe that someone using a chainsaw makes better dovetail than I do

 

[transatlantic]

I feel ya Garno. It's hugely frustrating not to have someone in person to help.

The biggest frustration for me personaly, is not having square/flat/true material to begin with, which just exasperates the issues.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

The fact that so many different machine-based solutions for dovetails exists suggests that it is not simple - people cut them using a table saw, which is just madness, and on my list of things to try out.

I think this might be more up your street TN

[youtube]dyXFE_biEwc[/youtube]

Ahh - my reputation goes before me.

(I am definitely going to have to try this - yet more chainsaw madness. What could go wrong?)

 

[Doug71]

(I am definitely going to have to try this - yet more chainsaw madness. What could go wrong?)

I think as long as you follow the safety advice in the video to roll up your sleeves all should be fine #-o

 

[thetyreman]

A musician would expect to practice for hours a day, for years, to be considered good enough. In woodworking terms I am still struggling to master chopsticks. Whilst I am aware of Rachmaninoff's Third, it is never going to be something I attempt, and I'm comfortable with that. Not sure where dovetails come in the order of difficulty, but somewhere between the two, I suspect, and further along from chopsticks than you might expect.

careful have you seen shine? it gave helfgott a breakdown, it's a hard piece to play even for professional concert pianists lol always start off with the basics first and build up from there

 

[thetyreman]

garno if you're near manchester once lockdown is over I'd be willing to help out and show you how I cut dovetails, I learnt everything I know for free from paul sellers though both through youtube vids then bought his book working wood 1&2 which is a great guide by the way

follow his instructions carefully especially in the marking out phase, often it's transfering the pins to the tails that makes the biggest difference, I also learnt to trust my sawing through experience, it's all just practice practice and more practice and patience.

 

[Garno]

garno if you're near manchester once lockdown is over I'd be willing to help out and show you how I cut dovetails, I learnt everything I know for free from paul sellers though both through youtube vids then bought his book working wood 1&2 which is a great guide by the way

follow his instructions carefully especially in the marking out phase, often it's transfering the pins to the tails that's the biggest difference, I also learnt to trust my sawing through experience, it's all just practice practice and more practice and patience.

Once everything is back to normal we can set something up.
Mrs G goes to Glossop on a Sunday so that would be ideal if that is a bad day for you I can drop her off on any week day, I still have around 10 weeks shutdown to go as I am in the vulnerable group but will remind you nearer the time

 

[Garno]

(I am definitely going to have to try this - yet more chainsaw madness. What could go wrong?)

I think as long as you follow the safety advice in the video to roll up your sleeves all should be fine #-o

I noticed that snippet myself and played it again thinking I had mis-heard him :shock: It's health and safety gone mad :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Bm101]

Garno. You are not alone mate. It's why you see so many beginners ask questions on here ask basic starter questions consistently for a short while and then you never hear from them again. They gave up.
It's hard and frustrating to learn on your own. It's a shockingly steep learning curve at first. There is so much to take in and so many ways to do the simplest things wrong without guidance.
I remember Custard posting that if you want to improve consistently you need to set consistent goals.

Pottering won't cut it. I'm a potterer let's have it right and I fell down every rabbit hole going from tool restoration to trying my hand at plane making because personally tbh I enjoy it. I see this as a long time commitment from me. That in itself has to be divvied up between lots of essentially more important but sometimes less enjoyable time takers.
I'm less committed to becoming a cabinet maker in my shed than I am to enjoying a variety of related exercises.
Having said that more than ever now I have found it important to focus. One task and learn that then move on.
I find now I can perform most basic tasks ok without worry. I have a vastly greater understanding than when I started about lots of things related to woodwork.
If I had set aside 1 hour a day to a dedicated training schedule written by a decent teacher I have no doubt my woodworking skills would be far far greater. But I wouldn't have restored a meddings pillar drill and learned all that tapping of threads and painting metal and gearing systems or the big old morticer. Restoring that gave me a huge amount of pleasure. Draw filling bronze. Messing about with tempering 01 steel to make stuff was a blast. Especially half cut .
For me it's all part of it.
I've also spent 14 hours making a box prepping all the timber by hand. Then cut the bottom section off for the lid. Not even kidding..... Honestly. I just looked at it for a while open mouthed. Then I put it down and and very quietly locked the shed up for a week.
When I came back s little calmer I made it look like it was supposed to be that way. Turned out alright.
Smoke and mirrors mate.
Heres another option.
I spent months looking for my inca bandsaw at the right price. When I got it it transformed how I looked at working in my shed. I'd say overnight but it took me much longer to realise the potential. You go from trying to find ways to avoid cutting wonky lines to preparing yards of straight stock.
Recent example, the old pine banisters from the house would have been chopped and burnt. What with the lockdown they were ripped into 2x1 strips and have already been processed for the new understairs cupboard apocalypse build.
Hands up what I posted here what-are-you-making-today-t121941-15.html
Was a bit rum. :-"

