Backsaws - Live Q & A (25 November 2023)

are you too bad yeah go ahead you're live now hi folks welcome end of November Thanksgiving weekend for the Americans hope you all had lots of turkey I was going to say and all the family you could stand I meant to say lots of family and all the turkey you could stand this is our YouTube live to raise funds for a Purple Heart Project which by the way starts in April and what else can I tell you about it it's great program we treat 42 combat wounded veterans each year come in from all over the world we bring them in for a six day hand to a workshop so we imagine learning how to build a piece of furniture 200 years ago that's what we would do in fact I'm going to show you a few couple of things that uh we're going to be doing this coming year uh Frick's behind the camera behind the camera Frick is on the frick cam I think Ken may be on is Luther on Luther's on don't know who else anyway if your combat wound vet has been to one of our classes by all means please shout out do uh oh Ken's not here dang it how are we gonna do that Jake I'll do it okay just put in at Jake and then your name and what class you were in frck you ready you got a cloud question for me for me topic is hand saws apparently back saws Peter Rosa in Oceanside California says are Connor Bard saws as good as your hand saws are Connor B Connor badar's hands as good as my hands give him a few years well that's a funny joke so if you don't know who Connor Bard is he's the uh the latest and greatest in the world of hockey he's only 5 foot seven eight eight but he's a Dynamo 18 years old playing in a professional League amongst the best in the world and and uh not only holding his own but uh helping the team pretty amazing I don't I play I don't watch but I catch the highlights and he's a highlight reel in and of himself oh before we get started Jake can you take the camera and move around a little bit just a second I I want to show you what we're doing in the shop and while I'm waiting for Jake we'll do another question uh Dan Patton in Fall River Nova Scotia hey Dan Fall River not far away is there anything a Japanese style saw could do that a Western Saw cannot do so actually I have some where are they Jake they're sitting right here somewhere so here's a couple of Japanese saws if you're not familiar with them they're designed to cut on the pole and Western saws are designed to cut on the push show you what I mean give you a little demo um might need that piece of wood I'm going to grab I've got a piece of pine there and I'm going to grab a piece of uh Maple or something hard see what I can find right off the bat here's a piece of Walnut that'll do so the uh the what attracts people to Japanese saws is the fact that they cut on the pull stroke so here's the Japanese dovetail saw uh first thing is I really don't like the handle I just find that especially as you get older wasn't wasn't bad when I was when I bought this one it's had the biscuit when I bought that in um probably 1985 how old was I 30 24 85 how old was I 2 oh wow 24 okay had no problem gripping something like that now I'm 62 and it's not nearly as comfortable a bit of arthritis in the hands so right off the bat don't like I don't like that I don't like that grip um and I may not be doing it properly but if I'm not doing it properly then it's not intuitive so there's my saw there's a grip that fills your hand an adult male hand it's got some little finger recesses so pick it up in the dark room you're going to hold it the exact same way every time and you'll always know where the blade is pointing based on how it feels in your hand not so with this so here's a piece of uh looks like 1116 11/16 inch thick Walnut so the idea is that it's easier to start because instead of pushing you're pulling but I really don't like this this is brand new by the way so we'll do a little test we'll do a little speed of cut and I'll try to be uh well here's there's some there's a gauge line on there already I got have one on the back side I'll try to be as Fair as possible meaning control my bias so there's a line count how many strokes it takes us to get down to the line what well I would just say you'd probably start it closer to the heel than the toe okay I'll start the heel 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 now this one that go straight fairly straight one 2 three four half and I wasn't I that's M if I was in here cutting dovetails that's how I would cut Luther's telling me that you should use that you should hold a Japanese saw with two hands not one he's crazy that's why he's answering questions on there and not here don't hold it with two hands how you hold with two hands you hold it with one hand you have your other other hand over here anchoring your saw so you can get it started accurately you started the segment by saying maybe I'm holding it wrong yeah well I'm not holding it wrong oh okay I was just doing that to be polite so is that is that a rip or a cross cut that Japanese saw well they make both teeth this one is but this is this is not designed for dovetails if here's one that they was made specifically supposedly for Western Hardwoods now I can't even attempt to cut with that because it's missing teeth and it's been around a long time so if I try to use this yeah I'd be there for all night I think they I assume that they're using somewhat of a combination tooth I'll put my I'll put my uh magnifiers on and see if I can tell if that tooth is yeah it's so tiny I can't I can't really see well enough to tell don't know anyway my uh my approach to this is Japanese saws Japanese wood Western saws Western wood if you want something that's going to cut really well in our Hardwoods meaning North American Hardwoods or softwoods get a western style saw with minimal set that's why it has the brass back what was the question by the way we're drifting question was is there anything a Japanese style sock can do that a Western Saw cannot I don't think so I don't think so I don't think so not not in our Woods anyway I'm I'm I'm going to try this Pine see that that is not a comfortable try it with two hands so we can see yeah I can tell you right now that the average guy learning to do this is not going to use two hands on the saw the whole purpose behind one handed saw is you create an anchor a solid Anchor Point with the opposite hand you press the saw laterally against it and by doing that you can position the saw exactly where you want so if I've got a line right here I want to cut on the left side of the line I come in here pinch with the index finger and thumb thumb press this all laterally and now I can fine-tune that by moving my fingers like this always pressing this way with the uh right hand in this case get exactly where I want anchor it and I can make that cut as precise as I need all right so would I recommend Japanese SS no I have one because every once in a while there's something that I I'm trying actually now back to the question what what did we use this for one time oh I know I like use it for for cutting veneer but that's primarily because there's a radius on there so if I'm going in and I want to cut veneer real quick they make a veneer saw that is similar it's radiused I can go in there lay a straight edge on there and in that case it's actually easier to it is easier to pull than to push because of the thin wood you can pull a blade of grass between your fingers you can't push it through so under those circumstances yeah but for uh joinery absolutely the western style saw good question next one for oh here let me see I want to show you what we're doing so oh come on all right go ahead Frick uh next one's from Dan in Ireland Dan in Ireland yeah he says do you have any plans to produce a saw set since there are no quality ones yeah we um we have hopes we have hopes we have a guy Chris Davenport who's a good friend and all supporter and he's our go-to engineer and he's working on lots of stuff for us and that's one of them we'd like to be able to and and we're going to make it easy because it'll only have uh a couple of settings since we use very minimal set on our saws so should uh should make it a little bit simpler Kyle said you're supposed to use two hands and a foot oh that's what was missing John in the chat says you're supposed to put your index finger on the top index finger on the top like this yeah yeah either way not comfortable I don't like it but that's just me next Rick uh you answered the okay so next one's from Mike Evans in Knoxville Tennessee hey Mike in Knoxville yeah why do many there once why do many manufactur I'm sorry Knoxville I talked there A lot of times I thinking in Chattanooga you ready well just a second next time you go to the Woodcraft say hello to Everett for me for George George retired but he may still be hanging around now go ahead FR George Barber's a good friend of hers yeah George's retired okay the question is why do many manufacturers