Chisel holding technique while chopping to the baseline

[Derek Cohen]

I am kind of wandering what works for people who are really efficient at say dovetail chopping or chiseled dados or rabbets.

Does one hold the chisel by the blade or by the handle. After some experimentation I get a better shoulder lines if I hold the handle and actually see that chisel is flush with the baseline. It also is less tiring for the fingers and usually pretty fast and I do not have to switch chisel position to chop out the waste.

If I chisel by holding the blade I end up being in the front of the chisel thus not seeing if I am really flush so it ends up being undercut. On the other hand I just realized that I could also try holding by the blade while the board is rotated so that shoulder line is in front of me. I think Klausz does it that way (must be fast then).

Any thoughts?

What I find is that fingers closer to the tip of the blade creates more control, while a hand on the handle add to power.

So, for careful undercutting, even with a paring chisel, my fingers are close to the work ...




Japanese bench chisels are about using a gennou to create control. Steadying the chisel is done with fingers close to the work. Dovetailing is a controlled, thin slice.




By contrast, morticing is a power action with 1/8" chips - one hand on the handle of an English Oval Bolstered chisel which wacking with a heavy mallet. Similarly, if a Japanese slick (paring chisel) is used, power comes from bringing the shoulders into play via hands on the handle, not the blade.

Your mileage may vary.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Winton Applegate]

For softer wood can't beat this guy
Twenty three minutes in to this vid

For harder wood I saw near the line and push the chisel with my shoulder similar to Derek's post.
I never said I was fast though.
Frank is fast.

[jamie shard]

Still if my chisel is held in the gauge mark it tends to travel back due to the force of the bevel.

I think accounting for the movement of the chisel is one of the hardest things to do when learning dovetails. It almost doesn't matter what method is used for clearing away most of the waste - as long as you are not initially pounding in the gauge mark. Klaus puts the chisel well in front of the gauge line and pounds, which pushes a bit of the wood backward to the gauge line. This takes a lot of experience to know how far in front of the line to place the chisel. So he is "chopping out waste" and "paring to the line" in a single step.

Many others will bandsaw or coping saw away the bulk of the waste first. Only then, when there is just a little bit of wood to slice away, do you put the chisel in the gauge line. Then either using a paring block, or a square, or your eye to find square, you can tap away the last bit of wood in front of the line. The chisel won't dive off of 90 degrees because there isn't much material on the bevel side.

One thing that amazes me is how many good cabinet makers use paring blocks and/or squares for sighting during their work. What matters is the end result. No bonus points for doing it the hardest way.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

What matters is the end result. No bonus points for doing it the hardest way.

But I had almost saved enough for the folding chair and the beer cooler! What am I going to with all these points now?

[Winton Applegate]

I think accounting for the movement of the chisel is one of the hardest things to do when learning dovetails. It almost doesn't matter what method is used for clearing away most of the waste - as long as you are not initially pounding in the gauge mark. Klaus puts the chisel well in front of the gauge line and pounds, which pushes a bit of the wood backward to the gauge line. This takes a lot of experience to know how far in front of the line to place the chisel. So he is "chopping out waste" and "paring to the line" in a single step.

NOPE

Jamie,
With all due respect . . . and sugar on top . . .

Please . . . study Klausz before you describe his methods.
I quote him from the YouTube I posted : “Put the chisel INTO the marking gauge line and tap it . . . tap it very gently.”


He then angles the chisel and takes out a bite beside the line to remove a chip of wood before taking a serious hit down AGAIN on the line.

HIS WHOLE POINT IS IT IS AN EASY PRACTICALLY BRAINLESS WAY TO DO IT. NO GREAT EXPERIENCE NEEDED.
Just do what he says and anybody can get great results.
IN SOFT WOOD.
the coping saw or router method that Derek describes is the way to go for hard, hard stuff. The chip and pound takes too long in the harder stuff. I think Klausz would resort to his bow saw that he mentions in the video.

[jamie shard]

Klaus has a lot of info out there. I didn't watch your video link. Here's the direct quote from Franz Klaus VHS "Dovetail a Drawer":

"You notice I hold the chisel by the bottom of the blade, this way I can position it, roll it where I want it, just a hair beyond the marking gauge line, put it down and tap it, and the chisel comes back to the line where I want it."

