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Only one thought. I remember from somewhere or other that you should not apply the setter to the base of the tooth but rather part way up. Supposedly applying the tooth setter at the base increases the chances of breaking the tooth. I have generally followed this advice and (knock wood) have never broken a tooth.
You now have me wondering whether steel can get brittle. I am pretty ignorant about this, but doubt that it can become brittle unless heated in a way that changes the structure of the steel.
Yah, I bought this one too. I really hated it at first, and still do not really like it, but I got it into usable shape. I find that its balance and weight are bad for me, but you can get used to it. The real problem was how the saw was sharpened out of the box. The teeth were sharpened way too passive. I sawed and sawed and made little progress. This made sawing ridiculously slow, and also very inaccurate. I put the saw aside for maybe a year till I had more experience sharpening and then fixed it. I made the teeth properly aggressive and added some set. The saw now cuts fast and true. So the bottom line, from my experience at least, is you have to change the geometry of the teeth on this saw. Which means you have to learn to sharpen. It sounds from your post that you have not done that before. Paul, and others, have videos on sharpening. It does take practice, and maybe you do not want to learn on your new Veritas saw. I learned on a rather cheap Disston tenon saw. I must say I screwed up the teeth something terrible on my first try, but the good news is that figuring out how to fix screwed up teeth is very instructive, and even fun, at least on a saw you do not care about!
Yah, no one answered that. Hard to know who in a woodworking website would know. But here is a thought from someone who is completely ignorant of the topic. If you are talking about the manufacturing of the glue, I bet hide glue is easier on the environment. Modern glues are made using modern chemistry in modern factories and involve various man made chemicals. That sort of production always has environmental impact, though I have no idea how much in this case. As I understand it, hide glue is made from otherwise not very useful bits of hide bought from tanneries. These hide fragments are treated with lime and then some sort of mild acid. Not much in the way of complex, man made chemicals there. And since the glue is made from otherwise not very useful bits of hide, its not as if animals are raised, slaughtered etc (all environmentally costly) to create the glue. So maybe it is more environmentally friendly process than the manufacture of modern glues. Though that is not certain to me.
On the other hand, I bet if you lived near a hide glue factory, the smell would be very environmentally unfriendly!
The precise definition of a resin is a chemistry thing, and I do not know any chemistry. I do know resins can be natural. They can be derived from plants. Think of amber for example. You can collect your own from pine — I think you can find instructions on the web to make glue from pine resin. It can also be derived from animals. Shellac is a resin derived from insects. Frankincense is a resin too. I do not know where it comes from, but do know I do not like the smell. Resins are now often artificial. Asphaltite is a resin, this time derived from petroleum bitumens. To get a modern glue from them you generally have to do a lot of stuff to them. For example, epoxy resin needs to be mixed with stuff (the second tube) to serve as a glue. Lots of glues involve one sort of resin or another derived from some modified natural thing or wholly artificial.
I have seen discussions (you can look them up) that say yellow carpenters glue is a resin (aliphatic resin I think) while white PVA glue is not. That has something to do with the different characteristics of white and yellow glue. Not sure any of that helps.
This just happened to me too, and for the first time. It took a while, but I finally figured out that the problem. The slot cut into the front for the tails was not quite square. So as I pushed the side board into the slot, it got pushed out a bit. I cleaned that up and the joint closed pretty well.
Johan, as I understand it, finger joints are a purely machine made joint to make long boards out of shorter ones. I doubt many would try to make that sort of joint by hand. Instead, hand woodworkers use various kinds of scarf joints. to joint wood end to end. Some scarf joints are very simple and some are very complex. But even that is not all that common in furniture making. After all, we rarely use really long pieces of wood and therefore rarely have need to make long boards out of short ones! However, if I were making a large piece, I can imagine not having boards long enough, I suppose. In which case I would use a scarf joint I guess.
As I understand it, both finger and scarf joints are way more common in architectural stuff. I have seen finger joints in things like baseboards and various kinds of trim carpentry. Scarf joints can be used there as well but also in work that requires a lot of strength, including constructions out of large timbers. (The Japanese are famous for that sort of use.)
I am curious as to what you want to use these joints for.