push Crosscut filed dovetail saws the ignorance just plain ignorance so I'll tell you I'll elaborate on that story a little bit when I um first started this journey in the early 1980s um there was no internet obviously everything was mail order catalogs and uh you couldn't I couldn't buy anything decent quality locally so I tried to I ordered every dovetail saw I ever saw in a catalog that looked like a decent saw and they'd always show up with cross cut teeth and I never claim to be the uh The Brightest Bulb in the tree but when you're cutting dovetails you're ripping doesn't matter how many rip Cuts you make there's only ever two cross cuts out here on the half pins everything else is a rip so why would you put cross cut tees in a dovetail saw makes no sense whatsoever makes for a very very slow cut so I can only chalk that up to ignorance and I have some experience with a well-known Tool company and the owner of that company has never cut Dov tails in his life so and uh makes saws and everything else so there's there's uh there's not a whole lot of people out there making tools I'm sure there are some that have a ton of experience in actually using the tools so take that for what it's worth I I would rather buy a tool from somebody that actually does the work because they know they know how to evaluate the tool I think that's that's a simple we got we I got I got drug into this um I'll elaborate a little bit on that story I was representing Lee Nelson traveling the country from coast to coast demonstrating selling and demonstrating at the same time because we would do the W wood show circuit and come to find out that the people who were buying the tools really didn't know how to use them they were just getting into it and where do you go for wood hand tool training so and that was before uh YouTube um so then I started I started teaching a lot and what I would do is I would go to one city and the wood show would run Friday Saturday Sunday and then I would stay in that City Monday Tuesday and Wednesday and rent a high school wood shop and teach classes and then I would move to the next city and I would just repeat that process so I gained a whole lot of experience teaching the people who were actually buying the tools and what I found out was that uh you're 55 years old and you live anywhere near the uh 49th parallel you've got we got a bit of arthritis in your hand and they couldn't grip they couldn't they couldn't make adjustments on tools that had little tiny adjustment knobs they look cute but they were not terribly ineffective the hand plane issue was a really big one you get somebody who's in his 60s or 70s and he tries to adjust a regular adjustment knob on a hand plane you got to stop and use two fingers to do it terribly uncomfortable we came up with the adjust D which allows you to do with one finger and you don't even think about it it just becomes automatic so because uh I couldn't get anybody to pay attention to what I was saying in those terms we started making our own tools and we built it around that the dovetail saw that came out was the first first thing we made and had the little tiny teeth up front so you could start it easier and you had a chance if you can't start it where you want then you're going to carve the whole thing out with a chisel because your Cuts in the wrong spot so you have to be able to start it I don't care if it cuts fast or slow you got to be able to start it accurately and nobody was paying attention to that they were copying saws they were good saws but they were good saws in the hand of an apprentice who just spent 5 years learning how to do it with a butter knife could do it with any tool you got take some somebody that's in the last chapter of their life and they're um doing it as a starting it um from scratch very difficult I was looking over here at something else I was going to mention and it left me so what was the question Frick I should get you to repeat the question like two or three times when I'm talking stay on track how many manufacturers push Crosscut file dumb tail cells yeah baffles me baffles me I'm holding the camera oh so before we doing this let me just show you what we're doing so here's our uh you could be you should be getting excited about this here's our tool cabinet you got to come around this side so what have we done since we last did you guys did I don't know if they saw the back we got the back done so we took a piece of quarter inch Baltic Birch and we ran it through the thickness sander and the planer and we took about uh 16th off 16th off and then we took two pieces of Walnut veneer actually three wasn't it no yeah it was three it was three we have a center three pieces of Walnut veneer glued them together with with veneer tape glued it on there put it in the vacuum press and put the back in place but it was a lot of work because after the veneer after we veneered that piece of supply wood it was a bowl and U how are we going to get it to fill these to go in tight to there when it's shaped like this and like that so I ended up putting a piece in the back a piece of 1 in MDF that was sitting right on the edge of the rabbit so when we put this in it would lay flat and push out to the sides anyway we got it in place and it turns out beautifully so that's and the reason I didn't just or the reason we went with Baltic Birch is because we wanted it to be nice and bright on the inside that way when you look in there it's you're not looking into a dark abyss and you'll be able to find the tool you're looking for so that one's done we finished off the drawers got the stops in place got them fitting just the way we wanted so these are all done actually finally got around to putting that drawer bottom in yes I did uh now we're working on this one so this is the section that's going to have the chisels you wouldn't believe the amount of work involved in that little piece we have a spline out here I'll take it apart so you can see haven't glued it in place yet so there's a there's a little spline on either side and that fits in there and then we cut these out and I didn't want to leave the hole from the drill so I I put a uh what is it half inch half inch I thought it was three4 I don't think so we'll go over and look it might be a three4 corebox bit put it in the drill press and just and and just bottom these out so when the Chisel sits in there lay in tight against this it looks nice and neat you know what I was thinking we couldn't glue that we can glue that that's running the same width same direction now we got to put the piece up on the top and we're we're essentially following this so we'll get this section done and then we'll move over and do the other ones and then we'll fill it up with tools on some uh we'll auction or we'll have a fundraiser some night where everybody that wants to can can donate one of the tools and then when it's filled we will figure out how we're going to sell it off and use those funds towards our Purple Heart Project okay Frick next uh Mark santinon s santinon Mark Adelaide Australia and Adelaide what is it is it is um probably 25 after nine down there in the morning tomorrow go ahead FR did I interrupt you yes you did again what is the technique for starting a dovetail saw with starter teeth like yours wonderful question so you want to start it accurately so I'm going to draw a line on here so there's my line and we'll do two so that you can do both sides and I'm going to give you a little lesson on positioning that line that line must be Plum pardon me Square to the end I want my board sitting down low so it doesn't vibrate and I want the board standing Plum that becomes my standard everything I do is based off a board standing Plum so I will eventually learn zero 10 and 10 and once you get there there this becomes a real simple process so the first two Ines have 22 teeth per inch the balance has 15 teeth per inch the 22 teeth well well these uh sorry can you call them Frick and just tell them we're in the middle of who is it Chloe sorry about that my daughter youngest these teeth which do the majority of the cutting have a zero degree cutting face so if you were to put a square on the face of that tooth it would it would be at that angle very aggressive Cuts fast these teeth however are laid back instead of at that angle they're back at about like that angle which means they have a tendency to just ride over the wood which is exactly what you want so what I have to do is I have to get the curve started so that it'll hold the bigger teeth as I approach them so I position the wood by pinching with my index finger and thumb of my opposite hand I position it so that I'll try to show you a little indent on my finger I use the bottom quarter of my digit digits so that when I'm pressing the saw against my fingertips you'll notice that the bump here and the bump there stays up above the set of the teeth you got to remember these teeth are pointing out each every other tooth