Tips on accuracy with hand tools

[Silly_Billy]

Although my accuracy is improving with practice, it's still got quite a bit of room for improvement. Does accuracy only improve with experience or are there any helpful tips?

Is there a book or DVD that's particularly helpful regarding accuracy?

 

[custard]

Although my accuracy is improving with practice, it's still got quite a bit of room for improvement. Does accuracy only improve with experience or are there any helpful tips?

Is there a book or DVD that's particularly helpful regarding accuracy?

Robert Wearing's "The Essential Woodworker" is a classic book that goes into detail about the techniques needed for "first class work" versus "second class work". That may help you...it certainly helped me!

Where specifically are you finding problems?

 

[bugbear]

Although my accuracy is improving with practice, it's still got quite a bit of room for improvement. Does accuracy only improve with experience or are there any helpful tips?

Is there a book or DVD that's particularly helpful regarding accuracy?

I recall a write up in Woodworker (circa 1980) from a guy who had won some tuition time with David Savage.

One of his comments was that he was surprised just how slowly they went, and how careful they were.

BugBear

 

[thetyreman]

+1 on the essential woodworker, in some ways it's underwhelming, but that's why it's so good, it only has in it what you need to know. I really love paul sellers essential woodworking 1&2, and what's great about it is there are decent projects well thought out so that you can develop your skills throughout the book, it presumes you are starting from absolutely nothing, which is brilliant, so you aren't overwhelmed with too much information.

 

[David C]

My DVD on precision planning goes into rather more detail than the excellent Robert Wearing book, so I think you might enjoy it.

best wishes,,
David

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Develop a feel for when 'absolutely spot on' is necessary, and when 'near enough' is good enough.

Keep the essential measuring and marking tools in tip-top condition. You don't actually need that many - two or three sizes (at most) of try square, a selection of marking and cutting gauges, a good marking knife and a pair of winding sticks will achieve much (though not everything). You need good ones; not necessarily expensive ones, but squares that actually are square, gauges that have nicely-shaped and sharp pins or knives and heads that lock firmly to the shafts, and a marking knife kept sharp.

Work with increasing care the nearer you get to a line. Check progress more frequently.

Work out which tools you are most confident of doing accurate work with, and use them often to become thoroughly familiar with them. Keep the 'core tool kit' as small as you can, and look after them.

Then the more work you do - practice pieces, small projects, whatever - the better and more confident you'll get.

(I agree with BB, too - work slowly, and you'll get more done. Sounds counter-intuitive, but from experience it seems to be true.)

 

[custard]

I recall a write up in Woodworker (circa 1980) from a guy who had won some tuition time with David Savage.

One of his comments was that he was surprised just how slowly they went, and how careful they were.

BugBear

That's an excellent point.

Most hobbyists are astonished at just how achingly slow the process is for quality furniture making. Even simple projects can take 50 hours or indeed a lot, lot more. When the penny finally drops as to how methodical and patient you need to be, a lot of aspiring woodworkers simply pack it in. Many years ago I trained under a restorer and cabinet maker called Bruce Luckhurst, who was well known for his pithy expressions. When he met a traineee who was impatiently chomping at the bit he'd tell them maybe they should take up turning, where you can walk into your workshop and a few hours later walk out having made something. But furniture making just isn't like that. It's a game where the tortoise beats the hare every single time, so unless you're one of life's tortoises then you're letting yourself in for a world of frustration.

 

[Glynne]

(I agree with BB, too - work slowly, and you'll get more done. Sounds counter-intuitive, but from experience it seems to be true.)

+1
Having spent some time with Andrew Crawford (boxmaker) and Peter Sefton (and watching his students), precision takes time and I’m often amazed at how slowly some top end makers work. When I say how slowly, that is in contrast to the idea of just whacking bits of wood together. As the per the other advice, take your time. If you can, do a few practice saw cuts on some scrap before cutting your joints to just get the feel of things. If you need to use a chisel at 90 degrees, practice using a square. All I need to do now is follow my own advice!

 

[AndyT]

A good example of really going slowly and methodically to get an accurate fit is this video of Paul Sellers fitting cupboard doors. Just when you think "that will do" they come off again, for checking and adjustment.

https://youtu.be/HXU_UJnxAHI

Other than that, get lighting good enough for your eyes, look at what you are doing and keep your tools sharp.

 

[Silly_Billy]

Many thanks to everyone for all the great advice. What a great forum this is!

For the Essential Woodworker book, I've discovered that Lost Art Press is miles cheaper than Amazon.

Where specifically are you finding problems?

Accuracy with square edges, so that things line up at 90 degrees when they should.

I'm also finding problems with thicknessing to a consistently accurate size. Currently, I have neither a fore plane nor a jack plane. I just have a No. 4 plane that I'm using for anything that's not end grain. (I've a low angle block for end grain.) However, I realise my technique may be more important than the choice of plane.

My DVD on precision planning goes into rather more detail than the excellent Robert Wearing book, so I think you might enjoy it.

Thanks David. I had a look on your website, but was uncertain which DVD you meant.

 

[El Barto]

I have a copy of David’s planing dvd and it is bloody brilliant. As a beginner it’s been invaluable to me. I got “DVD 2” from his website.

And as everyone else is saying, get The Essential Woodworker. Again, as a beginner it is full of useful information but not hard to understand. I frequently go back to it for reference. Lost Art’s books are beautifully made and can be bought from Classic Hand Tools in the UK.

And as has also been mentioned, go slowly. I can’t tell you how often I have to remind myself to go slowly and not to rush.

Finally, make sure the tools you’re using are sharp all the time. It will give you greater accuracy, make life easier and also be encouraging when it looks good.

