Marking dovetails

Re: Rob's rebate debate

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hey Adam,

Rob keeps a very clean bench so you won't see a pile of LN tools laying around on top of it. Matter of fact, one of his early videos has a belt sander in the background and another one of his videos shows him talking about a must have tool which wasn't a LN

Rob has a family to feed and selling LN tools, making videos along with teaching courses is how he does it.

SOme people on this forum get tools from Veritas to test in exchange for feedback. ROb does the same for LN and maybe the small set on the dovetail saw is something he felt it needed. He also had input on the LN #8 as well.

Rob makes a living working wood and has an idea as to what he wants in a tool so when TLN decides to make that specific tool Rob voices his opinion. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Now when are we gonna see your dovetail tutorial with lots of pics?

Cheers

Dan Clermont

Re: Rob's rebate debate

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Dan, is there anyone here who doesn't have to put food on the table? Since when did that become some sort of reasonable excuse for all sorts of deception, by omission or comission? Not that I think Cosmo is deceiving anyone in Canada. Nor do I think LV and the LV reviewers are deceiving anyone, they're simply putting food and/or tools on their tables.

Pam, who actually likes Cosmo's drawer dvds and doesn't have buyer's remorse

Re: Rob's rebate debate

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Pam,

Your right. We all have to put food on the table, pay our rent/mortgage.

I am not sure what your point is? To some (like ROb) woodworking is his career and therefore he sells videos using the tools he finds useful.

Last I recall Stanley Harrelson's video on sharpening was using shapton stones and not King stones. Is that considered a conflict of interest or is he using the tools he is most familiar with and believes in

Dan Clermont

Re: Rob's rebate debate

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>My point was that the first excuse many here make for supporting industry professionals against complaints of quality and/or delivery is the food-on-the-table defense. Ooh, don't be so critical, he's just putting food on the table, just trying to make a living. While I'm empathetic with your (impersonal) sentiments [edited by Moderator], I'm tired of hearing it. I'd certainly like the option of criticizing without being accused of trying to starve children and put them out of their homes.

Pam

Re: Rob's rebate debate

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Sorry SPam,

I ain't going down this road.

Dan Clermont

Re: Rob's rebate debate

dennis mcdonaugh

>Well, I see nothing wrong with selling tools or videos, but you should certainly explain your relationship with a manufacturer if you use their tools and are paid to do so. In this case, you might be able to infer that from the fact that the videos are sold through LN.

On the topic of consumerism in woodworking, it seems a some folks think people buy expensive tools in lieu of developing woodworking skills. Invariably, a story follows that they built, or knew a guy who built a whole house with a broken handsaw and hammer. Without consumerism we wouldn't have LN, LV or a host of other new tool makers producing the inovative products we have available today. I see nothing wrong with it. However, if its not to your liking, don't buy any new tools, but please don't disparage those who wish to.

Re: Rob's rebate

arw01

>As a student in a recent course with Rob Cosman, last July's training the hand, I spent a LONG week with Rob and a good number of repeat students.

I saw how the rebate improved the ability to mark accurately, and the look of the student cut dovetails. The rebate, a very SLIGHT rebate, allows you to positively align your tail board to the pin board. You only needed to then align the edge after you keep the board tight to the rebate. The other advantage is it tends to obscure those little saw's past the line as well.

Rob is natively that good, he does not mis-speak after LONG hours of teaching the class, his work is fast and extremely accurate. His surfaced boards are less than .001 out of flat when he gets ready to mark his dovetails.

Additionally, after watching a Rob Cosman video, most of the others are rank ameturish in comparison. As each video comes out, Rob has invested more in shooting crews and editing to produce better views, better audio, and getter over all flow. They are shot in ONE day.

While in the class, Rob did not push Lie Nielsen down your throught, he did make comparisons, showed differences, why LN was made the way it was and allowed YOU to make up your mind. He helped MANY students improve their hand tools while they were there, and freely allowed use of his tools.

The 140, with it's skewed blade DOES cause less tearout, even on the Aspen we were working with in the class.

Alan

Re: Rob's rebate

Dan Clermont in Burnaby

>Hi Alan,

I share the same experiences. Rob tells it like it is and you can either use his experience and talent to help your technique or choose another path.

Contrary to what some believe Rob does not "push" tools on people but would rather see you buy a tool he believes in.

Being a Canadian I called Rob once and asked him to sell me a 98/99 for sliding dovetails which he thought were not the right tool for the job. I thanked him and moved on. I gained allot of respect for Rob after that conversation and felt I could trust he would not send me down the wrong path

Dan Clermont

Re: Rob's rebate debate

Michael Recchione

>I don't think anybody's disparaging anybody else's approach to woodworking - I'm certainly not. As Adam said, I'm probably pretty far out on the anti-consumerist end of the spectrum. But that's only because that's the way I most enjoy this hobby. HOBBY. That's what this is for most of us here. Meaning we do this for fun, in the way that is the most fun for ourselves.