Have you not got a decent plane Garno? I wouldn't be sanding edges by hand. Ever.
It's a funny thing. Just before lockdown I was having a clear out. I was just about to put a record 5 on here. It's tidy. Fettled and all that.
Send me the postage and it's yours. Might take me a while to get it sent. I'm working but isolating after that but not sure what the situation is with posting items? Anyone know? Otherwise I'll keep it 'till a better time for you. No nonsense . It's yours if you need it. Lots of good stuff going on in the world right now despite the abnormal times. Maybe that's the point of it all in the end.

With an apology for the long post.
Best regards.
PM me Garno.

Heres a translation of what Chaucer wrote in 1300s. And the Greeks were saying it a bit before that. Doubtless they weren't the first either.
Don't give up.
(Otherwise I'll be the worst woodworker on here again.)
:wink:

From Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Birds.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn,
The attempt so hard, the victory so keen,
The fearful joy, so arduous to earn,
So quick to fade - by all these things I mean
Love, for his wonders in this worldly scene
Confound me so that when I think of him
I scarcely know whether I sink or swim.
Translated by Theodore Morrison

Keep your chin up mate.
Chris

 

[Lonsdale73]

Welcome to stand alongside me anytime. Won't take long till you realise that eithe a) you are not alone or b) you are not as bad as you think or c) there's always someone else worse at it than you!

 

[AndyT]

Wise words and generosity there from Chris, as so often.

Re posting stuff - it does seem a little odd that Post Offices are open but 'going to the Post Office' doesn't feature on the short list of reasons to be out of the house. (Same for banks.) I guess it's a case where we are expected to apply some common sense - so go there on your way to the food shops, keep your distance, don't linger for a good old natter, just stay long enough to thank the staff and move on.

 

[Trevanion]

Seeing the kind gestures like above are what keep me coming back to this forum

 

[D_W]

I feel ya Garno. It's hugely frustrating not to have someone in person to help.

The biggest frustration for me personaly, is not having square/flat/true material to begin with, which just exasperates the issues.

This presents an opportunity for hand tooling in the first place.

There are a lot of videos on youtube presenting paint by number planing techniques, etc, but creating square stock with hand planes and saws is fairly (perhaps not at first, but everything has to be learned) if you view the less than ideal wood as something that needs to have its high spots removed first.

Almost without exception, the first step is removing the high bits, even on something that looks reasonably flat. After that, it's getting wood into uniformity so that you can take continuous shavings and then it's just physical labor and being awake enough to stop at a mark.

Dimensioning/truing and joinery are like two different life experiences. The latter almost always relies on the former, but the feel from the former will make the latter much easier.

One of my biggest early problems here was that the local woodworking retailer had horrible prices on regular lumber, but they often had a cull skid from a mill coming in on a regular basis. It was "hobbyist" wood - 13/16" pre-planed lumber that always twisted, cupped, whatever more than 1/16". It's an early trap because you don't know that you can't work with it properly unless it's near perfect.

There is one key in all of this (mike's favorite thing for me to talk about) in removing high spots and taking continuous shavings - using the entire arsenal of cutting control everything except your roughest planes to ensure that the shaving doesn't break up into bits leaving a plane going in and out of the cut.

Sawing in general is about one thing (learning to saw well), maybe two:
* learning to put little effort into anything else other than the sawing (no twisting the saw, steering, etc)
* making constant minute adjustments and never being in a hurry to get back to a mark with a drastic adjustment (that just leads to cuts that bind sawplates and it violates the first).

That's not to say that the sawing needs to be dainty and you can't apply some force, it's just about learning to apply forces in the laziest way - only where they're beneficial to you, like giving a saw a good thump at the end of the stroke to dig things out.

