Shooting board question
- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Hello,
I’m working on making the pine shooting board and have question on creating the recesses for the wedges, maybe someone can help me.
My first problem is getting an accurate angle (90 and 45) for the wedge recess. After having marked the angles with the square and knife and then deepened the knife wall as Paul instructs, when I sawed down to the gauge line, my saw cut came out a little off course so that the final angle is not dead on. Paul makes it look so easy, but how do you get the saw cut to be perfect? In my current situation when I place either the wedge or the beam of the square against the saw cut there are gaps.
Thanks,
IvriYou always cut off the knife wall and pare to it. With chisel or plane or router.
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
Two other options:
A) Clamp a batten to the work to guide the saw
B) Don’t saw. Instead, cut this entirely with chisel and router, like a housing.On the existing shooting board, if your wedges stay in and are at the right angle, you can use the shooting board. If things are a little sloppy so that the wedge does not stay, you can knife a new line and clean to it with the chisel. This will widen the wedge housing, but that’s okay- just seat the wedge further and trim it shorter as needed. You probably don’t need to start from scratch on this!
Thank you all for your replies. Eventually I seem to have succeeded.
My saw is a 12″ 13 tpi brass back tenon saw. I’ve recently fettled it to the best of my ability (jointed, sharpened, set, hammered to reduce and unify set, went over set with diamond stone). The saw, which I got second hand, also had a slight curve along its length which I straightened using Paul’s technique of putting the saw in the vise and pulling lightly in the opposite direction.
Before reading your comments, I already tried correcting the cuts by marking a new knife wall and paring with a chisel. The first thing I learning is that I must improve the lighting in my work area. Also – I ended up not paring square all along the knife wall. This resulted in some parts square and others at a wider angle. Although I kept to the knife wall itself, when inserting the wedge the areas with the wider angle compressed more, because they had less wood there and the entire angle changed.
I ended up making a new shooting board and seem to have succeeded by changing my sawing technique. In Paul’s videos once he establishes the initial cut he saws confidently and deliberately building up a momentum, whereas I initially sawed too slowly and cautiously. I tried saw more deliberately – but actually with much less force, and to saw square down, and surprisingly enough the cuts came out much better. The earlier slower cuts actually twisted more.
Using a batten would probably have solved this, either to guide the saw or chisel. Might use this technique next time.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.