Reply To: Shooting board question

Paul’s video on shooting board construction shows that, when he sawed his 90 and 45 degrees lines, he started his saw cuts on the far side of the work-piece with the toe of his saw and gradually lowered the heel as he sawed. However, when he sawed his lines for the rear sides of his wedges, he started his saw cuts on the near side of the work-piece and then lowered the toe. Just goes to show that Paul is a virtuoso with the saw, I suppose. I made a shooting board recently and found that commencing my cuts on the far side of the work-piece and gradually lowering the heel assisted my accuracy but, of course, that may not be everybody’s experience. Undertaking a few practice cuts would seem to be the best way of getting one’s hand and eye in for what best suits a person.

Paul’s saw was some inches longer than the longest of his cuts, obviously quite sharp with, as far as one could estimate, a tooth spacing of 17 points or 16 tpi and, in all probability, filed rip pattern with a gradually decreasing rake from the tip in accordance with Paul’s own video/s on saw sharpening. Experience teaches that saws should be in reasonably fair fettle but by no means extravagantly manicured as an exercise in precision engineering if accurate work is to be performed. Straight, sharp and set are the attributes of a good saw with a little common sense informing that a straight, sharp and set ripsaw of 4 1/2 points may not be appropriate for cutting the dovetails for a jewelry box.

In Ivri’s shoes I should first make sure that my saw was appropriately fettled for the task in hand, practice a few cuts until accuracy was achieved and then try to rescue the project, if the housings for the wedges have not already been substantially cut, by making the 90 and 45 degree cuts 1/8th of an inch or so forward of the inaccurate cuts and take things from there, “absorbing” the inaccurate cuts in the housings.

Regards,

John