I have a number of antique mortise chisels from ebay etc, all of which had a good bit of use before I bought them. I was interested to see that they generally had just the sort of macro camber (Paul’s term) that Paul recommends for all chisels. That is, they had the gentle curve (with no primary or secondary bevel) that Paul teaches us to create when hand sharpening. I did buy one rather expensive new mortise chisel by Ray Iles. Nice, but probably not worth the money. It came with a long, narrow primary evil of about 20 degrees. According to Tools for Working Wood, where I bought the chisel, that is historically accurate and is there so the chisel can be driven deeply. But it does leave a very fragile edge. So they recommend adding a secondary bevel of 35 degrees to strengthen the weak edge. (Oh, keep in mind that if you put that 20 degree primary bevel on with a wheel, the tip will turn out less than 20 degrees, even if the over all bevel is 20 degrees. That is very weak indeed.) I myself just hand sharpened it in Paul’s fashion and in short order it came to have that macro camber. Hope this helps.
I second Darren, VERY odd. I wonder if you can attach a sound file here since I find it hard to imagine what this could be. You did not give much information. Have you used this plane before? Has the sound only started with the new blade?
Is it a squeal (or perhaps a squeak) like two metal parts rubbing together, e.g., like a door hinge that has not been oiled? The word “squeal” suggests metal parts rubbing together and creating a vibration. It does not suggests a sound made from metal (as in the plane bottom) rubbing against the wood. Of course, lots of things, when rubbed together, can vibrate and cause creaks. Wood on wood, wood on metal, and so on. Does the sound go away when you pass the plane over the wood with the blade retracted, or removed? If so, I would guess metal parts of the plane are somehow rubbing together. Are all the moving parts oiled and tightly assembled?
When I first started, someone told me to practice dovetails with “hard maple” because it was not compressible and required a lot of accuracy. That was very bad advice which, had I followed it, would have guaranteed failure, at least for me.
Perhaps I just lack natural ability, but I began by practicing just individual cuts for hours and hours and then dovetails for hours and hours. And I continued practicing for years, just as I practiced scales every day back when I played classical guitar.
So for me, the best beginner woods were (a) inexpensive since I used a lot (b) easy to saw cleanly and (c) a bit compressible since accuracy takes time to build and you want some decent level of success to avoid frustration. I tended to use cheap pine and pine like woods, but also any scraps I had laying around. Some of that cheap wood was not great because it did not saw cleanly, but hey, it was cheap. I quickly did try some poplar since I had some scraps and dabbled in a bit of oak. Ultimately, you do need to move to harder woods such as oak. I never did try hard maple since I never built anything with it.
I am not sure everyone would agree, but I found sawing skills were far far harder to acquire than chisel skills, so I was not at all worried by the fact that some of the woods I used did not chisel very well, especially with my rudimentary sharpening skills. For me it was all about the sawing.
Darren mentioned using a dovetail angle jig. I assume he means one of those magnetic jigs that holds the saw at the correct angle as you saw. I bought one but for some reason never used it. I know some hand tool workers start with them and leave them behind once they get the hang of the angles, and others start with them and use them forever. I do wonder what experience others had with them.
Hi Dejfson, The main reason to use frame and panel construction (besides the fact that it looks nice) is to deal with wood expansion and contraction. A fairly wide board can expand and contract a fair amount and that can break things. So suppose you have a door that is reasonably wide. As a single piece of solid wood, it can expand and contract a lot. So you “float” the panel inside a fairly narrow frame. The frame pieces, being narrow, do not expand and contract much. And since the large panel is floating in the frame, it is free to expand and contract a fair amount without changing the overall size of the door. Bingo.
So when do you not need frame and panel construction? When it is not needed to control expansion and contraction. Here are some cases. 1. The example of the table top you mention. Of course, that wide table top can expand and contract, but you can take that into account by how you attach it to the apron of the table. 2. In a door where it does not matter how much it expands of contracts, say because it simply overlays the cabinet opening without being embedded in it. (Note, most of Paul’s doors are frame and panel because they embed into the cabinet opening so expansion and contraction will quickly jam and then loose them.) 3. Plywood does not expand or contract much so you can generally ignore the need to take it into account. This means that you do not need frame and panel for, say, a plywood door — though you might want it just because it looks nice. Modern furniture construction uses plywood for a number of reasons, and one is that it does not require frame and panel construction for wide pieces. 4. If you are dovetailing two boards together, say for a box, it is done end grain to end grain. So the two boards will expand and contract together and the joint will not generally break. (Hm . . . different species of wood expand and contract at different rates. I wonder if they differ enough to be a problem there when the boards are wide? )
Anyway, that is the general idea. Of course, frame and panel is sometimes used for purely decorative purposes too. My house has doors made from some sort of artificial material with fake grain and fake panels.