is pointing in the opposite direction so that means if you hold your finger it like that you're going to cut yourself so press like that push laterally so I'm always pushing like this and at the same time I'm pushing back with this hand until when I look down there now I'm going to show you some bad examples that is not correct you see wood and pencil line on this side closest to me and none on the opposite you don't want to be like this because I see ink or pen line pencil line on the far side I've crossed it on the closer side you want and you don't want to be like this the reason you don't want to be like that is that leaves you a Gap that you have to guess I have to guess if my saw is parallel to that line by guessing across that distance instead if I move over to here so that all I have is pen pencil line now I can tell quite readily that I am parallel I'm going to just do a couple of little short Strokes forward and back you don't have to start like this you can start by pushing forward and it's just a very very light grip on the saw now I'll also mention something else Jake if you want to come around sideways or side on this way what I want to show you is something I I picked up on a few years ago I just happen to be watching a student from this angle that you're going to view it so if I start my saw like this I have the weight of the saw and any downward pressure and most people apply downward pressure divided over maybe two teeth so there's a lot of pressure on two teeth which tends to make it hard to start if I lay the saw down like that I now spread the same amount of weight over what 10 15 teeth maybe which means there it's much easier to start like this than it is up like that you may find that once you've gained control over this you can start any way you want but when you're beginning you need all the advantages so that's how we do it when we're cutting to my left side of the line going to the right side of the line I'm going to ask Jake to get over here now we're going to cut like this sloping from the right side down on an angle closer to me if I put my fingers like I just did I obscure the line can't see it so what I have to do is pull this thumb back I kind of move this finger out a little bit but I help to Anchor this finger to the board with this thumb and actually you can if you can curl your finger around a little bit more instead of running off of your skin you can run off of your nail which makes it even Glide easier some people have really sticky skin and it drags on the saw blade I'm going to do essentially the same thing I'm going to press laterally I'm going to move this in until I allow it to get right where I want so that as I look down I only see pencil line same few little Wiggles and then when you get started use the entire blade which means your Saw Sharpening will last longer and you'll end up with a nice clean curve with very few Strokes thanks for that wonderfully timed question what a great way to sell a saw which are 15% off until tomorrow night at uh midnight Pacific time we have a sale going on our Boxing Day Sale I forgot to mention that Black Friday Black Friday everything's everything's on sale 15% except for gift certificates and workshops and workshops workshops workshops are all sold out which by the way we uh last year we released 42 spots for the 2023 season and it took 15 days this year we released 42 spots for the 2024 season and it took less than six days so good to see next Frick uh Tim Beach hi Tim uh what are the minimum backs saww what are the Luther edited these a bit what are the minimum backs saww new hand tool woodworker should start with what are the minimum back saws and new hand tool woodworker I'll I'll I'll lay them down here in order and I'm going to include our panel saws we now have nine different saws so if you're building furniture with some hand tool work or all hand tool work this would be your first purchase a dovetail saw you can use it for cutting small tenons on a mortise and Tenon joint obviously it's designed for the dovetail second saw I would get I'm GNA go over here and use these would be a joinery cross cut and this is the same frame I do I use the same handle on everything so that I mean it just stands the reason every saw you pick up you're reinforcing this me muscle memory and you'll just get better with all your saws with practice on with any of them this is 15 teeth per inch secret to it is very minimal set just 2,000 of an inch per side for those who don't know what 2000 represents take a piece of writing paper and split it in half writing paper is approximately 4,000 of an inch so very very small amount of set what that does is it makes for a nice smooth cut and it also cut makes an nrow narrow curve a narrow curve allows the saw to track you think about it if the curve is really narrow just the WID of the blade then as you're sawing the sides of the curve are rubbing on the sides of the blade and they don't allow it to drift to the left to drift to the right it has to continue on that chosen path first saw second saw third saw would be the medium Tenon so this is a saw we designed I don't know how many years ago and we designed it because um the average person the average woodworker today probably doesn't cut mortise and tenons a lot so a full-size Tenon takes some getting used to you got to develop the the wrist strength to control it handle it and uh I would figure that probably 90% of the tendons you're going to cut you could do with this one so we made this saw a little shorter we made it a little lighter by and it doesn't have quite as much depth of cut but again same handle um the the back is a little bit wider this is 78 of an inch wide this is one inch wide so it's got some heft to it but it cuts really nice same concept little teeth on the front 22 teeth per inch negative rate cutting angle and then 12 teeth per inch now actually we did something a little different here too 12 teeth per inch are a little bit bigger they're little more a little more aggressive so what we did is we backed off The Cutting face instead of a Zer degree cutting face remember I I put the saw blade on like that the square on like that and that represents the cutting face we're back about oh five or six deges which just makes it a little bit easier to get started and it's all about control so that's number three um I would actually say and and this comes into play because especially if you're in a small shop and you got to break down your material piece of plywood gets hard to handle sometimes one person you can actually go in and break it down I would suggest that your cross cut saw a good uh um cross cut panel saw which allows you to make a nice smooth cut again very narrow set just 3 thousand of an inch per side I would probably make that as my number four uh I'm going to pull out the uh we call this our um what do we call this Jake can't even remember bench cross cut so this is the same frame as the medium Tenon only it has a cross cut tooth now it's also got a thicker blade I neglected to mention that these blades are 20,000 of an inch in thickness these are 25 thou little stiffer because you've got a little more capacity here so small miter box or just cross cutting something instead of using your join Joiner cross cut saw save that for joinery use something like that so that would be and you can I mean I'm just going to take you all the way through but first and foremost would be dovetail joinery cross cut medium Tenon um cross panel cut panel saw cross cut um bench cross cut I don't have it here it's in the other shop and the full Tenon yeah the full Tenon but I would probably put this in next which is a rip full tenons right here a rip saw that's whatever it is so this is the same size same as this only you're using you're dealing with a rip tooth instead of a uh instead of a Crosscut then you have your full-size Tenon so that gives you considerably more capacity and depth oh I should be comparing it to that one it's a little bit longer a little bit heavier that's a custom handle comes with a regular handle and then we we introduced these Jake do you know where the the dovetail version is great here now if you end up doing a lot of small work um yeah over here if you do a lot of jewelry box stuff I was cutting dovetails in something once so you look at the size of those and my saw my dovetail saw was actually making the wood Bend and I thought oh I wish I had something a little bit smaller friend of mine John rashaw his dad uh fought all the way through World War II wounded numerous times but survived the war and he had given John a little cute little dovetail saw and I just thought it was the neatest thing it's actually out there in the wall John's going to come get it someday so I kind of used that as the theme or the inspiration and we actually called this saw the Len robishaw 34 saw and his name is Leonard robishaw and that's a big salute to uh Our World War II vets don't have a