Regular Mortice Chisel or Bevel Edged for your Mortices

[custard]

I designed a tenon guide for Lee Valley several years ago

They absolutely should make that, I'd be first in the queue with my cheque book open!

Cabinet making's dirty secret is that a high percentage of extremely accomplished furniture makers don't actually have very good hand saw skills. Sure, plenty good enough for dovetailing drawers, but dovetailing is only a small part of the hand sawing lexicon.

I once trained at a workshop alongside a number of people moving into furniture making from other woodworking skills. No one there could remotely be described as a beginner or inexperienced, yet it was crystal clear that the guys who had been site carpenters or boat builders were light years ahead of the luthiers, restorers and cabinet makers when it came to using a hand saw.

I guess practise makes perfect and the fact is, apart from dovetails, even furniture makers with twenty years or more experience under their belts rarely use a hand saw so they just don't get all that good at it.

 

[El Barto]

I sure could stand to learn a lot about what I could do more efficiently cutting tenons.

..............

Anyhow, these people gave an account of how they, as relatively inexperienced woodworkers, used a simple little home made jig that Richard Maguire designed to cut their bridle joints. They seemed to do a very accurate and creditable job. It occurred to me that if you can cut a bridle joint accurately with this simple jig then you could certainly cut a tenon.

It would be of huge practical help if, for example, one of them detailed exactly what they did and how it could be utilised for tenons.

Custard, I designed a tenon guide for Lee Valley several years ago. They sat of a prototype they built, and could not make up their mind for a few more years. Eventually, they decided not to go with it. I subsequently put the design on my website ...

http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMadeTo ... Guide.html

It is (says I modestly ) quite brilliant. Basically, it mimics hand sawing to guide the saw cut. One can use a spacer for widths, or saw to a line.

It guides the saw on cheeks and shoulders.

Regards from Perth

Derek

That's excellent! That would benefit so many people. I find sawing tenons much more difficult than sawing dovetails. Lee Valley missed a trick there I reckon...

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

Cabinet making's dirty secret is that a high percentage of extremely accomplished furniture makers don't actually have very good hand saw skills. Sure, plenty good enough for dovetailing drawers, but dovetailing is only a small part of the hand sawing lexicon.

Custard, I agree, sawing dovetails is much easier than sawing tenons. The level of accuracy needed is many times that of a dovetail - sawing the cheeks requires two long vertical cuts. If there are not coplanar with the walls of the mortice (another difficult joint to chop with a chisel accurately), then the combination will be a disaster. It is interesting to see that many struggle with this. And then there are the shoulder cuts, which I consider more difficult to align front and back ... which is why I advise that one saws off the shoulder line, and then chisel back.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[custard]

You're right, but it's more than just jointing. When I was training for the first six months we could only use hand tools. You'd frequently find yourself in a position where a board was say 1/2", or even 1/4" too thick or too wide. The site carpenters and boat builders wouldn't think twice, they'd take a rip saw and remove all the waste apart from a minute strip that could be planed away in three or four strokes. The furniture makers, antique restorers and luthiers would plane all the waste off, so we'd lose ten minutes straight away.

I'm reminded of that whenever I see a Paul Sellers Youtube video, I don't think he's a particularly great furniture maker, but there's no doubt that he's got that same absolute confidence and turn of speed with a hand saw.

 

[Jacob]

.... a board was say 1/2", or even 1/4" too thick or too wide. The site carpenters and boat builders wouldn't think twice, they'd take a rip saw and remove all the waste apart from a minute strip that could be planed away in three or four strokes. The furniture makers, antique restorers and luthiers would plane all the waste off, so we'd lose ten minutes straight away.......

We were taught to use a joiner's axe as well as rip sawing.
Mine was a Spear & Jackson a bit smaller than Sellers' https://paulsellers.com/2015/05/the-joiners-axe/
Very quick to take the edge off a board, if necessary following scribe lines for a shape you couldn't saw anyway. Finishing with a plane. A block plane at 45º ish for scribed edges - cambered blade essential.
A bit of practice and you'd get very close to the mark, very quickly.

