After requests from several readers, here is a short video showing how I teach beginning sawyers how to cut pins.
Some things to understand before watching this video.
1. We gang-cut the tails first and then transferred the shape of the tails onto the pin boards.
2. The joint shown is a single tail and pin, which is used to join an upper skirt at the top of a tool chest.
3. If you think a single tail/pin is easy, I would argue the opposite. I’d rather cut a row of 10 dovetails than a joint with just one.
4. This joint was cut the first thing in the morning after drinking five beers at the Dogfish Head Alehouse in Gaithersburg, Md. In other words, my head hurts, I’m not warmed up and the joint still came out perfect.
I did not develop this sawing technique, obviously. It’s pretty similar to how you saw a tenon. First you focus on the end grain. Then you focus on the face grain, dropping the saw handle. Then you use the established kerf to guide the rest of the cut.
I think this technique works. It’s slower than some methods, but it builds good sawing habits and doesn’t involve any extra jigs or doo-dads. It just makes the sawing a little more deliberate.
When you read advertisements for woodworking classes, books and magazines, one of the selling points sounds something like this: “You’ll learn to work just like the pros do, with plenty of tips and articles from pros on how they build stuff in a professional woodworking shop.”
It sounds compelling. I should know. I’m sure I used that bit to help promote Popular Woodworking. Professionals work fast. They have to be practical. And they do woodworking every day.
Amateurs, on the other hand, can work at their own pace. They can try antiquated or oddball techniques. And they do it at night and perhaps weekends.
My point: Professional techniques might not suit the amateur shop.
During the last year or so, I have tried to become a better teacher of amateurs. Instead of teaching a technique that gets things done quickly (but requires a lot of skill), I have tried to teach techniques that get things done well with a minimal amount of skill and a few more steps.
One example: Dovetails.
When I cut dovetails, I put the saw next to my knife line and cut down to the baseline as fast as I can manage. I have been cutting dovetails for 20 years now. I should be able to work without much in the way of guidelines or tricks.
But if you started cutting dovetails this Monday, the advice in the previous paragraph isn’t helpful. It is, in fact, frustrating and arrogant.
So the way I teach cutting dovetails is not the way I cut dovetails in my shop. It sounds duplicitous, but the results from my first-time dovetailers have convinced me it is a better way to go.
So sawing a pin is a multi-step process.
1. From the rear corner of the board, nibble a kerf along your knife line until you reach the corner near you.
2. Make one or two “cleansing strokes” to clear your nibbling into a kerf into which you can saw smoothly.
3. Saw down the face of the board only, dropping the handle of the saw gradually and never letting the saw leave the kerf on the end grain. Stop when your saw touches the baseline.
4. Remove the saw and clear the sawdust from its gullets.
5. Reinsert the saw and saw quickly forward. Let the two kerfs guide you down until your saw’s teeth touch the baseline at the front and rear of the board.
Whew. That’s a lot to explain. But it works. I also explain to students that someday they might leave this technique behind. And then I show them how I cut a tail or a pin as a demonstration.
I’ll admit that I feel guilty on some level. Perhaps I should pull a Mother Superior on them and just expect better. Show them how it’s done and expect them to work that way.
Here is what keeps me on my current teaching trajectory. Students say this during every class: “These are the best dovetails I’ve ever cut.”
A business man, speaking of one of the most pushing and active men in his employ said to me recently, “He does a lot of work but spoils much of it. He will work like a tiger to get a lot of things done, to make a record in output, but he botches so many things that the net result of his work is not nearly so effective as is that of others who do not make half the splurge, the push and noise that he makes.
Now to have to do a lot of work in order to make a big show does not amount to anything. Lack of thoroughness, of completeness, makes it worse than useless. People who make a splurge, young men with spasmodic enthusiasm, spasmodic effort however great, however spectacular, do not get the confidence of level-headed men.
It is the man who does everything he undertakes just as well as it can be done; who takes a pride in putting the hallmark of excellence upon everything that passes through his hands; the man who does not have to do his work over and over again, but who starts well and does everything to a finish, who is quiet, energetic and industrious, this is the sort of a man that comes out best in the end. (more…)
OK, here’s a confession, I’ll do anything that Vic Tesolin asks me to do. The dude cracks me up, and then all of the sudden, I’m in a wedding dress. No. Wait! I’m in the Woodworks Conference organized by the Ottawa Woodworkers Association.
This two-day conference in Perth, Ontario, promises to be lots of fun and a great learning opportunity. On Sept. 27-28, 2014, a bunch of talented woodworkers (and myself) will be speaking to a bunch of fellow woodworkers on a wide variety of topics. Garrett Hack on furniture design. Tom Fidgen. Konrad Sauer. Ron Barter. Mark Harrell of Bad Axe. Linda Manzer. And me on nails, chipbreakers and doilies.
All this takes place at the very cool Algonquin College in Perth, Ontario. Perth, which is right outside Ottawa, is a beautiful little town that is home to lots of fantastic stone houses, bakeries, restaurants and Rosewood Studios, a great woodworking school. And Algonquin College is one of the few schools trying to preserve our history of hand skills. It’s definitely a great choice for this event.
If you are a citizen of the United States, I know what you are thinking: How can I cross the border into Canada? The answer: In my trunk. No. It’s actually quite easy. Yes, you have to have a passport. So get that process started now. Here. If you are Canadian, you have no excuse. Please attend.
If we get enough Americans to attend, perhaps we’ll annex Perth. No, I kid. Perhaps we will drink all of their beer instead.
In any case, check out the full schedule of events here and register. Vic says so.
While I think tool storage is a fascinating topic, I don’t expect you to feel the same way. During the last several years, Jeff Burks and I have amassed an image library of workshops from the Middle Ages to the present. After looking at hundreds (perhaps more than a thousand) images, definite patterns emerge.
Here is a question that gets to the heart of the issue.
Chris Thompson writes: “I have read many books of yours on workbenches, furniture styles and hand tools, and I have enjoyed every one. I have started acquiring hand tools over the last year or so. I started researching hand tools after I made a bed for my son. I had 22 mortise-and-tenon joints to cut for the bed. However, I could never get the joints to sit perfectly flush due to the lack of minor adjustments using the table saw to cut the tenons. The shoulders were a tad off on most the the tenons. Needless to say, that’s when the hand-tool bug got me.
“Anyways, I am curious about hand tool storage. In one of your workbench books you describe how to build a rack that mounts on wall or over a window to store them. Then I read ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.’ So…I guess what I am trying to ask is, open rack or chest? Thanks for your time in listening to my long-winded question.”
Me: “Anyone who tells you there is one way to do something is selling something.
“Racks are more common in European workshops. Chests are more common in England and the United States (though racks are common in the States, too). Both approaches are totally valid, and the choice depends on your shop. If rust or theft is a problem, chests are a better way to go. If you have a lot of wall space, racks are ideal.
“I have worked out of a floor chest since 1997, both to deter rust and ‘theft’ in a common shop.
“When I wrote ‘The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,’ the chest was a literary conceit. It was an idea – a way to limit the tool-acquisition problem common to many woodworkers. I actually didn’t think anyone would build one — though I love mine dearly.