lot of them left I Know Jack Jack Hughes was a World War II vet and he was actually here in our class last year so I would put the the 3/4 dovetail and the 3/4 cross cut at the end of the line only because a bit of duplication here but if you're dealing with small stuff it's really handy and you really appreciate it and you start making little tiny dovetails like that next frick um is there a template available to make this is from Jason in Ohio hey Jason is there a template available to make my own custom handles for my Rob Cosman saws ah a template you can't take the handle off can you yeah you can yeah you can take candle off we don't have a template huh we don't have a template um when I design these I just played around played around until it felt good and I what I mean you could trace the saw that you obviously if you want the same handle you just Trace that just going to be a little bit awkward trying to trace the curve but if you used a took a pencil I've done that before and and ground a uh you know let me do it so I can you know exactly what I mean I got glasses here somewhere if you took a pencil and your shooting board I'll use the little [Applause] one and then cut your cut your pencil back with a real long taper like that then you could come in and you can actually follow that curve got to keep it standing upright and trace it down below and then you'll actually get the line will be right below where the contact point of that is right if you use the pencil in the regular way then your Line's going to be your line is going to be considerably away from the outside profile of the rad of the curve all right next verick do you want the vents yeah who we talking to so these are uh speaking of veterans these are guys and gals possibly that have been to our class as part of our scholarship program which is what we're raising funds for and they're going to tell us that their name and which class they were in go ahead it's always a test of my memory how many you got 13 Brent Nelson Brent this would be Brent owner of the slowest but one of the best dovetails ever are you working on this speed Brent I know next Brent was in uh let me guess Brent was in September yeah September class this year um Kyle but he's a half hour ahead of us Kyle parallel over in Newland what can I say about Kyle Kyle and Jesse rofan were the first two Canadian soldiers that we had in our program Kyle's a great guy Kyle comes over here and works as my assistant numerous times awesome dude also a bench Brigade member built the branch for air built the bench and delivered it what was it a 9h hour drive yeah each way to Eric H hemerson I say that right helmerson close enough who was in another part of Newland who else uh JB and frederickton yeah JB JB was here in September as well October sept October September J September September hey JB JB's got I think 32 30 33 33 years Canadian Army Jonathan Sydney Jonathan Sydney I don't know any Jonathan Sydney I know is Sid so Sid is 32 years Canadian Army engineers and Sid works here he's uh he's one of our guys he actually runs our CNC machine too for us up in Frederick town he's been away is he over is he over in cap Breton know didn't show up for work this week Justin dh's on Justin dhy oh Justin October yeah right how to Justin same class Patrick Glenn Pat yeah I just saw I just saw Pat's picture in the on the uh Facebook page with the receiv receiving his bench uh Jeffy Jeffy okon er er would that be the one Jeffrey brother and Kim right beside him check out Kim's Kim if you're ever in uh in um Virginia Beach Kim has a little storefront in a place called The Painted tree go and check out her stuff really impressive and Jeff is too toiny pain is on too Tony down in Australia one of the two diggers that we've had hey Tony he had a long he had a but he flew home from here and a huge long drive once he landed down there what a that was a probably the longest track for any vet that's come to our program we only have we only get Tony's out of Australia who else uh Kev Kevin burus Kevin burus 20 22 years Army attached to the Special Forces EOD explosive ordinance disposal kev's the master of the uh Master of the U laser engraver check out Kevin's website burus woodworking b r s bur woodworking.com gu's a great guy that's where I get all of my plaqu you'll notice I love I love it when it's carved on Stone because it's written in stone lasts forever anybody else yeah Casper Casper way over in in Denmark wow so Casper is the only vet that we've had from from Denmark came over last year great guy excellent Craftsman still we active at it I see his stuff posted on uh slack good to see you Casper Michael deloy in Wisconsin Michael how are you what class last year yeah it was last year I think it was early part of 2022 yeah yeah for sixth class of year memory is not that good Michael Miller in Texas which class Michael was in the class um he was in it he was in the same class as uh who's or oh Eric Eric yeah so that was uh I think that was that early part of this year name was May m Michael Eric on mayor June uh WALL-E WALL-E in Ontario one of our Canadian vets hey Wall-E last year as well Jim Eon Jim Jim's my Jim's my Mo my most interesting wounded vet and his Jim golden eye fascinating technology but good grude he Jim yeah honorable mentions to uh Jamie fagel one of our notorious bench Builders Jamie in North Carolina I think he made four four benches Jamie awesome you know why you do it and you're blessed for doing it and then Chris MC he's the one that works for Nestle and just delivered that bench to Pat actually oh yeah Chris thank you all right frck next question all right got a couple from the chat this one comes from Mark says how do you cut straight how do you cut straight yeah okay good I'm going to give you a whammy of a lesson so first of all we Define straight for everybody L questions to get through so keep it simple okay thank you frck woo we're only an hour tonight right Frick giving us the not only an hour we don't do hour we do two uh wipe that smile off your face Frick straight just a second just a second find find a quick question um why well because this one will be 10 minutes Ivan Tomic in the chat says what do you look for in a premium saw um RC woodworking RC sawce if you find that you're good so whatever I find in here is what you want U if we're talking about a backs saw the H the handle there's two things that are critical the tooth line is really the most critical but the handle is too not materials but how it fits in your hand so let's start with the tooth line set is probably the real whoa pause Jamie fagel is at seven benches built oh Jamie wow is Jamie is Jamie the top uh at seven I can't imagine anyone else is up there well you know well as an for an individual but the the uh bench the um right that's why I said for an individual right how many have they done oh I don't know I think they built nine but as an individual Jamie seven benches you should have it you know what let's have Jamie come on let's do a little bench Brigade promotion since we got a new CL a new year coming up Jack if you're is Jack on Jack see if we can arrange to have Jamie come on and just tell everybody why he chooses to do seven benches um I'm sure he's got some stories that uh that would uh make it well worth listening to him that's that's pretty incredible um Mike in the chat said Sor I drain late I don't even know what a backsaw is can you just quickly explain that while you're going over the well I don't know what it is either but that's what they call it I I I I I'm guessing that it has something to do with the fact that it has a back on it this saw doesn't have a back on it this flimsy saw doesn't have a back on it so this saw has they made them out of brass or steel the good ones are brass it has a uh firm or stiff brass back that allows you to use a very thin blade that would otherwise be too thin to use means you have a very narrow curve so you don't you don't have to remove as much wood and the brass back securely held to the blade means that it stays nice and straight and stiff and makes it easier to use and it also gives you some downward pressure downward weight okay now I can go into sawing straight so first thing I want to do is Define straight and this is actually going to be a lot simpler than you probably think because straight cut is now you know what I need him to do I need him to qualify something uh what was his name hello Frick um who asked the question Ivan Tomic Ivan would you respond on the on the thing and ask no wait now you're you asked that question no didn't you did what what do you mean we did sh well then then he asked the backsaw one Jake did yeah but we're going back to the okay if we're going back to the what do you look for in a premium saw then it was yes no no how do you cut straight oh that's just Mark Mark Mark I need you to Def I need you to uh clarify something because often times people Mis misinterpret this