Moderator
I am going to be polite and ask each person to go back and re-read their posts and eliminate the personal attacks and those which impugn motives and intentions.
No more of this will be tolerated and it will be edited viciously by me. Enough folks, play nice.
Dave Anderson
Chester, NH
Contributor
I have to say that I am open to learning from anyone...even from one less skilled than I. In terms of professional teachers as these, as long as I can learn something of value, I am more than willing to tolerate a bit of "attitude" or other "personality" issues that might keep me from being "friends" with them. I have to say that I have learned a good bit from each of these teachers...and my understanding of the topic at hand becomes more refined each time I review one of their video demonstrations.
If I had the opportunity to apprentice with or engage in private lessons with only one of the choices shown, I would choose the late Mr. Kingshott. An old school craftsman if there ever was one.
[OP]
Member
Roger,
I just finished watching Rob's dovetail video.. Was long as it was shot in one take with no edits so it was like being at a class...
He was explaining what he was doing to another person so it was more relaxed than say the Hand Plane /Sharpening video
In that video there is several takes and edits and Rob's has a image of himself between the takes, that might look a little cocky to some.. He is looking back over his shoulder.. I'm not sure where the attitude comes from but maybe this image or music has something to do with it..
I have now seen Rob's, David C's, Frank Klausz and Tag Frid's dovetailed drawer and Tag and Franks are much more free style on the fly with no measuring... Both of these guys learned there trade in the old school EU wood industry.. I like seeing both styles but Frank's is better (can I say better or best? or is there no such thing?).. Tag's is maybe 20 mins and has chisel sharpening and card scraper lesson all in the 20 or 30 mins of the video.. Nothing fancy all down and dirty with him..
Last edited by Johnny Kleso; 05-27-2011 at 12:45 AM.
aka rarebear - Hand Planes 101 - RexMill - The Resource
Guest
Frid's and Klausz's videos are wonderful; but I wasn't sure they were available in dvd versions. I'm of the same school, but self-taught. Once I realized the implications of marking from the already cut end, the whole world of freehand dovetails opened up. This was some 30 years ago. It was a blast seeing the experts doing the same thing.Originally Posted by Johnny Kleso
Pam
Member
This is the most ambitious thread ever. Started off with woodworking personalities, moved to back bevels and sharpening, and now we're getting into tails vs. pins first!
Member
My wife and I have come to an agreement. She now encourages me to buy all the woodworking videos I want, the longer the better. My side of the bargain is that when I put the video in, she lies down on the couch and I give her a foot rub or scalp massage while I watch. Her falling asleep means I've done my part!
Steve, mostly hand tools. Click on my name above and click on "Visit Homepage" to see my woodworking blog.
Member
I bought all Cosman's DVDs and several Charlesworth's DVDs and i can say that i learn a lot of things from both.
The feature that i like in Cosman's DVDs is that Rob speak slowly and shows every things that he says and this is very important for people like me who don't know english very well.They are practical videos so after one or two views I can already take the tool in the hand and work.
David Charlesworth's DVDs are also excellent, i memorize the Hand Planing and Plane Sharpening DVDs and i learn to camber a blade thanks to him.
So,to sum up, i think that they are complementary.
Member
Jon
My background is in machining where we productively cut extremely hard and abrasive materials. To strengthen a cutting edge a small bevel, .001" to .002" wide at a higher angle is introduced. Much like the ruler trick. In addition to the polishing of the cutting edge it also strengthens the edge. I understand that some will insist that metal working is different than working with wood and I will agree to the extent that one does not ignore the similarities. To ignore the similarities would put at risk beneficial knowledge.
PS Try the ruler trick by going to a finer grit stone to get that final polish.
Ed
Member
Now there's a deal, Steve... Now if there's only a way to wrap that into covering every new tool you want too!
One can never have too many planes and chisels... or so I'm learning!!
Member
I don't see why you can't strop a micro-bevel either. With light pressure you can feel what you're doing, and unless you're doing something horribly wrong you won't damage the edge.
