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21 January 2018 at 2:01 am #446420
Hi Seth,
Without pictures (and maybe not even then… :)) it’s hard to say. However, I think I can visualize what you are describing.
Mr Sellers has a video on making a rabbet plane where he encounters something, I believe, like you are describing. Have you taken a look at that video and how he handles the ‘pushed out’ wedge? The solution might be similar, if the issue is similar.
21 January 2018 at 1:48 am #446412Very nice, David! – would you happen to have a drawing of the y-stretchers and the order of assembly? it would be helpful to me to hear how you put this y-stretcher together!
Thanks!
12 January 2018 at 5:45 am #434103Thank you @deanbecker!
That’s exactly what I was looking for – math is how he does it.
Thanks!
Spencer
11 January 2018 at 3:04 am #433106Hi Paul,
No – you aren’t belabouring the point 🙂 I feel I am not making myself clear – which is probably true 🙂
I agree that he says that – which is why I made the tenon 1/32nd inch over-sized (1mm). The question I have – and perhaps it’s just me – but HOW does he determine the depth in the first place from where to remove that 1 mm (up to 3 mm) ???
Maths, I assume –
Start with a 12 mm chisel. Know the thickness of the rail – remove the 12 mm from the thickness and divide the remainder by 2 – and then remove 1 mm and set the router to that depth.
It works – and is enough to get me moving – this isn’t keeping me from working 🙂
But, since Paul doesn’t mention it, and he does it with the depth of the router already set, I am just wondering if he did the arithmetic off camera, or if he has a shortcut 🙂
Thanks for taking a look at the video – I really appreciate it… perhaps I am getting hung up on nothing since I have a ready-made answer 🙂
Good to hear from you – hope things are well, Paul, and that you are working wood! 🙂
Spencer
10 January 2018 at 11:08 pm #432920Ed,et al – yes, take a look at the video…in tools and techniques under masterclass videos from Aug 2017. New and improved…
Thanks, maybe you can see abit more clearly there…
Spencer
10 January 2018 at 5:57 pm #432580Hkimsey – thanks.
The technique you describe is almost exactly what I am doing now. I use the mortise gauge to layout, and then cut and pare with the chisel, and then clean up and fit with the hand router.
I just would li,e to know if it is by math or by eye that Mr Sellers is doing this 😉
10 January 2018 at 7:49 am #432075Thanks for the replies.
@ed – I really wanted to come to class last year, and had an opportunity for a 9 day class as someone dropped out last minute. I attempted to juggle my schedule and had it all worked out except for one thing I could not move. And wo, I missed out as I was planning on class this year, when it was announced that there would be no classes in 2018. Here’s hoping for 2019! Funny you should mention the mortise gauge as the method taught in class as Mr. Sellers mentioned in the mortising jig video that the reason he came up with this mortise jig method is because so many students were having trouble with mortises in class, and it bothered him. So, he expanded on his, already proven, method of creating a mortise jig – and one that specifically relies on the boards being perfectly milled and the hand router.I am currently using a mortise gauge, but want to switch over to the mortise jig much like I have with the dovetail jig (huge time-saver there…). While my mortises aren’t ragged, and my tenons fit well, expanding the toolset is always on my mind.
He might be eyeballing it – and that’s fine. He might be doing the math quickly in his head, and that’s great! With a mortise gauge, I know exactly where to cut the mortise because I have, as you all have said, found the center with trial and error. I am hoping for something besides trial and error with the jig – be it math, or some other magic 😉
Thanks for your responses – I very much appreciate them.
9 January 2018 at 11:11 pm #431886Hi Ron,
Thanks for the reply.
However, I am not asking about the use of a mortising gauge, but specifically about the Paul Sellers mortising method/jig which specifically calls for (and is relatively dependent upon) the use of a hand router (or two, or three :))
4 January 2018 at 9:42 am #428092I have to second (or third, or fourth…) the ideas presented here. I, too, struggled a long time with sawing more than any foundational skill when working with hand tools. I can now rip and crosscut towards a scribed line, or knifewall, relatively accurately – but getting there took a LOT longer than chisel work or plane work. Here’s what worked for me:
1) Get a known sharp saw. Knowing what a good known sharp saw feels like made a world of difference in how I was applying the saw to the cut. Someone earlier mentioned that you really aren’t trying to saw. That’s the saw’s job – your job is to move the saw back and forth efficiently and effectively with no added pressure. Let the weight of the saw and gravity do the work of cutting. but you can’t KNOW what that feels like unless you have a known sharp saw. Another benefit of this is that you aren’t taking agressive cuts, going too fast (slow down!), and getting way off line quickly.
