>There is a web site for the springharvest school in San Antonio. I am very impressed with the methodical approach the instructor uses in his videos to achieve extreme accuracy. In particular, there is a dovetail video in which the instructor clears out waste with a coping saw and then pares down to the line like he was chopping vegetables.I think I have pretty sharp chisels and can not come close to pareing with speed the way the instructor does in the video. What is the trick? Can everybody do this? If it is some extremely sharp chisel, what is the secret? Mine easily shave hair but I cannot pare like this in soft white pine ?
His method for making tenons is unique also. He rough chisels the cheeks close and then uses a router plane to get to final thickness. No rip sawing done at all.Very nice. I would like to see how he does his mortises? It is a long way to San Antonio from Wi., otherwise I would be down there in person. Anyone taken any classes there?
>Chichi, I'm certain you can find somebody in Wisconsin to help you with these skills for less than the airfare to San Antonio. There are also schools and workshops with more skilled teachers. Paring on some woods is difficult and takes a very sharp chisel. If I were making a video I would make sure my chisel was in great shape and that the particular piece of wood pared nicely.
About two years ago the Spring Harvest fellow was encouraging people on this site to view his tenon video, and there was a fair bit of discussion. At one point he said his method saved time and Pam said she thought she could make two or three tenons in the time he made one. I timed myself marking and cutting a similar tenon at about five minutes. On the video he takes about 16 minutes, if memory serves, but if you look at his watch, about 25 minutes has elapsed from the time he starts until the tenon is done. Not sure what was edited.
>Yeah, but George Huron probably does get some very precise joinery. I'm just not that concerned with absolute precision. I bet his classes are very good.
However, if you're thinking of coming down now for the good weather, there is none, it's cold and rainy, probably for another week. :)
You may also want to check out Homestead Heritage, which is in Waco.
Thanks for the comments. The paring George does on the dt video seems to go pretty fast altho the tenon is a bit slow. It would be nice to know how to get precise results even if it is not always necessary. My weakness is the cheek cut for tenons. I cant stand it when one shoulder is slightly out of line and leaves a little space. Glue often fills the void but you can spend a lot of time trying to fix the problem if you want no space.I scribe a line and chisel out a little as a guide before sawing and can still get a very small gap. I often just saw to the line without chiselng a reference edge and the gap is acceptable, but not perfect like what I see in the work people on this site do. I will keep at it.
I remember the video George did. Splitting off the cheeks on wood that is conducive to this old practice works well. I never noticed the time on the watch--very observant of Warren!
The use of a router plane to even up the surface is fairly quick, so I don't know the *why* of George's time lapse. Use of a router plane or chisel to even up split off tenon cheeks are also fairly old practices.
While sawing is slower than splitting, the woods I typically have used are not conducive to splitting so it is a moot practice to me. However, I do use a router plane to precisely thickness the various lap joints that I have first sawn the shoulders and a few saw kerfs to aid popping off the waste with a chisel. The router plane then allows the controlled removal of mating surfaces that will eventually show.
In your last message you mention a shoulder gap. That cannot be helped by any method of removing the tenon cheeks. Having even shoulders off the saw is something that takes a lot of practice in both marking out and sawing. While I am fairly accurate in marking, my sawing doesn't always produce ready shoulders.
For accurate shoulders, one can use a shoulder plane or like I usually do, a sharp chisel. Often enough in conjunction with a chisel I'll use a guide block clamped to the shoulder line if the tenon shoulder requires a nice looking fit.
I'll also usually ever slightly undercut the shoulders beginning just inside of the face surfaces of the shoulder down to the tenon proper. This allows the shoulders and or the mating area surrounding the mortise to compress slightly.
>I wouldn't sweat someone else's speed just yet. Chisels that are sharp enough to shave are a great start, but it's the gateway to good woodworking. Sharp edges only make it easy to move the tool in the direction we want the tool to go. Dull tools are more easily turned away by odd or uncooperative grain. But just because the tool is sharp doesn't mean that the woodworker can actually make it cut. I'm not saying you can't make good cuts, just that sharp tools are a beginning, and the means, not the end.
Personally, I don't like paring pine. I find it stringy and flexible, which means it has a way of deflecting away from the tool, instead of being cut by the tool. I'm not saying it can't be done, and it's not too hard, but especially when you're just starting out, it's a weird wood to learn with.
You might want to try playing in something like Poplar. Not only is it a little easier to do fine work with as a beginner, it's not too much more expensive than pine, and you may start to notice after a while that the green and purple heartwood often cuts much more easily and cleanly than the whitish heartwood, which behaves, ever so slightly, like pine. Different woods work differently, and I find poplar to be a great lesson in this.
Coordination comes with practice. As does a "feel" for how the grain's behaving. Wood has a way about it, and sometimes you have to approach it just so to get the cleanest possible cut. Once you have a start on those, you'll start to pick up speed.
I just finished at one of the fancy pants woodworking schools, and one of the most humbling and inspiring parts is seeing how fluent the older instructors are in their craft. I've seen some of them shape wood with slightly more skill than I have in picking my own nose. It's incredible.
And not surprising... one of them has been working wood for longer than I've been picking my nose.
One step at a time. You'll get there. Not holding yourself up to an edited standard of work, as performed by someone who's been doing it for a lot longer than you have is a sure route to discouragement. Do what you can do as well as you can do it, then try to do a little better. There's nothing wrong or shameful about the learning process.