Marking accurate mitres referencing face side - great tool

[Paul Chapman]

I am an amateur with the time to try the challenges of very accurate joint making, I more than often don't succeed.

Well, Newt, those practice dovetail joints I saw on your bench the other week looked pretty accurate to me

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[Anonymous]

Tony,

I really don't think precision woodworking is that difficult, even though it may not be to everyones taste.
If the marking out knife/gauge line is in the right place, one can simply saw close and then drop a chisel into that knife line and pare/chop away the remainder.

I agree completely and I do practice precision woodworking. In fact, I pride myself on just that facet of my work (comes from my engineering background), however planing wood to a thou is great for showing off your plane, but absolutely pointless in the real world of actually making things. Who cares about the shaving? Ity is thrown on the floor!!!
It is the finished wood that matters and my planes leave a perfect surface taking nice thick cuts (I don't measure them :roll: )
I cut all DTs by hand and mark with a knife.

By the way, I have all your DVDs and was impressed with your hand thicknessing - but as you yourself said, it is not a useful skill

 

[Anonymous]

I don't see anything wrong with trying to seek perfection or should I say precision..

Watch an episode of NYW and look at how closely Norm's joints fit. Then look at the finishd work sitting in his workshop. I wouldn;'t be happy with most of the joints he makes (all are sloppy), but anyone who owns/uses/looks at the furniture has no idea

This is woodwork, not engineering to Nasa's tolerances

 

[mr]

By the way, I have all your DVDs and was impressed with your hand thicknessing - but as you yourself said, it is not a useful skill

I've never seen David's DVDs though I have read the books. I have to disagree with that statement, hand thicknessing is a useful skill not only for the skill itself but for the results it offers without resorting to machinery. I have no machinery. I can't afford to buy into it, I'm not interested in the mess, noise or potential for accident. I couldn't give a flying whatever for the argument that a professional cant live without machines - it's irrelevant to me. Without the ability to thickness by hand I'd be sunk

Cheers Mike

 

[Alf]

Mind you, Mike, you could argue even when prepping stock entirely by hand, the ability to thickness stock like a machine isn't actually necessary either. Possibly even undesirable. But I reckon we've got enough clashes of personal ethos going on in this thread as it is... :lol:

 

[mr]

Mind you, Mike, you could argue even when prepping stock entirely by hand, the ability to thickness stock like a machine isn't actually necessary either. Possibly even undesirable. But I reckon we've got enough clashes of personal ethos going on in this thread as it is... :lol:

Exactly so on all counts.
Cheers Mike

 

[David C]

Many enjoyable posts.

I still have to disagree with Tony over the usefulness of 1 thou shavings, as I have found certain horrible cranky timbers where a fine shaving will leave a clean surface, but a slightly thicker one will revert to tearout mode.

I agree that precision thicknessing is almost never an issue in furniture making. But I do believe that it may have some application in jig and fixture making? Say the guide rail of a crosscut sled, which runs in the mitre slot of a table saw.

David C

 

[Anonymous]

I have to disagree with that statement, hand thicknessing is a useful skill

Mike, disagree all you like mate. It is not my statement. DC says it in the DVD. He uses a P/T like the rest of us but has the skill to hand-thickness if he chooses. It is a very impressive (if slow) slight

Personally, I have far better things to do than hand thickness wood :wink:


As an aside, I think DCs hand planing and chisel sharpening DVDs are really useful but the shooting board one dissapointed me.

 

[Anonymous]

I still have to disagree with Tony over the usefulness of 1 thou shavings, as I have found certain horrible cranky timbers where a fine shaving will leave a clean surface, but a slightly thicker one will revert to tearout mode.

Belt sander? :lol:

True David, a fine shaving (not important how fine!) is the only way in this situation which I have necountered far too often. I find LN or LV planes will take fine enough shavings in the situation you describe straight from the box (with a quick hone). I have not bothered to measure them.