2) Now that you have a sharp saw, and can feel what that sharpness feels like with gravity, learn to sharpen a saw yourself. The cool thing about this is that it’s an easy skill to learn, Paul Sellers has some great, free videos on it, and you’ll get lots of practice sawing. I, too, wanted that curl of wood at the bottom of the kerf. Well, learning to sharpen my saw gave me that because I could compare my skills with my known sharp saw.
3) Use the knife wall and the chisel nick as much as you can to get started. And learn to plane end grain. Once again, you aren’t trying to saw so much on the line (as an amateur…) as you are trying to saw near the knife wall. The knife wall is your best, most favorite friend. Look at Paul Sellers almost every time he crosscuts – he pops out the number 4 and planes the end grain to that square knife wall. So, leave the knife wall in and use it to get square after you cut. This was the biggest epiphany to me when struggling – rip cuts weren’t a problem because, of course I was going to plane them to the pencil line. Use the plane along with the crosscut and knife wall – and viola! Square and crisp, just like Paul Sellers. To belabour the point, I just today had to cut-to-length 4 boards to 42 5/8 in. Using the above method worked perfectly – 4 boards EXACTLY 42 5/8 square and straight by planing a face and edge, using these to scribe a knife wall all around, crosscutting, and then planing the end grain down to the knife wall – checking for square as I planed. This one is hard to accurately describe – you aren’t so much cutting AWAY from the line as you are cutting TO (or near to..) the line. The saw kerf should be very very near the knife wall without obscuring or crossing over the knife wall. And if it is drifting away, then bring it back.
4) Once again, slow down and lighten up! If you are having to work hard when sawing, your saw isn’t sharp enough, or you are bearing down too hard, or both. Aggressive cuts go off line quickly. What worked for me was to get the mindset that “… if I had to hand saw all day, could I keep this pace up?” If not, then I’d slow down. This was hard as I have a tablesaw that cuts beautifully, quickly once it is set up. And many times I would use this as a crutch. Then two things hit me: a) I hate the sound and dust of the tablesaw which is what got me into hand tools in the first place, and b) I am not doing this work for money, but rather for enjoyment – why do I have this mindset that what I do for enjoyment has to be fast? It doesn’t. And so, I tried slowing down which gave me a lighter touch. Lo and behold, slowing down, letting the saw work, gave me much greater accuracy.
5) Read as much as you can and try it – if it doesn’t work for you when you try it, file it away and come back to it later. You just might not be ready for that particular lesson, yet. There is a wonderful article that pops up on Google if you search ‘Popular how:to:saw’ (leave the colons in when searching and it will be the first result). But it didn’t fully make sense to me until I changed my mindset about what I wanted out of my sawing technique – 30 minutes to cut a perfect tenon! That’s just silly, I thought. Now, after slowing down, it all kinda makes sense…
If all this sounds like some kind of ‘Zen and the art of sawing’, it kinda is. It’s practical, it gets you started, but it doesn’t get you mastery right away. Sawing is kinda like that – or calculus. It’s frustrating, people can point you along a path, and then you just kinda ‘get it’. Paul Sellers, or Joshua Klein, or Roy Underhill, or Christopher Schwarz, and countless others have handsawn thousands upon thousands of cuts. They didn’t start out being Saw Masters day one – or even day 101. I, too, am just ‘getting it’ after being very frustrated like you – heck, I was too embarassed to ask, so good on you for having courage to ask (I wish I had…) Andwhen I say I am just now ‘getting it’, I mean like, within the last two months, getting it – so… not a Master… just barely an apprentice!
Last bit of advice in a lomg wimded post – Speed comes with proper form and technique. Right now, speed is your enemy – Slow. Down. Really – S L O W D O W N! Get a sharp saw, don’t try to saw, and SLOW DOWN!
- This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
26 December 2017 at 10:43 am #418266Is there anyway to get a picture of the joint from the “top” as it were?
24 July 2017 at 2:54 am #313975Hi,
I am using Chrome and am not having an issue. This issue is probably related to two items.
1) you probably have an advertising parasite installed in your chrome extensions. Turn off any extensions you don’t want. Google ‘turn off Chrome extensions’ and follow the instructions from Google.
2) once you have turned off the extensions, shut down Chrome and restart it. Go to Google.com. and clear your cache.
Once those two steps are done, try accessing the Masterclass again. I am betting it will work properly.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Spencer Gaskins.
22 May 2017 at 6:16 pm #312176Beautiful!
The taper of the legs looks very natural and organic. Excellent job!
22 May 2017 at 7:31 am #312157I think (hope?) that by epoxying the knot prior to making this cut, that I’ve stabilized the different moisture contents between the surrounding wood and the knot… at least that’s the working assumption. It’s at the top end of a leg where the seat attaches to the stool, so, by stabilizing the knot, and location, I am minimizing movement.
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