straight is the shortest distance between two points so cutting straight can be at any angle Plum which people often say mean say straight but the really mean is plum or perpendicular to the earth I need you to qu I need you to make sure that I'm addressing the right issue so if you'll just tell Frick in the chat whether or not you mean Plum or if you mean straight as you said next question Frick while we're waiting on that uh Harold Olsen hi Harold what is your opinion of Scandinavian made sauce Scandinavian made saws well I um I don't know if oh he may be talking about if you're talking about a bow saw I made a couple bow saws it wasn't my thing Tay Frid used to use well he used several but he used the Bosa as well but that's it's not my not my style um I this will come into play when we talk about straight but I like the fact that the the more blade you have the straighter you're going to be able to make your cut because of the way it interacts with the curf uh a bow saw is like a band saww blade on a Bo on a big frame that um almost like a big coping saw so not as easy to control I don't think you'd have to have quite a few hours of use with it in order to be able to get good at it so if that's what you're referring to I'm I've I don't even know where I put them I made them long time ago oh yeah well actually one of the Vets made me one too we use it for get get our Christmas tree cutting it down works really well for that not so much a joinery saw let me know when he when Mark responds Frick and meanwhile what's the next question um T the season to donate Alfred Borg Santa Claus on tonight I haven't seen him how do you sharpen your dovetail saw especially the little teeth up front um easy and I say that well it actually is so the first thing you have to do is you have to have a vice so Jake did we do this on YouTube or online Workshop no I was YouTube so you need a vice I don't know why there's yellow tape on this so that when I marked on it you could just peel it away so here's my vice two pieces of plywood um four pieces of hardwood some screws and a piece of piano hinge so I I got a little bit elaborate with this I actually cut a little recess in here I probably used the router to do it so that I could hold all of my saw in there now the two cleat on the side main are made so that when you put it in the Vise like that it automatically it automatically um uh remains parallel to the top of the bench you want you want your saw blade to be just up above remember it's a thin blade so you don't want it to be too far away from the support of the Jaws you uh need an appropriate sized file and uh you want a good file that's the hard part is getting a good file we we look for good files for a long time we finally found them so it's a um four or a 5 inch double extra slim taper file and the problem with files you buy today is instead of that being a point it's rounded over so you start filing and instead of getting nice sharp teeth let look like this with a nice sharp gullet sharp tooth you end up getting something that looks more like this waves so these are on our site and they're not that expensive now the nice thing about a dovetail saw is it is a rip tooth so all you have to do is file perpendicular to the blade so if I put a square right there I'm going to be filing so that my file is crossing the tooth perpendicular to the run of the blade the angle of the tooth well you can set something on there like that if you want and hold it so that that tooth is going to be cutting that tooth that side of the file is going to be cutting that side of the tooth which is the part that's actually going to be doing sorry I'm going run I said I did that backwards I forgot which way this thing was sitting each stroke is going to be filing half of one tooth and half of the other The Cutting Edge comprises of two surfaces coming together like this so you've got to do both so I set my my file in there um you if you're new at this you can take a popsicle stick drill a hole in it and stick the end of the file in the hole when you got your file at the right angle and then you can tell by where the position of popsicle stick is now that's actually a little bit big Jake where's say that's the right huh let me see it that's the right sign yeah I know but I like that little one the little one's too small for the application I I could use it on here just in case that's my my wife and daughter coming back from a hockey game an hour away and I just want to make sure that they're all right um so I put this in here I get the I get the face of this file standing Plum and I just hold my finger right there like that so that I know it's always going to be in the same spot with each tooth and then set it in there now I I'll address these in a moment no problem but if I started back here I would push forward and it depending on how dull it is I may need two passes maybe only need one I push forward and I drag back most people don't do that problem is it's hard to see so if you're pushing forward and lifting up and trying to set back down I guarantee you're going to end up hitting a tooth twice when you didn't mean to so instead I go forward come come back go forward and then with it in the gullet I rise up and drop into the next one and then I'll repeat the process rise up and drop into the next one and do that and it's pretty easy to guess when you're Plum if you want you could draw lines on there but that doesn't seem to be necessary get yourself all the way to here which is where your little te start then you're going to switch to a smaller file where is it I don't have it there it's in those drawers in what drawers these little ones I think it's out in the other uh no I don't have them in here give me give me two seconds to grab it it's in my other I have I have U two tool cabinets so sometimes hard to keep track of everything what's up moosey huh what's m okay come so there's my there's my small one and so when I get to the little teeth I'm I've got to do a couple of things I'm switching files but I'm also going to switch the angle so the cutting face is not going to be 90° or 0 degrees it's going to be laying over like that almost almost with the top of the file laying um level and then you're going to do the same thing and I don't worry about these too much in fact the duller they are the easier it is to operate the saw but you want to keep up you want to keep up with the uh tooth line so if you just sharpen these and you ignore these sooner or later this is going to be sitting higher than this so you got to keep them keep them U at the same height and that's it easy to do easy to make this too you can find it on YouTube Mark yeah what so what was what did Mark say um I had it here where'd it go second uh how to follow a line basically how to follow a line yeah like when you're cutting straight following the line let me just see if I can okay well that I okay I can address that how do you cut a straight along yeah how do you cut straight along the line how to follow a line okay all right we can address that okay I got set down Moy go over and see Frick take that out so I I'll approach this in a couple of ways first thing we're going to do is talk about the equipment because that is really critical particularly when you're first getting started so I'm going to address the straight we mentioned it's the distance it's the shortest distance between two points and your saw has to be able to cut straight on its own how does that happen well if you're ripping you want if you're ripping wood you want to rip tooth which simply means that these teeth are filed perpendicular to the run of the blade so it's just like a whole bunch of little chisels all lined up and the set has to be very minimal so the set has to be there if it wasn't the blade would bind if the teeth were had no set on them and they literally cut 20,000 of an inch this is 20,000 of an inch back here you'll only get in there an eighth of an inch and it'll bind on you so by having the teeth bent which means if the first tooth is bent to the right the next one is bent to the left and that's a measured Bend it's got to be the same and on my case it's only it deviates from the side of the saw plate by just 2,000 of an inch so the thickness of a sheet of paper overall if you do that once you start cutting you get about that far and that takes over now that's providing you don't overpower by G grabbing the saw handle too too firmly if you let the I when I saw I'm literally holding that I'm just preventing it from falling on the floor I'm allowing this part of the saw to push into or I'm pushing this part on this part of the saw with the web between my index finger and my thumb and I let the sauce steer itself once I get started I'm going to show you why that's important I'm G to come over here I'm GNA slice this piece off I'm going to go down as far as I can and then I'll take it out and turn it over I'll cut this off so how does straight correlate