 

[mr]

I wasn't disagreeing with you in particular Tony, I just quoted you because you mentioned it - I do however disagree with the statement itself. Whether one is able or unable to thickness by hand is largely irrelevant it remains, in my opinion, a useful skill contrary to your suggestion we do not all use a p/t after all. Obviously for those needing to run high throughput workshops in order to make a living mechanisation is crucial, as I said before that's also irrelevant as far as I'm concerned as I don't have to rely on high volume output to make a living. Anyway I have better thing to do than argue the toss about it, I have a couple of boards awaiting thicknessing before I can turn them into a panel

Cheers Mike

 

[Paul Chapman]

it remains, in my opinion, a useful skill

Well I agree with you, Mike. Us hand-tool nutters must stick together

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[mr]

I think we're in a club of <edit>three<edit> Paul
Cheers Mike

 

[woodbloke]

I agree here with Mike and Paul. Many of us hobbiest woodworkers start out (and I'm no exception) without any machinery of any sort (save maybe a mains power drill) when the ability to completely prepare a bit of timber to the point where it is ready to start other processes is fundamental. When we aquire the P/T the skill to thickness by hand in some cases may be lost, which is a shame.

As an example, with my comp project in teak, I've had to prepare all pieces by hand as it's definitely is not a timber I would ever dream of putting thru' the P/T....as it is, hand plane blades have had to be rehoned about every 5 mins with fairly continuous planing which gets a little tiresome.

Edit - Club of 3 :lol: but I do have a P/T- Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Club of 3 :lol:

\/ \/ \/ I think we're on a roll :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[promhandicam]

Getting back to the OT of marking accurate mitres, I'm of the opinion that half a degree does make a big difference if it is on a wide mitre. For example, if you are making up a picture frame out of a deep section moulding, having all the corners at 89 or 91 degrees as opposed to 90 is going to make a significant difference to the appearance. I think the problem is more the question of what is the most appropriate degree of accuracy for a given job - very accurate for a picture frame but less so for a fence panel.

Just my 20CFA worth.

Steve

(NB. 1000CFA = £1 :wink: )

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Steve,

Thanks for bring this thread back to it's original point.

Mike,

I think the club of potential/previous hand-thicknessers is larger - it's already 4 . Though I too have a p/t now.

Damn, now I've deviated too :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Whether one is able or unable to thickness by hand is largely irrelevant it remains, in my opinion, a useful skill contrary to your suggestion we do not all use a p/t after all.

Hi Mike

Been thinking about this and your point is valid. I often plane to scribed lines, but never with the intention of thicknessing, although I guess this is exactly what I am doing.

The enjoyment in the making is the most important thing to me - just don't fancy hand thicknessing a few cubes of wood before starting :lol:

 

[mr]

The enjoyment in the making is the most important thing to me - just don't fancy hand thicknessing a few cubes of wood before starting :lol:

For me the pleasure is in the process, and seeing as I'm actually not bad at the stock prep but poor at the joining aspect I probably derive most satisfaction from the prep - ie before I go and throw away the results in bodging the boards together . Having said that the thicknessing part certainly can be a daunting prospect.

Getting back on topic for a minute my mitres are accurate enough to close properly and to date that has been achieved by sawing the roughly marked out 45 degree mitre and then trimming with an accurate shooting board. By no means a production process but then who cares

Cheers Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Is hand thicknessing a problem? Ida thought flattening the face of a twisty board is the hard part but after that taking off the back down to gauge lines is relatively easy.
Accuracy: IMHO accuracy itself less important than the appearance of accuracy, which isn't quite the same thing.
That's where woodwork is so different from engineering. There's a range of woodworky tricks to make things look right such as undercutting, offsetting to make shadow lines, mouldings to conceal joins etc. The main trick being the final fitting of pieces together by easing in with a block plane, or dropping a tenon saw down a gap etc.
Thats why a sliding bevel and a school protractor are good enough. The precision of engineering measuring devices is somewhat wasted as one can't in any case saw, or chisel precisely to the line accurate to .01 mm. You are back to hand and eye skills, like it or not.

cheers
Jacob

 

[Anonymous]

snip
The enjoyment in the making is the most important thing to me - just don't fancy hand thicknessing a few cubes of wood before starting :lol:

I realise you are not making the classic beginners mistake here of preparing your stock before you start the job, but just incase a newbie is reading this:
You don't need to plane/thickness anything until you have worked through your cutting list and everything has been cut to length and ripped to width (and ripped to thickness too where possible).
Not everybody realises this - I had a mate who set up his new workshop with a load of grant money and loans, bought his first PT and load of sawn timber - and then started trying to plane/thickness the whole lot, including whole 5.1 metre lengths.
He thought this is what you did, having previously worked with bought PAR.
It was a horrible disaster and reduced him to tears.:x

cheers Jacob