Either way works of course, it's all about knowing how much force the wood can take before the scribe line moves. Hard "taps" the chisel needs to be beyond the scribe line, really gentle taps can be in the scribe line.

[Winton Applegate]

Jamie,

just a hair beyond the marking gauge line

I'll buy that
Fair enough.
For what it's worth, in my vid he recommends as wide a chisel as will fit. In the VHS Dovetail A Drawer he uses a narrower chisel and "walks" it along the gauge line so maybe the narrower chisel has more potential to ding up the gauge line.

Nice talking with you,
Winton

[jamie shard]

Same here, no worries.

[John Crawford]

Still if my chisel is held in the gauge mark it tends to travel back due to the force of the bevel.

Hope this isn't veering off topic--I think it is in the spirit of the original post.

Often when I get my chisel into the gauge mark, with just a tiny bit of wood remaining, I line it up plumb, but when I strike the chisel rather than staying in the line or traveling back to the gauge line, the chisel travels down a bit, but then goes forward away from the wall and into the void....

Perhaps impossible to tell without seeing, but does anyone have thoughts on what technique problems might be causing this?

[Winton Applegate]

when I strike the chisel rather than staying in the line or traveling back to the gauge line, the chisel travels down a bit, but then goes forward away from the wall and into the void....

Chisel back not flat up near the edge; perhaps from stropping.
Another way to go is to stand the board up in the vise and pair across the grain with the flat back of the chisel parallel with the floor. Gravity might help a little here and as I said way earlier I push the chisel to pare back to the line (in the harder woods). Either I have the board flat on the bench and pair down pushing with the end of the chisel, often a longer chisel, against my shoulder or I pare horizontal pushing with my legs.

You can compensate for the moving away from the line by ever so slightly angling the chisel into the work AND pairing from both sides so you don't run off the back side and take some fibers out of the back.

If you are still getting the rising off the end grain thing happening I suppose you could experiment with leaving a slight wire edge on the back side. I don't do that but I get pretty obsessive with having flat back blades and not stropping the back except maybe on maple. Carving chisels are a different story.

I hope some of that made some kind of sense.

PS: the Japanese long handled paring chisels with their very hard blades and thin blades are a pleasure to use this way . . . . no hammer needed.

[Winton Applegate]

In my attempt to find an example of some one using a long handled Japanese paring chisel; pushing it rather than hammering it I came across this video.
Not what I was searching for I am afraid but . . .

Quite refreshing and pleasant to watch. Be sure to go to the end to see her pushing the drawers into the finished work. Talk about your working to thousandths of an inch tolerance.

Makes one kind of rethink the need for that big old five hundred pound western work bench to doesn’t it ?

[jamie shard]

Hope this isn't veering off topic--I think it is in the spirit of the original post.

Often when I get my chisel into the gauge mark, with just a tiny bit of wood remaining, I line it up plumb, but when I strike the chisel rather than staying in the line or traveling back to the gauge line, the chisel travels down a bit, but then goes forward away from the wall and into the void....

Perhaps impossible to tell without seeing, but does anyone have thoughts on what technique problems might be causing this?

I agree with Winton, could be a chisel back that isn't lapped perfectly flat (just barely concave works too). It could be a slightly dull chisel, too.

[Steve Voigt]

Often when I get my chisel into the gauge mark, with just a tiny bit of wood remaining, I line it up plumb, but when I strike the chisel rather than staying in the line or traveling back to the gauge line, the chisel travels down a bit, but then goes forward away from the wall and into the void....

Perhaps impossible to tell without seeing, but does anyone have thoughts on what technique problems might be causing this?

When you are chopping to a line and you have a lot of waste on the bevel side, it puts pressure on the chisel and causes it to move back from the line. Most of this thread is about solutions to that problem.

What you are describing is the opposite problem. If there is very little waste, there is nothing to put back pressure on the chisel and keep you in the cut. So the first thing is, if you are chopping, try removing a 16th rather than a 32nd or 64th. The second thing is, for thin cuts try paring rather than chopping. But even there, a slightly thicker cut will probably make it easier. If you have a razor-sharp chisel, a flat back, and good technique, you should be able to pare off tissue-thin shavings, but if any of those three things is lacking, it will help to take thicker cuts until you gain more skill and confidence.