Which one first? Rabbet block, router, or shoulder?

[J_SAMa]

And just for balance, I'd go for the router, and not bother with the other two at all. I refine shoulders with a chisel, and cheeks with router and/or chisel.
I do have a rebate block plane and a shoulder plane, but just use them to attract dust.

Any good videos demonstrating shoulder paring? Do you pare across the width or the "thickness"?

I would argue that paring/adjusting a shoulder is "quite hard" and that sawing it correctly in the first place is (in fact) easier.

However, you can compensate for limited skill or practice by using time and technique. In particular, if you mark, then knife, then chisel a 'v' groove at the shoulder (what Robert Wearing calls cuts of the First Class) there should be very little scope for error.

BugBear

I've tried. It's hard for me to make the cut square along the depth and there's always a (minor) gap when I put the joint together

 

[J_SAMa]

And just for balance, I'd go for the router, and not bother with the other two at all. I refine shoulders with a chisel, and cheeks with router and/or chisel.
I do have a rebate block plane and a shoulder plane, but just use them to attract dust.

Any good videos demonstrating shoulder paring? Do you pare acroos the width or the "thickness"?

I'll be interested to see other people's answers to this, but I think it's yet another of those questions where the answer is "it depends". Rather than looking for a universal rule, you need to think about:

- how big the work is
- how ragged or crooked the saw cut was
- whether losing wood will make critical dimensions wrong
- how the grain runs
- how soft or hard the wood is
- how it's being held
- what size chisel you have in your hand
- how sharp it is

etc, and just get used to it by practice!

So basically I need to think about everything?
I don't have a widest chisel (1 inch is my widest). Is it better for going across the width or thickness?

 

[dunbarhamlin]

Since I threw the cat, I'd better give my take.
I try to do cheeks straight off of the saw, and tidy with a router if need be.
Shoulders I mostly cut just shy of the knife line and pare back (chiselling perpendicular to the cheek ) If I need to adjust, I undercut the shoulder slightly where adjustment needed and then pare along the shoulder. The undercut makes it an easier cut so I can concentrate on steering.

 

[J_SAMa]

Since I threw the cat, I'd better give my take.
I try to do cheeks straight off of the saw, and tidy with a router if need be.
Shoulders I mostly cut just shy of the knife line and pare back (chiselling perpendicular to the cheek ) If I need to adjust, I undercut the shoulder slightly where adjustment needed and then pare along the shoulder. The undercut makes it an easier cut so I can concentrate on steering.

By "perpendicular" you mean going across the width of the joint?

 

[dunbarhamlin]

Erm, probably. I mean stock flat on the bench, cheek facing up, chisel pointing down, ultimately with its edge in the knife line. Anatomy was so easy, with nice clearly defined spatial adjectives. The liver is friable, nom nom.

 

[J_SAMa]

So final decision: vintage router plane. I'm going to try and learn to clean up shoulders with a chisel.

 

[Jelly]

The ideal tool for cheeks is a surform rasp.

What about a float? They're fairly rare and esoteric tools, but they'd do approximately the same job as a surform and leave a finer surface finish...

I was on the LN website, looked at their joinery floats and was reminded of this thread...