with flat well the straighter you're cut young man the straighter you're cut look at me look at me the straighter you're cut the flatter the surface okay so you want that surface to be really flat and you want that surface to be really flat so when you put the two together you see how it makes a nice tight joint so if you had the side of your PIN going up against the side of your tail you could be confident you're getting good glue surface straighter it is smoother it is less set smoother it is if there's a lot of Set It rakes the side of that and leaves a real mess okay so you want that to be nice and smooth you can have that piece okay so we got our equipment straightened out now how do we actually Follow The Line well couple of ways we'll draw put a mark on here give an example of what line this be so this is going to be okay well then I'll actually draw it like that this is going to be uh well you know you know what it gets even easier than that I'm going to I'm going to do it as it pertains to uh my method of cutting Dov Tails so let's uh let's take this I got the shooting board set up here didn't I no you had the little one I'm just going to clean this up oh I got that blade up too far that's close enough okay so we're going to do Tails first we'll get our dovetail marker thanks to Jessie rufian who does a beautiful job on these I'm go around this way so when you're cutting dovetails these cuts are critical if they're off Plum if they're off Square joint's not going to work so you got to be you got to be really precise here so what I'm going to do and and you stand over here please there's two lines make sure you explain both yeah so I'm not worrying I'm not going to worry about the angled cut there will come a time when you want to have it precise but you don't need to worry about that in the beginning this is I'm creating the template and the second part is what's important not the first with the exception being cut across the end so my only concern right now is getting this this cut to start parallel to that line now I also have to realize that once I start I can't start like this and then try to bend it around like that so I am committed to the angle that my saw already is at if I need to I'll set that on there and just give me a myself a little bit of a feel so I know that that's approximately 10° I get that lined up and I start making my cut I don't do anything else I just keep following that cut if I'm off a little bit which I am no big deal deal no big deal come over here and do the same thing now if I'm off a little bit here so my head I'm going to say okay I need to lay this over a little bit more but now this locks the wrist back here does not change this is locked the saw is going to start and continue on that angle I'm not going to alter that at all so I'll get it lined up and then make my cut I do all the same angle before I switch and do the other so when it comes to this one again can I see that for just a sec moosey let me have that for just a sec Grandy see that just for a sec that one no want that one I want that one come on kid work with me work with me let me let me just borrow this one for a second just just for a second just for a second yeah big laugh okay hold it in position there get that set thumbs out of the way start the cut don't make any changes you're going to stay with that angle I'm pushing and pulling letting the saw do the job meaning I'm not altering I'm just pushing with the web of my hand the saw is going to go nice and straight straight meaning shortest distance from there down to there I'll come in and I'll do this one as well okay I would go through and do all of those then I'm going to do the pin side now this is the this is the plum cut that everybody worries about so much shoot snap just snap it [Applause] off okay so I'll put my plane on its side put that piece in there snug that up move that back now we're going to employ a dovetail marking knife and that has a blade in it that matches that blade on that dovetail saw so I just need to get rid of this fuzz set that on there I where my planing go now you have to position this accurately so that's where the Shan chin Shan Chim comes in and I would have my little masking tape trick in there to hold that in place but with that all taken care of you set that in place hold it firmly take your dovetail marking knife with that saw tooth blade and put it down in there and drag it through and you do it two or three times now what I would have to do is use the Shan shim to push that over a little bit in order to get these in the correct spot and then I would do the other side now the advantage of this and what I'm doing is I'm putting it into a curve that has no wiggle room there is no wiggle room so when I drag that through there's no way that blade went to the left or to the right it continued this cut right down into the next board leaving a very distinct Mark now my next move would be to come in here and carry these lines to the bottom I don't have a gauge line on there but if I did okay get that in position make sure it's standing Plum again every time your board goes in there if it's standing Plum it reinforces in your hand and your head where Plum is why does that not look Plum it is now what we used to have to do was follow a knife line you'd have a knife Mark in there and you'd come in here and you're you're paying attention to this at the same time you're paying attention to that but with this technique you simply push the saw into there I no longer have to worry about that Top Line so all I have to do now is just eyeball that line down below and follow it carefully so I push the saw into the curf forget about the top cut and just focus on the bottom one and with all my attention being on where that saw is going in relation to that line it's doesn't take very long before you get it so that's how you make a straight cut start off with a good saw and then follow a good technique and you got it next prick and I'll be getting a haircut soon because uh there's going to be a change in our government sure uh Chris McCoy in the chat what are the pros and cons between a folded back and a miled back well I I've read I've read a lot about it and I don't believe any of what I read uh they talk about putting the blade in tension I say poo poo on that here's why I say that you uh you take your dovetail saw you mark everything out you go in you make the cut and then here's what this guy does the first time he'd ever cut a dove tail you take a look at that and tell me whether or not it could be proved upon if his saw held a blade in tension here's the guy over here Justin I think I think it is a perfect dovetail I couldn't fault any of it here's a dovetail over here Omar gu's blown up severely by an IED uh one leg gone parts of both arms and hands gone most of his other leg gone and the guy was able to pull that off so don't tell me that the tension in the blade as a result of a folded back makes any difference whatsoever don't believe it my opinion I want to throw one more thing in on the uh on the sauce as it comes to uh to ripping because a lot of people have a hard time hard time making a rip cut and keeping it straight same principle applies and that principle is minim minimal set so once you start the cut as long as your set is minimal the saw I can close my eyes and do this the saw is going to cut nice and straight now I'm not twisting the saw or pushing it one way or the other let the saw do the work if the set is correct you'll end up with a nice straight cut okay next frck uh Aron Probus in Oakland California hey Aron what are the main factors for sawing dovetails fast like I see you do fast yeah basically what allows you to cut dovetails fast um practice might not want to have heard that but you know I you always hear people well I hear a lot of opinions that cutting dovetails is all about practice that's not true Jake how much time how much practice did Brent have before he pulled that off days yeah that bad example okay how about Justin was the first duve till he did so I would say it was it was done within five hours yeah of start okay you can't practice enough in 5 hours when you're learning something for the first time to make to produce something like that once you once you have the right equipment yeah people say oh yeah you're just selling tools well take it whatever way you want I stand here and I show you how to do it with my tools and I teach people and they do that with my tools there has to be something to the tools once you have the right tools and you understand the technique meaning you know what you know the steps the ABCs now what practice is going to do for you is going to get you faster instead of sitting there and and uh wrestling with the angle I I can get to a point where I can go in and I can make those cuts without really thinking about it and check the Angles and they're probably going to be right because I've done it so much so that's where