PS and wall plugs too! https://paulsellers.com/2015/05/the-joi ... e-part-ii/ though Sellers misses a trick there; you'd just cut one end of a the plug (on a longer bit of scrap) then hammer it into the wall and only then cut it exactly to length, with the piece left for some more plugs.

 

[D_W]

.... a board was say 1/2", or even 1/4" too thick or too wide. The site carpenters and boat builders wouldn't think twice, they'd take a rip saw and remove all the waste apart from a minute strip that could be planed away in three or four strokes. The furniture makers, antique restorers and luthiers would plane all the waste off, so we'd lose ten minutes straight away.......

We were taught to use a joiner's axe as well as rip sawing.
Mine was a Spear & Jackson a bit smaller than Sellers' https://paulsellers.com/2015/05/the-joiners-axe/
Very quick to take the edge off a board, if necessary following scribe lines for a shape you couldn't saw anyway. Finishing with a plane. A block plane at 45º ish for scribed edges - cambered blade essential.
A bit of practice and you'd get very close to the mark, very quickly.

PS and wall plugs too! https://paulsellers.com/2015/05/the-joi ... e-part-ii/ though Sellers misses a trick there; you'd just cut one end of a the plug (on a longer bit of scrap) then hammer it into the wall and only then cut it exactly to length, with the piece left for some more plugs.

Jeez, paul is really over the top in his lifestyle comments in that - I hope he's cooled down a little bit about that. It's just as bad as the religious wood talk from Japanese woodworking (which some people really get into).

 

[Jacob]

......

Jeez, paul is really over the top in his lifestyle comments in that - I hope he's cooled down a little bit about that. It's just as bad as the religious wood talk from Japanese woodworking (which some people really get into).

What, the orange boxes?
He's probably saying it how it was; 1958 - in the UK oranges were very seasonal, almost exotic fruit back then - only a few years earlier we'd get a Jaffa in our christmas stocking they were so special. Tangerines were around for a week or so. Grapefruit were common though - don't know why.
From 1947 we were given NHS concentrated orange juice for Vitamin C. Maybe that's where they all went.

 

[D_W]

......

Jeez, paul is really over the top in his lifestyle comments in that - I hope he's cooled down a little bit about that. It's just as bad as the religious wood talk from Japanese woodworking (which some people really get into).

What, the orange boxes?
He's probably saying it how it was; 1958 - in the UK oranges were very seasonal, almost exotic fruit back then - only a few years earlier we'd get a Jaffa in our christmas stocking they were so special. Tangerines were around for a week or so. Grapefruit were common though - don't know why.
From 1947 we were given NHS concentrated orange juice for Vitamin C. Maybe that's where they all went.

No, the talk about it being really important to leave tool marks on wedges so that people can see them later. Nobody is going to care about the marks on a wedge. That's claptrap to make more out of something than there is - but I'm sure it draws in the retirees and white collar folks who think they've lived an unsatisfying life.

>"Woodworking is as much about texture and life recorded in the wood as it is about speed and efficiency. It’s lifestyle."<

Pretty deep for a hacked out wedge. Not deep as in thoughtful, but deep in terms of the height of boots you'd need to walk through it without coming out stinky.

 

[Tasky]

>"Woodworking is as much about texture and life recorded in the wood as it is about speed and efficiency. It’s lifestyle."<
Pretty deep for a hacked out wedge. Not deep as in thoughtful, but deep in terms of the height of boots you'd need to walk through it without coming out stinky.

Most of the people I make things for feel the same way about wood, whereas I really don't give a monkey's fig personally... I get them to do the design and make the decisions on which bits they want on show. I just care about how it goes together and how well it stays that way.

 

[Jacob]

"Woodworking is as much about texture and life recorded in the wood as it is about speed and efficiency. It’s lifestyle."..

