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Thread: Precision Tools in Woodworking

  1. #16
    It's nice to have a good square and a good straight edge for handwork and machine work. Beyond that, I'm not sure more "precision" measuring capability is needed when making "bespoke" items with hand-tools. On the machine side of things, I use a 1-2-3 block all the time on my table-saw for safe, accurate crosscuts. I do use some "precision" measuring tools to set up equipment.

    Interesting post, provokes a few thoughts, especially since I was making some mortise & tenon joints last night, realizing if I could saw to a line more accurately I'd have a lot less effort to fit the joints and also that since I was using the mortise to size the tenon, I did not need any measuring tools beyond a small square.

  2. #17
    True, some techniques require no measuring tools once the layout is completed. I enjoy this type of work when it crosses my bench.

  3. #18
    In a patternmakers shop I can see the need for such accuracy. But building furniture for my livingroom? My house is made in the 1950's. Brick building with wooden floors. There is nothing straight or square in the house. In fact, my workbench is the only reasonably flat surface I have. So, it doesn't matter if the furniture isn't machine room perfect either.

    And I did check one of my squares on a unused part of the workbench which is still pretty straight. I have no problems with the fit of my M&T joints, thank you. I like to work with wooden planes. The scales on my marking gauges is pretty lame, so I don't use them. Accuracy to a thousands of an inch is laughable in my shop, but still, things I make are not that bad.

    So I still don't understand the need for metalworking spec'd measuring tools.

  4. #19
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    It really depends what you make. Personally, in my shop I disappoint my tools all the time, and they rarely disappoint me.

    We all find our preferred methods of work. All are valid. All are ultimately to be judged by the quality of our works.

    I tend to like hand fitting and its tolerance of "imperfection." It often seems to be the door through which personality and soul enter a piece.

  5. Quote Originally Posted by Kees Heiden View Post
    In a patternmakers shop I can see the need for such accuracy. But building furniture for my livingroom? My house is made in the 1950's. Brick building with wooden floors. There is nothing straight or square in the house. In fact, my workbench is the only reasonably flat surface I have. So, it doesn't matter if the furniture isn't machine room perfect either.

    And I did check one of my squares on a unused part of the workbench which is still pretty straight. I have no problems with the fit of my M&T joints, thank you. I like to work with wooden planes. The scales on my marking gauges is pretty lame, so I don't use them. Accuracy to a thousands of an inch is laughable in my shop, but still, things I make are not that bad.

    So I still don't understand the need for metalworking spec'd measuring tools.
    Building one-off furniture is a process, from start to finish, of trimming to fit.

    What seems to be being intimated in some of these posts sounds like the manufacture of interchangeable parts, built to a specific tolerance in a factory operation - anything but taking a nip and tuck here and there to make a joint fit its one and only mate - but workpieces built to work with twelve dozen other complementary workpieces on the schedule for that day's production.

    Even if you set up for production the wobble of a saw blade on a consumer-grade saw is enough to possibly require quick trim with a plane for a nice tenon fit. You can push a workpiece through a tenon shoulder cut too quickly on a tablesaw and spoil accuracy. Ditto the lack of accuracy that can be found in many spots on the average mortising machine. For the most part the levels of accuracy being discussed are illusory except *maybe* for those equipped with very, very high quality tooling - probably European made at that. It won't have the name Delta, Jet, or Powermatic on it that's for sure.

  6. #21
    There's a lot of misinformation on this thread. I routinely work to a couple thousandths of an inch without doing any special at all. Whether or not it's a good idea for any particular piece is really governed by what you're working on, but the notion that you somehow CAN'T work to tolerances like this, or that it's difficult, is just wrong. Also, the notion that you can't work to these tolerances because the wood moves is misleading at best. Wood hardly moves at all along it's length. A quartersawn 1' wide board, going from 80% humidity in the summer to 20% in the winter, might shrink .1" across it's width, but that's across the entire width. A feature, such as a slot, will hardly change dimensions at all.