that's where practice comes to Bear you'll get faster at it and you'll get faster and still remain accurate but if I'm if I'm doing something that's really important I'll slow down and I'll make sure that it's precise but if I'm cranking out dovetails for a utility piece I can do them pretty quick so you just got to put the hours in on that one next for any more vets Jake correct uh this is from Chris in Wisconsin hey Chris what is your opinion on tapered dovetail SS oh yeah that's I love that question um trying to answer that without being terribly critical I I'm just going to refer back to what I said that saw has no taper in it enabled you've got five examples here uh I'm pretty sure Marshall that was the first dovetail he'd ever cut I know Phillips Philip guson that was was the first Dove tail he ever cut I know Omar that was the first he ever cut I know for a fact as I was there first one Brent ever cut and I think Justin may have done a couple at home I'm not 100% sure so there's five examples of guys who cut near perfect dovetails the first time so that saw did it if you put a little taper in the blade you think it's going to make any difference I personally believe that any taper in a dovetail saw came from just filing over the years and applying a little more pressure at one end than the other I don't think it had anything to do with performance and I've read some really hard to swallow stories about what it does it's just it's like using an angled shooting board supposedly it's to uh save your blade or make it an easier cut the amount that you can actually change in cutting a and in shooting I know I'm a little bit off topic here but if I'm shooting the edge of this board and I have a slope like that introduced to it well that's changing maybe a quarter of an inch difference in the blade I can sharpen a blade in 32 seconds why am I worrying about making an angled shooting board to uh gain one/ 100th of an extra amount of time in the sharpness of the blade because instead of using 5/8 of the blade to make this cut I'm now using 78 of the blade to make that cut actually it wouldn't be 78s it would be yeah it would be 78 doesn't make any sense so I I don't give it any uh I don't give it any weight at all again my opinion you asked I gave it to you next Frick uh Peter Rosa in Oceanside hi Peter I built a 24 California I built a 24in shooting board following your instructions on YouTube but it cued after two years why did this happen I'm sorry oh he is it cued after two years yep and it's oh 24 Ines long and it coed on them um I don't know what you made it out of I'm assuming if you follow did my mine you made it out of uh Plywood And and MDF uh ocean you're on you're in a humid environment don't know uh what all I would say is if you're going to make another one add more curve to it that would be uh that would be the that would be the only advice that I could give you I we in our shop we control the humidity so we don't get those wild swings and if you don't do that I would suggest you might want to consider it if you can if you maintain the humidity in your shop the same year round then things shouldn't change right so control the humidity introduce a little more curve and if you use if you've got if you make a shooting board and you get two or three years out of it before you wear it out you're probably doing quite well well that's assuming you're using it a fair bit next frck uh Lynx from Barbados lyns well that's a online name no I think name nice and warm I am if I could only afford one backs saw which one of yours should I buy dub tail the dovetail saw the regular dovetail saw on sale right now % off um I'll give you the little specs on it real quick it has um well you know the tooth count 22 TPI up here 22 T I'm sorry 22 teeth per inch for the first two inches 15 teeth per inch for the balance so it'll cut quite quick it gives you an inch and 5/8 of an inch one and 5/8 inch depth of cut the blade is 10 in Long uh saw weighs I think about 22 ounces pretty hefty saw brass back is 78 of an inch by quarter and it feels really nice in the hand that's be the one that's the one that I use the most I probably use that uh of the time that I'm using a handsaw that probably would get um 85% use next Rick uh Mickey nolles in the chat hi Mickey since you studied under Sam malof can you tell me if Sam used backs saws um I was I I worked as Sam's assistant don't don't misinterpret me in 1987 when he taught at Anderson Ranch so uh I I didn't Apprentice I just worked as his assistant and did he use backsaw trying to remember you know what I can't I don't recall I'm assuming he did his dovetails have a lot of slope on them more than I would like he's probably about a 1 in five might even be a 1 in four and I'm going to I'm going to bet that he use a regular dovetail saw but but I can't say for sure sorry next prick we run other questions no you just trying uh Harold followed up to his question about the Scandinavian sa he's gonna fall off say say that again please Harold's question earlier about the Scandinavian saws he said I did not mean uh back saws I was referring to saw manufacturers like bacho and sand viic oh um all I can say about that is as far nothing I mean I've used sand nothing special uh I don't think they stand out as being anything I where do you get buy a really good panel that's why we made panel sawce because we use them in when we teach the class and Lee Nelson stopped making them and uh one of the other companies that make them the waiting the time was ridiculous so I just said to Jake one day I said we need to make we need to have a panel saw so we went to work on it and it took us probably two or three years to eventually bring them to Market so there isn't anything there isn't any neither of those two Brands trigger anything me that says yeah I need one I want one of those you got to remember the problem is this how many people do you know use something like this professionally you probably don't know any and because of that there's no professional demand there's no professional Supply so you got little Boutique makers like us who produce how many of those would we do in a year yeah so we've made 400 I think we might have made a few more than that I was going to say 500 but that's that kind of those kind of numbers wouldn't turn a big company on so I understand why they don't produce them and then the ones that do I mean only other the only other Mass produce ones you're going to find are those ones with the plastic hand Hollow plastic handles and the induction hardened teeth that are designed to be discarded of when they're dull so and they got tons of set but you remember too that they they make their saws for construction wood which is going to have a higher moisture content which is going to have a tendency to close on the saw blade we're dealing with uh appropriately dried furniture grade woods so that's we that's was our intent when we made this saw have narrow set for that purpose and it would cut nice and straight so as far as those two Brands go I can't comment other than what I said next for uh Justin in the chat is asking how often should a how often should a saw be sharpened a saw should be sharpened as often as it needs to be and I apologize for that answer but that's like saying how often do you fill your gas tank well whenever I'm out of gas how often I sharpen my skates well when they no longer bite the ice so if your saw uh you can you can tell the difference now here let me give you a few more clues so a sharp saw when you run your teeth your fingers over like that there's no sliding of your teeth of your fingers it bites you can feel it it's really crisp uh when you're sawing and if you seem like you're pushing and it's just not going very fast obviously it's time to it's time to uh sharpen the saw dovetail saws can go a long time simply just because if you add up the number of feet of wood that's been cut when you do a dove tail it's pretty minimal so it'll that'll go a long time um I would tell people I typically tell people if you're cutting dovet Tails every month you're going to get three to five years between sharpenings next uh Michael dodo in the chat he Michael please explain hang angle and how important it is well so when you hold the saw U the angle that the blade is meeting the wood when you when you're holding the saw other words this in relation to the tooth line and did I pay attention to it I don't pay attention to that stuff I do what it what feels comfortable so instead of following somebody's rule it's like when I build a box I'm veering a little bit I don't measure when I made this box I said well I want something about this long and about this wide feels good and about that tall and that's what I come up with that's why if you measure one of my boxes you'll probably get some oh that's 6 and 3/4 by 2 and 916 by three and a shy quarter I don't measure things like that so when it came to making this saw we just