It's only a fraction of a year before this kind of thing is just exercise - intuitive, so long as you have the room to work. It'll drastically reduce your dependence on constant checking of things, too, as it will improve your eyes. When I join panels and guitar body parts now, I do not use a square even though both bits are jointed separately. Getting away from constant checking and making it intuitive is the goal.

Think of all of this as an opportunity to build skill and improve and not just a way to make bad joints (good joints follow bad ones, it's rare that they appear on their own from the start unless you become dependent on very restrictive techniques - yuck).

 

[Garno]

Garno. You are not alone mate. It's why you see so many beginners ask questions on here ask basic starter questions consistently for a short while and then you never hear from them again. They gave up.
It's hard and frustrating to learn on your own. It's a shockingly steep learning curve at first. There is so much to take in and so many ways to do the simplest things wrong without guidance.
I remember Custard posting that if you want to improve consistently you need to set consistent goals.

Pottering won't cut it. I'm a potterer let's have it right and I fell down every rabbit hole going from tool restoration to trying my hand at plane making because personally tbh I enjoy it. I see this as a long time commitment from me. That in itself has to be divvied up between lots of essentially more important but sometimes less enjoyable time takers.
I'm less committed to becoming a cabinet maker in my shed than I am to enjoying a variety of related exercises.
Having said that more than ever now I have found it important to focus. One task and learn that then move on.
I find now I can perform most basic tasks ok without worry. I have a vastly greater understanding than when I started about lots of things related to woodwork.
If I had set aside 1 hour a day to a dedicated training schedule written by a decent teacher I have no doubt my woodworking skills would be far far greater. But I wouldn't have restored a meddings pillar drill and learned all that tapping of threads and painting metal and gearing systems or the big old morticer. Restoring that gave me a huge amount of pleasure. Draw filling bronze. Messing about with tempering 01 steel to make stuff was a blast. Especially half cut .
For me it's all part of it.
I've also spent 14 hours making a box prepping all the timber by hand. Then cut the bottom section off for the lid. Not even kidding..... Honestly. I just looked at it for a while open mouthed. Then I put it down and and very quietly locked the shed up for a week.
When I came back s little calmer I made it look like it was supposed to be that way. Turned out alright.
Smoke and mirrors mate.
Heres another option.
I spent months looking for my inca bandsaw at the right price. When I got it it transformed how I looked at working in my shed. I'd say overnight but it took me much longer to realise the potential. You go from trying to find ways to avoid cutting wonky lines to preparing yards of straight stock.
Recent example, the old pine banisters from the house would have been chopped and burnt. What with the lockdown they were ripped into 2x1 strips and have already been processed for the new understairs cupboard apocalypse build.
Hands up what I posted here what-are-you-making-today-t121941-15.html
Was a bit rum. :-"

Have you not got a decent plane Garno? I wouldn't be sanding edges by hand. Ever.
It's a funny thing. Just before lockdown I was having a clear out. I was just about to put a record 5 on here. It's tidy. Fettled and all that.
Send me the postage and it's yours. Might take me a while to get it sent. I'm working but isolating after that but not sure what the situation is with posting items? Anyone know? Otherwise I'll keep it 'till a better time for you. No nonsense . It's yours if you need it. Lots of good stuff going on in the world right now despite the abnormal times. Maybe that's the point of it all in the end.

With an apology for the long post.
Best regards.
PM me Garno.

Heres a translation of what Chaucer wrote in 1300s. And the Greeks were saying it a bit before that. Doubtless they weren't the first either.
Don't give up.
(Otherwise I'll be the worst woodworker on here again.)
:wink:

From Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Birds.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn,
The attempt so hard, the victory so keen,
The fearful joy, so arduous to earn,
So quick to fade - by all these things I mean
Love, for his wonders in this worldly scene
Confound me so that when I think of him
I scarcely know whether I sink or swim.
Translated by Theodore Morrison

Keep your chin up mate.
Chris

A wonderful post Chris thank you very much (I will PM you over the next few days). =D>

 

[Garno]

I feel ya Garno. It's hugely frustrating not to have someone in person to help.

The biggest frustration for me personaly, is not having square/flat/true material to begin with, which just exasperates the issues.

This presents an opportunity for hand tooling in the first place.