As far as RC is concerned, I've never seen one of his videos and probably never will. Again, not a value judgement - I've never seen anyone's WW videos. I don't care if he shills for LN, am not offended by "conflicts of interest" between making an instructional video while hawking your employer's stuff. Heck. I'm an expert in some things (mostly the things my employer pays me to do). But when I'm "on the clock" and talking to a customer, you'd better believe I'm preaching the company gospel to the very limits of what my personal and technical integrity will allow. I'm sure RC does the same. There's always more than one way to skin a cat, and I'd expect RC to use the LN way if it's one of the options. You take that as a given when you listen to him, learn what you can, and move on.

Re: Rob's rebate

arw01

>Have a picture of the ECE plane?

I've been prowling a 140 on ebay for months.. missed some due to inactivity, but in general they are up in price of late.

Alan

Re: Marking dovetails

ThomD

>Works great. Use a narrow putty knife like a chisel. Well I feel better, it' not so much like wacking the edge of a blade with a hammer.

Re: Marking dovetails

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Thom, you don't really have to whack it, just a firm tap would do.

Pam

Re: Rob's rebate debate

paul womack

> And maybe its unfair, but where I come from, we call stuff like this a "conflict of interest".

Well, I guess it comes down to trust.

BTW, Adam, do you get paid for the articles in Pop Wood that you refer to in this forum?

BugBear

More With Less

Jeff Schmidt

>I have been away from the forum for a while and I was scanning through some of my favorite posters and saw this sub-thread. Sorry my response is a bit belated.

Everything Michael says here has been resonating with me for several years. There is so much more satisfaction to be gained by starting with a basic kit of tools and learning the skills and processes rather than succumbing to the consumerism of our age. Yes, one will have to add a tool now and then due to unique circumstances but very rarely have I felt that need.

I think part of the problem is a frustration that is brought about for those that start woodworking with power tools, and then later discover the pleasure of working with hand tools. The problem quickly arises when they find that they cannot instantly achieve the same results that they did with their power tools. I am not talking about speed but the actual perceived fit and finish of the product. Yes, I realize that there were 18th century masters that built some amazing furniture with hand tools. The reality is that most of us simply do not have the time to develop skills which will allow us to build furniture to this level of craftsmanship. But....we have this nagging knowledge that we could achieve close to this level of fit and finish when we were using our machines. Along comes the latest copy of XYZ tool catalog, and the concomitant tool forum herd buzz. Ah, this tool will help get me closer to my goal! Oooh. Do I get it in cherry or rosewood handles? Camilla oil and a tool sock?

My personal remedy was to go back to Roy Underhill. There was a time when I used to think that his projects were too �rough� (I am not talking about the results of his work while taping the show, since I understood the constraints of time inherent to the medium.) But two things happened. One, I had children. Children are very hard on furniture and the best furniture is the type that will stand up to their use while actually taking on that look that improves with such use and age. This means no large flat expanses with glass-like surfaces and no fine features that are easily broken or chipped. Second, I came to realize the type of projects that he builds were ones that I could build with a limited set of hand tools. Roy is always faithful to show two or three ways to approach a particular feature and he usually starts with illustrating how it can be accomplished using the general tools and then works his way up to the dedicated, specialized tools.

This is not to say that I am satisfied with crude, sloppy work. Just like most, I strive for good craftsmanship. But now my projects and expectations are more in line with how I want to work, how the furniture will be used, and how I want to live.

Jeff

Re: Rob's rebate

David W. Dougherty

>Here's one I stole from E. C. Emmerich's site.

Re: More With Less, or more with more

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I'm going to have to disagree here. I think any pride one takes from doing things with some minimal tool set, which definition of course varies extremely with the worker, is a false pride. Same with old tools vs new, expensive tools vs cheap, etc. Why bother even spending time on trying to spend less or more?

I know that we all have governors who sit back and compliment ourselves on a job well done, and some have governors who compliment us on doing it cheaper than the next person; but how about the next person after him/her? There's always someone who can do it cheaper, better, always someone who does just as nice a job with a more expensive tool set. This is simply a non issue as far as I'm concerned. On the order of keeping up/down with the Jonses. The important thing is the work, the job done.

Pam

Re: More With Less, or more with more

Jeff Schmidt

>Pam,

I did not say anything about �taking pride� in doing things with some minimal tool kit. I said that t I find greater satisfaction in learning skills and techniques rather than reaching for a new tool to solve my problem. For me, it truly is More for Less. It is not Less for the sake of Less.

Re: More With Less, or more with more

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Guess I misunderstood what you were saying, sorry.

Pam

Re: The gospel according to RC

paul womack

>I had a nice long discussion with Rob Cosman at a UK tool show.

I made the point that I believe some people in this thread are making; that you can make damn good dovetails without a single LN tool to your name. He strongly agreed.

Some people in this thread may be surprised by that.

Rob himself has good enough skills that I suspect he could cut good DTs with almost anything.

His claim is not that LN tools are essential to cut DT's, but that by using them you minimise some potential difficulties. This is particularly important in a 3 day DT class - he doesn't have time to teach selection and tuning of all the tools involved; its quicker to use tools that are good-to-go, and concentrate of the "using" aspects (*).

