warren@ihnss.UUCP (11/14/83)
The recent item on matching edge-glued boards struck home, having just spent considerable time planing away all of those little mismatched edges. I agree with the suggestion of doweling, and would add another suggestion of groving the edges to hold alignment and give you more gluing surface. You can groving attachments for table saws or shapers that cut various tongue and grove patterns on the edges of boards. Both of these approaches, however, are only as good as your basic ability to work without error, which brings me to my main point. Anybody have any suggestions for alleviating basic klutziness in woodworking that do not involve the purchase of exotic, expensive, or space consuming tools? I presume that I am not alone in my difficulties in the areas outlined below, but I have seen little helpful advice on the subject of how to be precise in woodworking books or journals. I am sure that ideas would be of interest to the net. Here are some areas in which I find my precision lacking: Lining up edge joints: Yes, a dowling jig helps, but I still wind up with slop due to slop in the jig and/or drilling at an angle. A drill press would help, but I don't have room for one. Getting edges REALLY straight. I am amazed at how difficult this seems to be. I gather a jointer would do this, but I don't have one. I have tried shaving the edges with a planing blade on a table saw, but trying to hold an edge straight over anything more than about 3' is really tough. Anything I use for a guid seems to bend over that length. I have also tried tuning up with hand planing, but this seems really tough. Cutting true right angles. I often end up with 91 or 89 degrees. After a lot of experimentation, I made myself a home-made right angle jig for my table saw, consisting of a piece of plywood with a strip of wood on the bottom to slide in the slot and a strip on the top for a fence. Better, but certainly not perfect! Making precision cuts in large pieces. In my current project, I will soon be faced with cutting dados in 6 foot long pieces. I would just love to use my table saw, but see no way to control it on things this big, at least near the edges. I will probably wind up using a hand saw and chisel or acquiring a hand router for this. Table saws are lovely when the work fits on the table, but hopeless for anything large. Precise measurements: Many times I have wound up with slop because the measuring device slipped, or more commonly the saw or drill wouldn't bite into the wood where marked because of the grain. Warp: Maybe some woods never warp, but I never met them. Even if everything is true when you start, I frequently wind up with warp before final assembly. Maybe the secret is to finish quickly, but that is hopeless for me. To start, I will contribute two tips on table saw woodworking that I learned in a seminar that do seem to work fairly well: 1) Cut miter joints with a jig with 2 sides set precisely at 90 degrees from a good square, and then set at approsimately 45 degrees to the blade. You put the sides on a sheet of plywood and put a slat to fit the guide slot on the bottom. You can get the joints as accurate as your 90 degree square, usually much better than any sort of adjustable setup. 2) Cut finger joints (in which alternating fingers of both pieces overlap in the joint). with a jig consisting of a peg the exact width of your blade protruding from a cross piece you can slide through the blade. The peg should be exactly one blade width back from the blade. Start the joint with one piece up against the peg, cut through, and then move the cut to fit over the peg. Keep cutting and moving until you go all the way accross the piece. Start the other side by taking your first side, turning it around and putting the last cut over the peg so that the edge now lines up with the blade. This lets you cut the corner off to start the cuts on the second piece to precisely fit the first. This really works well, if you get the thing lined up right to begin with. -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH x2494
snafu@ihuxi.UUCP (Dave Wallis) (11/16/83)
Warren, I think the only really sure cure for klutziness is to practice, practice, practice! If you need to make a particular joint for a project you have in mind, get some scrap wood and make several practice joints first. A little experience can go a long way, and making mistakes is the best way I know to gain experience. A good place to get helpful hints and draw on the experience of others is craft magazines. The old standby Popular Mechanics has some really good article on woodworking techniques and offers a lot of time and trouble saving tips. I find most of my "klutz" problems are due to working too fast and not concentrating on what I'm doing. Studying the plans thoroughly and making measurements several times help me a lot. You mentioned some specific questions, so here are "my" (not the only or even the best!) solutions: >> Lining up edge joints: Yes, a dowling jig helps, but I still wind >> up with slop due to slop in the jig and/or drilling >> at an angle. A drill press would help, but I don't >> have room for one. You really shouldn't have any problems if you use a reasonable quality jig. It clamps tightly to the edge of the board, and doesn't allow for any drift or wobble of the drill. A drill press isn't necessary, and won't improve the accuracy of the holes (in fact it will make setup more difficult!). If you have never seen one used, it may be hard to understand, but it is a really easy to use tool. >> Getting edges REALLY straight. I am amazed at how difficult this >> seems to be. I gather a jointer would do this, but >> I don't have one. I have tried shaving the edges >> with a planing blade on a table saw, but trying to >> hold an edge straight over anything more than about >> 3' is really tough. Anything I use for a guid seems >> to bend over that length. I have also tried tuning >> up with hand planing, but this seems really tough. A relatively simple tool that helps a lot here is a mitre gauge hold-down tool. This is simply a clamp that screws to the mitre gauge of your table saw, and clamps the wood tightly to the mitre gauge. This is only as accurate as your table