I couldn't find the quote. He does wax poetical, but better out than in!
On the whole I empathise with Sellers a lot. I've spent a lot of time working in old buildings the same, and you do get drawn in to how things were done, so cleverly and quickly, with such simple kit.
It gets exciting to find little traces of the long dead chaps who did the work - clay pipe bowls sometimes with a trace of tobacco, pencil marks and instructions on the backs of frames etc etc.
I was mystified by a mysterious pattern which recurred at the same height in the mortar in an old wall - as though someone had pressed in a large cockle shell at regular intervals. Best interpretation suggested the imprint of the corduroy trousered knees of a labourer on the scaffold as he plastered away, or lifted stone into place.
Like a time capsule still fresh and untouched, tucked away behind the visible surfaces. Outside everything has been worked over many times, obliterating all traces of the chaps who did the work

 

[D_W]

If a guy came to me and told me how wood was lifestyle, I'd ask him what his rate was and compare it to the other peoples' rates. If he couldn't match them, I'd choose the guy with the lower rate.

Also, I get what you're saying about what you saw. I doubt the guy who left the marks was doing it to be cute, though. They were authentic, and not the kind of markings of slop left so that later something could be seen as "hand hewn".

 

[Bodgers]

......

Jeez, paul is really over the top in his lifestyle comments in that - I hope he's cooled down a little bit about that. It's just as bad as the religious wood talk from Japanese woodworking (which some people really get into).

What, the orange boxes?
He's probably saying it how it was; 1958 - in the UK oranges were very seasonal, almost exotic fruit back then - only a few years earlier we'd get a Jaffa in our christmas stocking they were so special. Tangerines were around for a week or so. Grapefruit were common though - don't know why.
From 1947 we were given NHS concentrated orange juice for Vitamin C. Maybe that's where they all went.

No, the talk about it being really important to leave tool marks on wedges so that people can see them later. Nobody is going to care about the marks on a wedge. That's claptrap to make more out of something than there is - but I'm sure it draws in the retirees and white collar folks who think they've lived an unsatisfying life.

>"Woodworking is as much about texture and life recorded in the wood as it is about speed and efficiency. It’s lifestyle."<

Pretty deep for a hacked out wedge. Not deep as in thoughtful, but deep in terms of the height of boots you'd need to walk through it without coming out stinky.

Reminds me off an old copy of The Woodworker I recently got my hands on. It is from 1949. In an article about dovetailing Hayward scolds the reader for any thought of leaving the knife lines from the marking out. "Most unsightly". Back in '49 it was a new trend apparently. I sort of enjoy the way he tells you off for even considering a certain choice

Sent from my MI 3W using Tapatalk

 

[nabs]

re the poetry of woodworking etc. being a reasonably laid back sort of chap I am rarely roused to anger but one thing that sets me off is poetry, particularly when it is recited (although just knowing it has been written down is bad enough).

As a result I ought to be furious with Mr Sellers about his contributions on this front, but he has a rather admirable attitude to the whole thing: He has written on one of his blogs that, although he gets quite a lot of stick for his prose and poetry, he really enjoys writing it and since it is not hurting anyone he has no plans to stop. Fair enough (I still won't be reading any of his poems, mind you!).

 

[Trafalgar]

Ersatz is ersatz.

If you make a drawer the way it's supposed to be made the sides get flushed to the front so there wouldn't be any gauge lines left or only very faint ones if they were originally run in pretty deeply. That said, if somebody who matters loves them, then build in a way that preserves them. If everybody's happy, why not?

 

[D_W]

re the poetry of woodworking etc. being a reasonably laid back sort of chap I am rarely roused to anger but one thing that sets me off is poetry, particularly when it is recited (although just knowing it has been written down is bad enough).

I can tolerate a filthy limerick at my expense or someone else's, but there is something about any other (attempted serious) recited poetry that is distancing from clear communication and impersonal. Very peacocky.

 

[Tasky]

I can tolerate a filthy limerick at my expense or someone else's, but there is something about any other (attempted serious) recited poetry that is distancing from clear communication and impersonal. Very peacocky.

If the poetry itself reads well enough, and sometimes even when it doesn't, having someone speak it aloud with all the caesurae, emphasis and all other inflection makes a massive difference.
I could cite all manner of things, from book narrative, to poetry, plays, film scripts, even song lyrics from the most unlikely of sources - When merely read they're flat and lifeless, but when performed they are totally different.

The problem with Sellers's philosophical considerations is that he writes it as he thinks/speaks it, which doesn't really work unless he actually is speaking it.
Happily though, one can simply gloss over that and skip directly to whichever information is of use.