    Anytime this topic comes up, there's always this broad brush stroke of, "Oh, you're just being silly...tee hee hee....the wood's going to move. What a waste of time". It's a bit more nuanced than that. Yes, at some level the wood does move, and at another level it just doesn't. In some places it pays (or is necessary) to be extremely precise, and in other places it doesn't.

  7. Quote Originally Posted by John Coloccia View Post
    There's a lot of misinformation on this thread. I routinely work to a couple thousandths of an inch without doing any special at all. Whether or not it's a good idea for any particular piece is really governed by what you're working on, but the notion that you somehow CAN'T work to tolerances like this, or that it's difficult, is just wrong. Also, the notion that you can't work to these tolerances because the wood moves is misleading at best. Wood hardly moves at all along it's length. A quartersawn 1' wide board, going from 80% humidity in the summer to 20% in the winter, might shrink .1" across it's width, but that's across the entire width. A feature, such as a slot, will hardly change dimensions at all.

    Anytime this topic comes up, there's always this broad brush stroke of, "Oh, you're just being silly...tee hee hee....the wood's going to move. What a waste of time". It's a bit more nuanced than that. Yes, at some level the wood does move, and at another level it just doesn't. In some places it pays (or is necessary) to be extremely precise, and in other places it doesn't.
    Wood movement down the road doesn't have anything to do with fitting a joint being made on the bench right now. You're right.

    Anybody trimming to fit is working to those tolerances but they don't have to be measured, a nominal measurement, some sort of gauged reading, does not have to be obtained with a machine room grade tool, to actually work to those tolerances.

    That's the point being made.

    Anybody who has ever skimmed a joint with a plane, just removed tissue, and had that one joint fit perfectly as a result has worked to a very high level of basically unmeasurable but uber precision. And what would be the point in measuring it anyway? If it fits, it fits. If the human eye and hand can detect 'fit' then that's all the particular medium of wood requires.
    Last edited by Charlie Stanford; 02-11-2013 at 12:37 PM.

  8. #23
    From an old "New Guy" with a lot to learn- Thank you for a wealth of information. I have a certain amount of doubt related to everything I do right now. Using accurate tools makes me feel more confident as I move ahead.

  9. #24
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    Having accurate measuring devices can be helpful in the shop.


    David Weaver mentions:
    It's nice to have a precision square and a decent dial caliper.
    A dial caliper is very useful to check auger bits against dowel stock when dowels are used in a project. They are also good for checking a saw's set.

    Most of my planes have been checked for flat and square, some are, some aren't. Some it doesn't matter since it is only going to be used as a scrub plane or to knock off some saw marks.

    My feelings are split on this subject. The yearly arrival of the swallows has never rejected any of the bird houses in our field due to it being out of square. In the case of some, they do not even care that they are downright ugly.

    One of my biggest problems used to be trying to make everything supper accurate. My methods have changed from constant use of a tape measure to using a story stick or cutting to fit. My work seems to end up better now. Quite often different tape measures do not agree one with another. Most of my measuring of short items is now done with a four fold yard stick that is off by an 1/8" in some places.

    A caveat here, there are some precision measuring devices used in my shop at times. Most of the time they are not required for my projects. Most of the time my projects do not even come close to the realm of high end woodworking.

    On some of my work the parts are made with tolerances that would be in the range of thousandths of an inch. It doesn't require precision instruments to get there. The main requirement is a flat working surface. Two sides of a box can be set side by side. Then run a finger over the edge where the two come together. If it is out much more than a thousandths of an inch, you will know. When doing this turn one piece end for end. If they are not parallel, it will be noticed. Then flip one top to bottom. If it is out of square, well you can see where this is going.

    Squareness can also be tested by standing pieces on end next to each other. If the gap comes together or expands, the ends are not square. If they look good, move one piece around so the sides that were on the outside are now on the inside. If the pieces are out of square by the same amount, this will let you know.

    For many projects knowing how to compare parts and make them fit without measuring devices is just as valid a way to get the job done.

    My shooting board is not trusted. The pieces coming off of it are checked constantly. This is a good example of were "errors accumulate." If the fence succumbs to the constant pressure from the plane or the plane's blade gets skewed, the cut will not be square.