saw/mitre gauge, however. If the guides on your table are so worn that the mitre gauge wobbles, you don't have a prayer no matter what you do. >> Cutting true right angles. I often end up with 91 or 89 degrees. >> After a lot of experimentation, I made myself a >> home-made right angle jig for my table saw, >> consisting of a piece of plywood with a strip of >> wood on the bottom to slide in the slot and a strip >> on the top for a fence. Better, but certainly not perfect! One rule of thumb I always follow is to never believe the calibration on power tools. If I need to make an accurate 90 degree cut on a table saw, I use a good square and adjust the mitre gauge until the board is square to the blade, and then lock it all down. This is really true for anything you do in woodworking - always verify that your equipment is aligned properly each time you use it. This may sound like a lot of work, but if your goal is quality work, it is well worth the effort. >> Making precision cuts in large pieces. In my current project, I >> will soon be faced with cutting dados in 6 foot long >> pieces. I would just love to use my table saw, but >> see no way to control it on things this big, at >> least near the edges. I will probably wind up using >> a hand saw and chisel or acquiring a hand router for >> this. Table saws are lovely when the work fits on >> the table, but hopeless for anything large. Two things might help here. One is someone to help handle the boards, and the other is a work support. The simplest of these is simply a pipe on a weighted base with a 12 - 24 inch wide roller on top. You adjust the roller to the height of your table, and let the board rest on it. You can buy them commercially, or build your own. It doesn't need to be fancy, as long as it supports the work (does a tire rim, old water pipe, and a paint roller turn on a light bulb?). I have used both methods on boards up to 10 feet long, and if you are careful, you should get results just as accurate as with shorter boards. >> Precise measurements: Many times I have wound up with slop because >> the measuring device slipped, or more commonly the >> saw or drill wouldn't bite into the wood where >> marked because of the grain. The only solution here is to take more care in measuring - measure everything at least twice. Whenever I get in a hurry and don't stick to this rule, I wind up gluing boards back together! Also, you should never drill a hole in wood without setting the hole with a scratch-awl. Use it to punch a hole (don't be shy!) in the wood so that the drill bit bites where you want it. I usually make a scratch-awl by grinding an old screwdriver to a sharp point. A center punch is not quite as good, because the point is at a shallower angle, and it will not make as deep a hole, so I recommend sticking with the scratch-awl. If you have to drill a large hole, it is usually a good idea to drill a pilot hole with a smaller drill. The smaller drill is much easier to control, and the larger drill bit will follow the pilot hole without complaint. >> Warp: Maybe some woods never warp, but I never met them. >> Even if everything is true when you start, I >> frequently wind up with warp before final assembly. >> Maybe the secret is to finish quickly, but that is >> hopeless for me. If you work with pine, warpage is a real problem. One solution is to make sure the wood is thoroughly and properly dried. Not an easy task, it usually boils down to sticking to the lumber yard that you have the least trouble with. If the warpage is not too severe, there are a few things that will help. If you check the boards for warpage before you cut them up, good layout can help. Use the straightest boards for the longer pieces, and the more severely warped boards for the shorter pieces. If you cut the more warped boards into smaller pieces, you will have less warp in each piece, and you may be able to isolate the worst warped sections and throw them away. The same holds true for knotty wood. The other hint is to clamp things securely. Most types of clamps are not overly expensive, and they really pay off. For large things like bookcases or dressers, pipe clamps and band clamps are a must. for smaller items, good woodcrafters clamps (I really don't know the proper name for them) are a good bet. These are the woodworkers equivalent of the c-clamp. They are made out of wood, and have left and right handed screws to allow you to clamp things tightly. Using the right clamps allows you to pull loose or ill-fitting joints together until the glue dries. They can help make up for a lot of minor mistakes and warps (but no miracles! (well not many)). Most of these clamps can be had for anywhere between 7 and 20 dollars, depending on size and quality. I have seen all of them at SEARS, so you should not have any problem finding what you need. Hope this has helped you somewhat! -- D. Wallis ihnp4!ihuxi!snafu AT&T Western Electric, Naperville Il. (312) 979-5894
ell@linus.UUCP (Edward L. Lafferty) (11/19/83)
One thing that modern amateur woodworkers try to do is duplicate professional procedures with inadequate tools. The only real substitute for a thickness planer (in jointing edgewise) is a lot of hand planing like they used to do before the invention of power. It is not only a lot of work but to do it correctly takes a lot of practice. Gimmicks like dowels, tongue and grooves, etc. add time to the procedure and really help only slightly. I have a small thickness planer, made by Williams & Hussey for which I paid about $500. This in combination with a small (4") jointer have served me well for several glued-up table tops. But there was still a need to plane by hand and surface sand with a belt sander followed by lots of sanding, scraping, and cleanup. Dowels add little to the strength of the joint, too and since they don't help enough in line-up, I don't use them. One thing I do in clamping up a surface is to clamp a straight edge board crosswise to the glue joints on both ends to keep at least one surface pretty even. Then if the thickness is consistent and there isn't much warp in the center, we have a good start toward a flat surface. I agree with Dave Wallace: practice, practice, practice!! Ed Lafferty Mitre Corp. Bedford MA