 

[matthewwh]

+1 for David's DVD's, absolutely oozing accuracy and the means, methods and mindsets to achieve it from start to finish.

You may not always want or need to work to such high standards, but if you understand how to, then at least you are making a conscious choice.

 

[Ttrees]

You need a Stanley no.5 1/2 and a David Charlesworth DVD
You will not need for anything after that.
Then watch some of David W's youtubes to get the cap iron effect, after your profficiant with the camber.
The camber will get your work square easier... but the cap iron effect will be necessary after that to be quick.

The plane is the key to accurate woodworking

 

[David C]

Billy,

I was thinking of Precision Handplaning in the shop on my site.

This is an extended remake of the first version.

Best Wishes,
David

 

[user 26792]

Quite an interesting post and nice to know about some new resources to check out outside of my usual YouTube videos. I'm pretty new to woodworking and I am of the mindset that precision and accuracy come with practice. I remember reading that to master any craft it take close to 10,000 hours of continuous practice and improvement. The basis of the statement was rooted from the apprentice/master relationship from traditional vocations in history and how apprentices would generally serve for 8 years or so before being classed as a master in their own right.

My own personal mindset is that in order to hone my skills I will need to be patient (which is not easy for me) and develop an eye for the details by continuous work. One thing I did see on YouTube in relation to Planning was to use a piece of scrap wood and just work on Planning it for the sake of getting technique and comfort developed. I've linked the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6plHDc4ct8&t=627s

 

[Phil Pascoe]

https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/02/0 ... t-wearing/

From the link to LAP, it is quite interesting.
Interesting to read the he was advised in the beginning that Loughborough was the only place worth going - I wondered what my old master, a Shoreditch man would have said to that .......... then read the head of the department at Loughborough was a Shoreditch man.

 

[El Barto]

https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/02/07/meet-the-author-robert-wearing/

From the link to LAP, it is quite interesting.
Interesting to read the he was advised in the beginning that Loughborough was the only place worth going - I wondered what my old master, a Shoreditch man would have said to that .......... then read the head of the department at Loughborough was a Shoreditch man.

Thanks for that Phil, looking forward to giving it a read

 

[D_W]

Force yourself to build a few projects from start to finish with only hand tools. You'll need:
* a reasonable set of bench planes (jack, try or jointer, smoother)
* a decent dovetail saw
* a good-cutting 5 1/2 or 6 point rip saw and a common crosscut saw (or if you're lucky, 11 or 12 point carpenter saw in crosscut)

The easiest way to get comfortable with tools is to mark out your expectations and then learn to hit them with tools. Time spent ripping a board will make you a better sawyer sawing a tenon. It's not direct, but it builds your senses in seeing square, feeling what's going on in the cut, etc. Time spent try planing will make you better at it - you'll learn skills like we had an argument about on here before, which was the assumption that you would always plane the ends off of a flat board or a jointed edge if you cut the full length of the board - I never do that. I generally plane the wood slightly more hollow over the coarse of flattening - with through cuts. It's intuitive - i didn't learn it as a party trick, I learned to do it because it's faster - I can just plane to a mark and that's it. Laziness makes us better at some things if we allow it to.

If you do entire projects by hand, you'll learn where you need to cut shy of a line and clean it up, etc, a lot faster than guessing at it and taking someone else's advice. Set your expectation for your accuracy, results, and meet it. If you come up short, adjust. It really takes very little time if you're doing everything by hand, and you get a level of comfort that is really nice. You also learn where the accuracy you're looking for really counts, and where you can skirt it. I don't mean doing sloppy work by that, but things like a table leg - if it's M&T on two sides and they need to be square, they need to be square, but perhaps outside of those two sides, the rest needs to be square *to the eye*, which is a slightly lower standard.

The other option is to be very regimented on the little bit of hand work you do if you're busy making thing like cut lists, project plans, etc, and shuffling work around from machine to machine. It's less interesting to work that way, and you never feel like you can relax until you've really done a lot. And you'll never get quick with planing that way. The speed you gain planing if you work an entire project by hand a few times will carry over later if you decide to do all of your rough work with machines, and you won't find yourself doing things like table sawing a board, then planing the marks off and finding out that you planed the board into an out of square shape.

Lastly, check your ego at the door and give yourself permission to make and fix mistakes. You'll learn from them, and you'll learn what's not terminal and what is. Ultimately, you'll have less scrap in later projects. It's extremely uncommon for me to waste anything now (be it metal on an infill plane from a mistake, or wood on a cabinet, etc), but I constantly misread something from plans and made a set of rails a quarter inch too narrow when I was working with power tools only.

 

[D_W]

https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/02/07/meet-the-author-robert-wearing/

From the link to LAP, it is quite interesting.
Interesting to read the he was advised in the beginning that Loughborough was the only place worth going - I wondered what my old master, a Shoreditch man would have said to that .......... then read the head of the department at Loughborough was a Shoreditch man.

I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, because I have the wearing books and enjoyed them. The bio clears it up for me, though - and that is that he's more of an ideas man than he is a practical purveyor of working by hand. He's got an idea to get you to a point of competence cutting a joint, making a jig, etc, but you will free yourself of a lot of the over-the-top procedures in the books just by doing hand work and getting better at it. If you need absolute safety to start, you can use many of the ideas, but they will cost you in the long run if you don't get comfortable working without most of them.

Ultimately, your limits should (will be) be in what you can design and mark out, and not in what you can cut.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... he's more of an ideas man than he is a practical purveyor of working by hand. He's got an idea to get you to a point of competence ...

Sole purpose of excercise? :?