In other words:

He's not saying that if you don't use the particular tools he recommends, you can't make dovetails.

He saying that if you do, you can.

It's a "all herrings are fish" kinda' deal.

BugBear

(*) which is why I won't be going to a RC class :-)

Re: More With Less

George Makowski

>Jeff, I couldn't agree with you more. As I have observed Roy Underhill over the years, especially since I began to lurk on the web reading what the hand tool community has to say, I have passed through a number of stages in thinking about his work on TV. In the end, I value what I see from Underhill more than what I see from Scott Phillips or Norm not necessarily because of the hand vs. machine issue but because I learn more from Underhill about wood itself and about the underlying arts (techniques) and mysteries (layout and proportions) of wood and the tools that can be used to work it.

Another side of this discussion is one that I have raised in some earlier threads: what are your woodworking goals and how can we reasonably reach them? Since we here are web readers and many of us are PWW readers, I would like to put this in terms of Chris S's recent discussion in PWW of "coarse, medium, and fine." As he applied it to stock preparation, it is valid as well as historically and technically appropriate. I would like to suggest that we give a thought to understanding "coarse, medium, and fine" in another way as well, as applied to the actual pieces of work that we do.

For example, coarse work. Last week, I helped side a friend's horse barn with oak sawed from his land. The barn was minimally framed. The lumber varied in width and some in thickness. It was only about three months away from the log. The tool kit was minimal. The tolerances enormous by fine standards. It is something I am comfortable with since long ago I worked as a house carpenter.

Many disagreements that I see on this forum are the result of people comparing the different grades of work. Jeff, you want family worthy furniture that you can build and fix yourself. I have two small kids at home too. I believe "medium" work is a reasonable goal for many of the things they will use/bash/hammer... That does not mean a compromise on the "mystery" side, design and proportion. Maybe you and I will get a chance and a desire to make the finest of work. We have our goals. We fit our tool kit to them. We do the work we need done.

When I help my friend build the doors for his barn, we will use seasoned timber. We will plane, cut and fit joints, carefully account for wood movement, and match the width of the boards. Still, they will be barn doors and it will be medium work. Different goal, different standard, different tools.

I will try to talk him out of some nice oak for other projects that will be in the "fine" range, at least as close as I can get. Maybe a tool chest, some clock cases...who knows.

Let's be tolerant of each other's needs and goals. Perhaps we can speak of tool kits and processes and design in terms of the "coarse, medium, or fine" I think that will advance all our understanding of wood and its working.

George in AL

Re: More With Less, or more with more

ThomD

>I think there is truth in both those points of view.

But what do you do ten years after that when you have been there and done that. I like simplicity, particularly in the end result. I also think that working on fundamentals is key. But at some point re-singing ba ba black sheep gets tired, one has to move on.

I started woodworking in the Modern period when designs were simple. It hit me pretty early that I would have to some day embrace complicated furniture styles I didn't actually like, if I was going to keep growing in the craft. That didn't really happen since I kinda when broad base rather than higher skills. Either way life gets complicated and tools pile up.

Re: More With Less

Jeff Schmidt

>Hi ThomD,

I did not intend to say that my philosophical position meant that I only made simple forms, but rather that I found that this is where I re-started, so to speak, my handtool approach. I focused on learning new techniques and developing new skills to solve problems that certain features presented. This skills-focus approach nurtures an independency from specialized tools, which ultimately should allow for more challenging forms to be tackled.

There was an article in FWW years ago which highlighted a Chinese master cabinetmaker who built furniture in Thailand. As I recall, he was in his 70's, and it showed him at his simple bench in front of an open window, standing in his tee-shirt, shorts and sandals. He used no machinery whatsoever. Though he had around 15 molding planes, the author of the article was quite surprised at how few tools he used. Bear in mind, he made traditional Chinese furniture which contains the most complicated joinery that exists, and contains no glue.

The point is that a More with Less approach does not necessitate simple forms, and may actually have an advantage in that respect.

Very well said

Dan Donaldson

>Great points. Wish I had the vision to be able to articulate like that. Thanks

Re: More With Less

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown PA

>Very nice, I definitely agree. I struggle with the problem that as I started woodworking, I thought everything had to be "fine" if I was going to be a furniture maker. However, I only had tools for coarse and medium work. Albeit, they could be made to perform fine work, it is a difficult challenge. I am slowly adding more tools to produce the fine work, but I know that my old contractors saw cannot give me the accuracy and repeatability I need, so I have to work with it. I just ordered one good hand plane, because I have several, but they are not working necessarily well. They're pretty good, but I wouldn't put them in the fine category yet.

I also enojyed Chris' "Coarse, Medium, Fine" article, and with your spin, I like it even more.

Re: More With Less

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Not that I particularly want to encourage your use of that contractor saw, but it can become quite a wonderful performer, just needs significant tuning. You may want to take a look at the dvd "Mastering Your Table Saw," which is analogous to hand tools: they all have to be properly tuned.

Pam