I recently tried to restore a very old wooden rebate plane (somehow there was pieces of metal imbedded in the wooden body and jacked up my favorite woody's sole and iron!!!What in the hell was that stuff!!), but anywho, the back of the very thick and nice skewed iron was bellied like crazy. I gave it a go on the x-coarse diamond but could see I was going to waste a whole bunch of stone life on this thing. I used the side of the grinder wheel and it was a snap. Just a minute or so followed by a quick swipe on the stone and it was done. Yes, the steel is significantly softer than modern irons, but I'm sure we have all had irons so bellied that flattening by hand just makes no sense. The time, the damage to the stone, etc.
Again, I'm sure using the side of the stone is extremely dangerous, as if it were to crack it would send stone flying everywhere at super high speeds. I use a face mask, and am very delicate with the wheel.
Last edited by john brenton; 05-27-2011 at 1:18 PM.
It's sufficiently stout..
Member
By bellied, I assume you mean convex, so the back of the iron would rock on the stone.
I've had an old wide skewed rabbet/filletster plane blade like that. I used a trick that I picked up from Garrett Hack's book; chuck up one of those little grinding stones in a power drill (the little ones with the built in arbor, I think the one I had was a couple inches in diameter?) and use that to grind a hollow in the center of the back of the blade. Staying away from the cutting edge and the sides, of course. I initially ground away just enough to let the blade rest on a couple of places, so it wouldn't rock. Just carefully went back and forth between lapping and grinding to have a good idea of what was going on.
If lapping is still taking to long, and I don't want to grind the tip to get to the point where things are lapped, it can be a helpful way to speed the lapping process if you're careful. I suppose you could even grind a hollow, but I wouldn't trust myself to do that this way.
Last edited by Jessica Pierce-LaRose; 05-27-2011 at 1:29 PM.
Member
That's a good tip, and I may thank you one day when I use it. I don't know though...I sure love the way the back looks off the side of the stone...it has that nice little factory grind looking quarter-swirl. Sweeter than yoohoo.
It's sufficiently stout..
Contributor
Hello everyone,
Several weeks ago I just got done with Rob's two day dovetailing class. My first joint in the class was orders of magnitude better than my dozens attempt before his class. His methods work and I'm proof. I was frankly amazed.
Now, Rob is opinionated and I know that will irk some people. But I few this as a huge plus. I *want* his opinions. Thats why I took the class. I know there are many ways to accomplish things and there are no right and wrongs. But Rob has honed his teaching methods over the years and they work.
Rob's videos are great, but if you have a chance to take his class, I think you will be impressed. Everyone in my class had a great time, learned a lot, and walked out much better woodworkers. He talks about his tools and why he designed each one the way he did. He does not pressure you to buy his tools, but he explains why he did what he did.
I walked into the class knowing little about Rob other than his reputation. I walked out a better dovetailer and a big fan of Robs.
Michael Fross
Member
Not to sound stuffy, but honestly, I don't understand the obsession with dovetail instruction. People don't get as worked up over classes or videos about other types of joinery. Obviously part of this is because most everything shows on a dovetail, where a mortise and tenon half your work is hidden from view, but I'd like to think we're making our M+T and other joints just as tight and perfect as our other joinery.
The thing is, as far as I can tell (and my experience is limited) a dovetail isn't really any different than any other joint - you need to be accurate in marking, and you need to learn to saw to the line. Then you need to be able to pare away that last bit of waste to the baseline. As has been said previously, if you can't saw to the line, you need to practice that, not dovetails.
Below are pictures of literally my third set of dovetails, in some walnut, from a while ago. I made one set in pine a (a single giant dovetail for each of four sides of a box base for a sewing machine) a few years before these that I was basically just hacking at without thinking, and a another single tail in 1/2" maple to test out a dovetail saw I bought and as practice. Then I made this.