I am not sure, but it sounds like the bed you are thinking of is a sort of large box with holes for drawers etc. (A sketch of what you have in mind might help.) If so, like any box, I bet it is fine with dovetailed sides and no frame and panel construction, at least as far as wood movement goes.
Good luck with it!
That the chisel is 1″ should not make too much difference. True, more metal has to be removed than on a 1/2 inch chisel, but a lot less has to be removed than on a plane iron. And if the back is flat and polished, and the bevel on your chisel is already established (often 25 degrees to 30 degrees — though I never actually measure mine), not much metal has to come off to get the edge for it to be sharp.
Are you sharpening using Paul’s method? When I find I did not get a sharp edge, it is often because I simply did not sharpen all the way to the edge. I often take a quick look at the edge after the coarse stone to make sure the scratches are all the way to the edge and square across (to make sure I am not sharpening out of square). You should also be able to feel a burr, unless the course stone simply broke it off already, which I find happens. In any event, if after the medium stone, you still cannot feel a burr, you did not sharpen all the way to the edge. No burr, no sharp edge. It does not have to be large, but it must be there. That burr gets polished off on finer stones or, on Paul’s method, on the strop.
If you used your stones correctly, there is a second way you might get a poor edge. You might have a great edge and then round it off on the strop. You have to PULL the blade across the strop being careful not to raise the blade us so as to blunt the edge.
You mention a sanding belt. Are you just using that, laying flat on a benchtop or whatever, to flatten the back? Or are you doing some sort of power sharpening with the belt to establish the basic edge before turning to stones? That was not clear from your post.
I am puzzled by all this too! There are so many options. I have seen discussions of what the opens are, but I have not found good discussions of why people take one option rather than the other. To some extent, some choices seem dictated by the nature of the project, but even then, not all the choices are. I tend to just do what I have seen others do without clear ideas as to why
Often Paul makes a basic box to fit a drawer into, e.g., in the bottom of his drinks cabinet is just a box. He makes a drawer without guides that just fits that box. The bottom of the drawer rides on the bottom of the box and the sides of the drawer rub up against the sides of the box. Perfectly understandable construction and one we have all used Fine, but I have also seen people use various guides in such boxes. They can be cleats attached to the drawer and fit into dados in the sides, or cleats attached to the sides of the box and fit into slots in the drawer. They can be bottom guides, and so on. Why would anyone make these choices? The clearly reduce friction since the a smaller amount of the drawer rubs against a small amount of the box. Do they reduce jamming? Do they just control wear and tear on the drawer? Are some better for this or that purpose? I sort of expect that some sort of guide is superior mechanically (less friection etc.) but is thought to be less attractive — so if you can make a drawer with out the guide, it looks nicer. The only option I do understand is metal slides since they can make for smooth operation and, depending on the slide, can allow for full extension without the drawer falling out. These metal slides are also particularly helpful for drawers holding heavy things. But they are not all that attractive and can take up space.
There are also more complex constructions beyond the simple box, e.g., the complex webs people make for chests of drawers or the simpler web people make to attach a drawer to the underside of a simple table. There are a number of choices in these cases. Again, the one choice I get is metal guides since they are smooth, allow for full extension without drawers falling out, and can carry a lot of weight. But they are not very attractive and take up space. But putting those aside, there are lot of choices. I have a chest of drawers with a bottom center guide made out of wood that the drawer sits on. It seems to work okay and though it does take a bit of space, it is not visible like side cleats are. I have seen chests where the drawers ride on wooden side cleats attached either to the drawer or to the side of the cabinet. They are strong, but are not so attractive and do take up some space. I have seen also seen chests of draws with using the sorts of construction I have used for simple drawers under table: runners, rails, kickers etc. They all seem to work.
The best I can tell, the main concerns are two. (a) We want constructions that limit friction, binding etc, which points toward some sort of slide. And (b) we want constructions that are attractive and do not waste space, which generally points away from slides. Beyond that, I do not have much of an idea.