    On the other hand, there isn't much power woodworking in my shop. Someone with a table saw, jointer and a few other electron burners would likely benefit from having some accurate tools to check their everyday tools.

    Though even with the most accurate set up, it is the result that matters.

    jtk
    Last edited by Jim Koepke; 02-11-2013 at 2:04 PM.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  10. #25
    It's nice to have a precision square and a decent dial caliper. Knowing someone with a precision square is almost as good, because you can check your cheap ones on theirs.

    It seems like once every month or so that I drop an old square or some kind of measuring tool and like to recheck it. And a dial caliper is nice if you're going to do any toolmaking and need to know thickness is some number. Otherwise, you could use old manual calipers, but there's no great reason to use them when a good used B&S dial caliper is about the same price as a couple of old manual tools that are in good shape.

    Years ago, I bid on a 24-inch starrett engineer's square on ebay (not a typo). I didn't expect to get it, but I thought it would be nice to have to check square on large tools, and super nice to make chute boards and anything else you might like to have square. I got it for $19. It's still on dead nuts. I would never pay real money for something like that, but for $19, I sure will. It's monstrously heavy, you'd never whip it up with one hand to check a glue-up for square, but a really nice thing to have around. The guy who sold it went out of his way to make a case out of laminate ply and hardwood so it would be safe in shipping. I couldn't believe it.

    I thought I'd probably never come across anyone who had one, it was my best find on ebay by far....but.....
    ..... George has one.

  11. #26
    I think you're confusing moisture/temperature related deformations with elastic deformations. different animals of the same phylum

  12. #27
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    I started woodworking with the intent of building period furniture. During school I was a musician (barely) and a coworker talked me into trying to build a couple bass guitars with him. So basically before I had built a single stick of furniture, I found myself deep in a world where relatively tiny errors in distances or radius or angles can mean the difference between an instrument and a really pretty piece of firewood. I'm sure there's a lot that can be accomplished with a more limited level of precision, but the initial post rings true to me in that taking things to that next level is pretty much always a nice-to-have, and you're only one project away from it being a must-have. :O

  13. #28
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    I definitely use precision tools for setting up machines. I have a Delta thickness sander and used a dial caliper to get the table exactly parallel to the sanding drum. I ran 8" wide boards through,and checked their opposite edges for thickness,adjusting the table until I got the boards exactly the same thickness all the way across. Then,when I glue up guitar tops and backs,they are exactly the same thickness,rather than looking like tapered siding.

  14. #29
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    I'm an engineer who has generally evolved into the "throw away your tape measure" philosophy, i.e. using one drawer side to assure it's mate is the same length) but still see the value in a reference square for checking things like shooting board angle.

    Stanley,

    You posted "You mean that “Made in India" POS you bought from Lee Valley?"

    As for disparaging LV for their straightedges being made in India, one of us is confused.

    On Lee Valley's site, on both the steel straightedge page it says "Canadian-made". See the link below
    http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...40,45313,56676

    On their aluminum straightedge side its says "Made in Canada". See the link below
    http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...at=1,240,45313

    I never realized that Alaska was so close to India. <g>

    Jim in Alaska
    One can never have too many planes and chisels... or so I'm learning!!

  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Neeley View Post
    I'm an engineer who has generally evolved into the "throw away your tape measure" philosophy, i.e. using one drawer side to assure it's mate is the same length) but still see the value in a reference square for checking things like shooting board angle.

    Stanley,

    You posted "You mean that “Made in India" POS you bought from Lee Valley?"

    As for disparaging LV for their straightedges being made in India, one of us is confused.

    On Lee Valley's site, on both the steel straightedge page it says "Canadian-made". See the link below
    http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...40,45313,56676

    On their aluminum straightedge side its says "Made in Canada". See the link below
    http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...at=1,240,45313

    I never realized that Alaska was so close to India. <g>

    Jim in Alaska
    That confused me too. No idea if they meet the tolerances of machinist straight edges, but I'm not sure what that reference was about. Honestly, I thought it muddied the motivation and credibility behind what seemed like an otherwise very informative well thought out post.
    Last edited by Chris Griggs; 02-11-2013 at 5:36 PM.
    Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...

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