If I remember correctly, this is the first corner I made of the four on this box. These photos are old; it's going to be part of a footswitch assembly for some guitar effects stuff. (edit: I just realized they're all the same corner, sorry - but going by my marks inside the box, this is the first one.)
I have been making mostly guitars, for while now, so I've never needed to cut a real dovetail. Granted, I've been working with handsaws for a while now, so I know how to saw to a line pretty well. Before I made these tails, I threw a piece of scrap in the workmate and made a few practice cuts to get in the flow. I think that helped. But that was really it. While the saw was nice, the chisels were not.
Literally the only how-to I've seen on dovetails was Roy's dovetail variations episode on the Woodwrights shop, (and I fell asleep with on the couch, I was tired) and another episode where I think he cut one, where I learned the trick of using the saw to mark the second board. I think I read a bit on Derek's site, but I don't remember much except that beveling the underside would be helpful for assembling the joint.
I don't doubt there are lots of tips I could pick up from videos and classes, but as someone else said here, I think the biggest thing is being able to look at your results objectively and see where the issues reside. I was sawing a bit to the left, so I made a concious effort to correct that. After my first tails in the piece of maple, I realized quickly that cutting accurately was better than paring the sides, and I realized that preperation (making sure your boards where square and true) helped a lot, and that I was undercutting helped my joints fit tightly. I didn't need anyone to tell me those special tricks, I stopped, looked at my results, and figured out what was going wrong. When I first started sawing, and things weren't going well, I stopped and thought about what was happening right and wrong and figured it out. I'm sure someone told me once to "let the saw do the work", but I was damned if I knew what that meant at the time. But it didn't take long for me to figure out that bearing down on it was not helpful, and what the difference between at sharp and dull saw felt like.
I'm not trying to say that I'm awesome here, but rather that anyone can do this. If I can make passable DT joints, then it's not hard. It really is just learning to saw well.
If you look at something like Tage Frid's first book, his section on handcut dovetails is a few pages at most. Roy's episode on dovetails wasn't a half hour of how to make a dovetail joint, but some musing on interesting variations of it. Most of Tage's information is on the marking aspect (the most important part) and a good bit is identifying problems with the cuts, which is also important.
As far as tails first or pins first, I think the best bet is to identify what you can cut most accurately to your line, and make that second. You can make the first one fairly off, and it's okay as long as you can make the second board match whatever you did on the first.
If guess if I had the opportunity to take a class at a price I liked and it was local to me, I probably would, in the hopes that I would learn something, and also because I find woodworking to pretty solitary, so working with others would be a nice change, and it's nice sometimes to meet people you share interests in. But with the amount of information available online, and simply taking the time to analyze my results, I don't know if I would really think about buying a DVD on dovetails; I feel like most of what there is to learn are the silly tricks you just pick up from talking to folks.
I guess I look at it like learning an instrument - the times I've taken lessons, it's been to learn things like music theory, I didn't take a class to teach me how to play a lick fast or tight, I just practiced. I could have payed someone to come and stand over my shoulder and watch me practice my scales, or give me a list of things run through, but I found it just as effective to analyze where my shortcomings where and work on those.
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Okay, I just re-read through all this; I hope I don't sound like a jerk. Short version, I'm not trying to say that the instructors have no use, just that this isn't as hard as everyone makes it out.
Last edited by Jessica Pierce-LaRose; 05-27-2011 at 10:28 PM.
Member
Joshua - Just my take on this. I think the reason that folks get worked up over dovetails is that they're not seen the way they were 200 years ago, which was just a way to reasonably quickly build a strong joint that wouldn't come apart in hard use on the front of a drawer.
I think they're now seen as part of evidence of one's ability as a craftsman, and a right-of-passage. And to "attain" that rank, the joint has to be aesthetically perfect, not just functional. Personally, I think that's a bit overboard - it's akin to the threads on the power tool forums that are titled something to the effect of "My table saw fence is out by 2 thousandths of an inch, how do I correct this disaster?". Yes, it's ridiculous, but it's quite common.
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