Hi Wendy, you say you got a jig to cut dovetails. Do you mean you have a jig to make dovetails with an electric router ? Deanbecker took that to be your meaning.
They are sold by companies like Leigh. I had a cheap one years ago and it worked okay, and was even fun for a while. If it is a jig for an electric router, it should come with directions. There are probably also youtube videos for whatever jig you bought.Or did you get a small magnetic jig to guide a saw for hand cut dovetails? Folk on Paul Sellars’ website are interested in hand cut dovetails, not electric router cut dovetails. Paul teaches us to cut them without any jigs, except a marking tool for laying out the dovetails at set angles. But I know a number of places sell jigs, usually magnetic, to help guide saws to keep them straight in the cut. For example, Veritas (Lee Valley) sells one. Amazon also has some.
If you are interested in handcut dovetails, this is the website for you! Paul has detailed videos for how to cut them, along with other basic woodworking joints. I think they are found on his Common Woodworking site but I first saw them on youtube — those free youtube videos were my first introduction to Paul. Again, he does not teach us to use a magnetic guide, but there is no reason you cannot use one. However, I would suggest first practicing a bit without a guide till you get a feel for how dovetails work — some folk, and that means me, can have trouble visualizing how they fit together at first. Once you get that down, you can use the guide to cut straight, though you may soon find it more fun to try to cut straight without a guide.
In any event, whether you use an electric router to cut your dovetails, or try it by hand, practice first or scrap. You do not want to mess up your project. An electric router guide system can be complex and you can screw up. Hand cutting, even with a magnetic jig, requires some skill. Handcutting with out a jig can take some time to get decent at.
Yes, I am sure that a 14 inch tenon saw will cut much faster than a short dovetail saw when using full strokes. And I suppose that can make mistakes happen very fast. On the other hand, in my limited experience, and at least up to a point, I have found the faster cutting saw far more accurate than the slower cutting saw — though I doubt my Lie Nielsen cuts as fast as Ed’s saw. After struggling with cutting dovetails and tenons accurately, I found three things that helped a lot, a sort of trifecta of discoveries. First, a more aggressively sharpened, faster cutting saw. As Ed mentions, all those extra strokes of a slower cutting saw seem to increase the chances for messing up, or even to guarantee messing up, I at least in my case. Second, trying to control the way my hand naturally wants to twist in each stroke of the saw. Oddly, my hand wants to twist in different direction on either side of the dovetail. Third, I made a Moxon vise which raises the wood to a more comfortable height for dovetails. (Has anyone else found that planning, cutting dovetails, mortising, etc., all seem to want different height benches?)
Anyway, just a few thought from someone who still finds it amazing that my own hand cut dovetails actually come together pretty well most of the time.
Jasper, before I (sort of) got the hang of sharpening saws, I studied with great care charts like the one you provided above, which seemed to require different saws for hardwoods and softwoods. (I also noticed saw dealers advertise ever so precise numbers for the amount of set in their saws, numbers I would never be able to reproduce when sharpening.) I also noticed that Paul did not seem much worried about such things. My sharpening, and my sawing, improved greatly when I pretty much followed what Paul does. I use the same saws for hard and soft woods. I file my joinery saws pretty aggressive (accept for the first few inches, which seems common) just as you talk about. I do not like a straight 90 degrees, and usually go just a bit off of that. Personal preference? Focusing on unweighting the saw, again as Ed mentions, solved the problem of teeth catching: one day i realized it almost never happens any more, even with a pretty aggressively filed saw.
Also, as Ed talks about, the biggest problem I have is if I have too much set in the saw. It creates ragged cuts. Yah, I do always end up with too much and have to take some out. For some reason, I have never had uneven set which causes the saw to wander off course.
I do like the Lie Nielsen dovetail saw. I had to change how it was sharpened a lot: it was not nearly aggressive enough. Hm . . . maybe they had optimized it for softwoods! I don’t know. I also have a Veritas medium tenon saw. It came with so little rake that it almost wouldn’t cut. At first I thought it was me since I was a beginner. But I finally sharpened it following more or less Paul’s suggestions and it cuts well.
One thought: if you have several saws, it makes perfect sense to try different things on different saws. I have several tenon saws I bought here and there at reasonable prices and have played around a good bit with rake, set etc. That is how I learned to sharpen. I did settle in on a rather simple formula, but it seems others differ.
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