There are a lot of videos on youtube presenting paint by number planing techniques, etc, but creating square stock with hand planes and saws is fairly (perhaps not at first, but everything has to be learned) if you view the less than ideal wood as something that needs to have its high spots removed first.

Almost without exception, the first step is removing the high bits, even on something that looks reasonably flat. After that, it's getting wood into uniformity so that you can take continuous shavings and then it's just physical labor and being awake enough to stop at a mark.

Dimensioning/truing and joinery are like two different life experiences. The latter almost always relies on the former, but the feel from the former will make the latter much easier.

One of my biggest early problems here was that the local woodworking retailer had horrible prices on regular lumber, but they often had a cull skid from a mill coming in on a regular basis. It was "hobbyist" wood - 13/16" pre-planed lumber that always twisted, cupped, whatever more than 1/16". It's an early trap because you don't know that you can't work with it properly unless it's near perfect.

There is one key in all of this (mike's favorite thing for me to talk about) in removing high spots and taking continuous shavings - using the entire arsenal of cutting control everything except your roughest planes to ensure that the shaving doesn't break up into bits leaving a plane going in and out of the cut.

Sawing in general is about one thing (learning to saw well), maybe two:
* learning to put little effort into anything else other than the sawing (no twisting the saw, steering, etc)
* making constant minute adjustments and never being in a hurry to get back to a mark with a drastic adjustment (that just leads to cuts that bind sawplates and it violates the first).

That's not to say that the sawing needs to be dainty and you can't apply some force, it's just about learning to apply forces in the laziest way - only where they're beneficial to you, like giving a saw a good thump at the end of the stroke to dig things out.

It's only a fraction of a year before this kind of thing is just exercise - intuitive, so long as you have the room to work. It'll drastically reduce your dependence on constant checking of things, too, as it will improve your eyes. When I join panels and guitar body parts now, I do not use a square even though both bits are jointed separately. Getting away from constant checking and making it intuitive is the goal.

Think of all of this as an opportunity to build skill and improve and not just a way to make bad joints (good joints follow bad ones, it's rare that they appear on their own from the start unless you become dependent on very restrictive techniques - yuck).

Thank you for this

 

[transatlantic]

I feel ya Garno. It's hugely frustrating not to have someone in person to help.

The biggest frustration for me personaly, is not having square/flat/true material to begin with, which just exasperates the issues.

This presents an opportunity for hand tooling in the first place.

I see where you're coming from, but if you're starting out, you don't want to be dimensioning material to begin with.
Just like you don't want to have to learn to sharpen before ever using a tool that requires sharpening.

You kind of want to be provided with a sharp plane/chisel to begin with, so you know what a sharp tool feels like, and how you work with them. Only after that should you then teach someone how to sharpen them ... imo.

 

[Garno]

Today I have attempted a halving joint and have kind of seen where my sawing goes wrong (not tried chiseling out yet)

I seem to be sawing a little askew, from the far edge to the near edge of the cut it seems to go over to the right a lot.
On a small cut of 30mm I manage to stray by about 1.5mm and no matter where I stand it stays there or there abouts. The cut seems to be straight going down but is lopsided.

I cut about 10 cuts into a length of wood and they all lean the same way, Mrs G says it is my eyes as I dont wear my glasses when in the shed and if it turns out it is my eyes I will not be letting her know :lol:

I am going back in again tomorrow to try once more as a challenge is always good for the sole

 

[Andy Kev.]

I wouldn't worry about your saw cuts all leaning a bit off. I tend to cut a bit to the right so I always make sure the waste is on the right.

You can easily practice to reduce the amount of drift. I've found that the following helps a lot (assuming you're doing a cross cut):

a. Mark the upper surface from back to front and the near surface from top to bottom with a knife (several knife strokes on the top cut).

b. Chisel a knife wall into the top cut and just mark the vertical, near one with a pencil.

c. Start sawing gently with your body position correct (see numerous youtube clips for the latter). To help keep the saw vertical, look at the reflection in the blade: the edges of the wood need to maintain straight lines with their reflections in the blade.

d. Once you've made your way to the near edge you're trying to make sure that you're sawing in both marked lines simultaneously while glancing at the reflection.

It sounds like a lot to do but you do improve. I don't think I'll ever completely get rid of the drift to the right but by doing the above, I have reduced it significantly with practice.