worked with it until it felt good and it just felt right and measure it that's what it is but there are people that pay that follow all these rules and sometimes it's like well who's to say that guy was right maybe he had short arms maybe he had weird wrists whatever no but if you if you made yours and yours was a 20° hang angle and somebody was using yours and they found that they didn't like it it would be nice to know that they didn't like the 20° well that's why that's why okay so we when when we were doing this we were trying to get it so that when I held it like that the tooth line followed my arm it wasn't back like that and it wasn't up like that it was it was just comfortable and it appear it felt like well that's the way where it should be and when we use it it feels comfortable so if you use it and it doesn't feel comfortable I don't know what you're going to do but well I don't pay I don't pay any attention to that I just you know it's frck can you ask the question again please explain the Hang angle and how important it is did we you didn't explain what it is I did I said it's a relation it's it's this compared to this all right so when you're holding the saw where's the tooth line so I said I didn't I didn't follow any formula I just messed with it until it felt comfortable when I'm sawing it felt like that's where it should be now how can I do that well I've got enough experience of doing this that you know I can the other day I turn a lot of handles for chisels I turned all the handles we just had Kip Christenson here and he taught the guys so Rick had turned one of had turned one a handle and he put it in with the pile of 26 that I had given him and he said I might put one in there and I looked and I picked up two and sure enough one of the two was one that he did how do I see that well anything you do a lot of you'll get to the point where you can see the tiniest detail that somebody else would look at and say how' you see that so when I do this you can borrow my experience benefit from my experience I know what feels right that's why I tell people this thing about folded back versus a cut a solid back with a slot cut in it doesn't make any difference none whatsoever if it did I wouldn't be able to people wouldn't be able to produce this oh a little pet peeve you could say next frck good question though thank you bringing it up uh I can't read this guy's name Danny Bell D Bell in the chat he's in the chat he says what tips do you have that be the uh the the D Bell that we know obviously nightstalker Danny Bell the man 160th what tips do you have for cutting a thin piece of wood for box blinds pardon what tips do you have for cutting a thin piece of wood for box blinds oh so what Danny is asking about I assume is this so when I make these boxes I make the saw cut uh with a dovetail saw and then I make a piece of ebony veneer and slip slip it in there so that veneer has to be 24,000 of an inch thick so Dan what I do is I go over to the table saw and I cut I'll show you can we do it here Jake uh I'll show you a couple little tips that I do all right turn this on so the first thing I'm going to do is get that edge parallel to that edge then I'll come over here and shoot it so now it's nice and clean even though it isn't I went the wrong direction then I'm going to get a piece of tape I'm going to put a piece of tape on this I'm going to move this over and I would get my my calipers and that's too thick still too thick can't make that cut very long cuz that that won't stay put keep moving that over that stret is fine huh that stret is fine I'm going to go a little bit more now I'm going to cut this off and the piece of masking tape is going to allow me to pull that over otherwise it'll get sucked down the [Music] hole now I've got a piece of uh MDF and I've got sandpaper on it going to do another Shameless promotion if you got to use sandpaper you want to use this stuff we now sell this this is Porter Cable and this guy a he have backed so it sticks there the problem with trying to PL a little thin piece of wood like this is you shouldn't you can't PL it up against something because it will it will fold on you so instead you can clean off that little nib too yeah I'll put it put the Block in like this get my calipers and check this so that's coming in at 40 43 thou so I should have made that a lot thinner before I did but I didn't so we'll just go ahead so I'm going to come in here and just get rid of that little piece from the saw think it's going to be cleaner this way so I'm going to use my plane throat down tight light cut oh that's way too heavy of a cut now I don't want to hit the Sandpaper so I'm making sure that I have my weight properly balanced so I'm on the wood and when I finish I'm pushing down here so I'm still on the wood my so my plane is not touching the Sandpaper but the sandp the sandpaper keeps the board the piece of wood from moving on me check that 32 thou now when I get close I'm actually going to check it with the curf I'm going to take two more off you're also going to find out if your uh blade is not parallel to your sole you're going to be thinner on one side than the other and I think that's the case here okay so that's 26 th if I turn it this way that wouldn't make any difference that's 26 thou oh it is that's 20 20 1 th000 so my blade was a little bit paralyzed I should have discovered that sooner so what I got to go in there and I got to tap that blade over but I would just keep doing that until that fits in here's a saw curve that should fit like a wedge right now R it around that's thicker at the top so you just got to do what I just did only check to make sure you're plain the blade is parallel to the sole so you're taking the same amount off both sides each time you make a pass that's how I did it with the ebony little easier with the ebony it's a little bit stiffer but you can do it with just about anything if you follow that plan next question Frick um Steve in San Diego hi Steve says why do you need a bench cross cut and a joinery Crosscut saw why do you need a bench cross cut and a joinery cross cut well my joinery cross cut is something that I use to to literally be able to join from the cut so I'm doing a uh I'm doing uh cutting on the shoulder on the Tenon I want to be able to come in and make a cut that is precise enough that when I bring another piece of wood up to it I get a perfect fit nice and clean don't have to do anything with the Chisel so if that's the case then I need to keep I want to keep that pristine if I'm if I don't want to have to run across the other room to use the chop saw and I've got to cut the end off of a piece of wood rather than use that I'll use my my bench hook and grab my bench cross cut whatever I did with it right here and I and it cuts a little bit faster too it's a 13 TPI it's a stiffer blade it's a little better it's going to be a little faster cut if I'm going to cut through something like this thicker plate yeah I'm going to get through it a lot faster with this saw than I am with that little one that's the reason why next yeah um Mike Evans in Knoxville Tennessee Mike Y is there an advantage to a Crosscut filed tenant saw is there an advantage to a c no not at all and not and in particular not if you think about if you think about cutting a tenant on something like that and trying to use a cross cuts on it you'll be there for a month that's where you want that's where you want that's the advantage of a rip tooth is you're going to get some speed in that cut rip with your rip saw cross cut with your cross cut saw it's why I I don't use combin I don't use combination blades in the shop look all we all we carry is a a really uh 24 to 24 to rip and an 80 to cross cut I don't use combination tee combination blades because they're designed to do both jobs so well so so so you don't have to buy two blades well I don't mind spending the money to get the performance so I and I I I hate having to switch blades but the way a uh an 80 to a Sharp 80 to Crosscut will cut plywood in particular compared to a combination too is worth the time and you can apply that to your hand saws as well next Frick bill in London he's up late is a small Crosscut saw really needed at the bench Frick are you sick yes I can hear it is a small Crosscut saw really needed at the bench at the bench yeah um I suppose you could say nothing's really needed you could you could make the crap cut with a dovetail saw but I'll tell you this story I was uh I was doing there used to be a uh wood show called uh handw Works no what was it called Jake do you remember anyway it was in it was in Cincinnati popular woodwork magazine used to put it on and I was there that wasn't woodworking in America was it h w yeah woodworking in America I was there in the working in the booth for Woodcraft and Frank Claus came along he he was with a guest speaker and uh I just stood back I I recognized him but I I stood back and he picked up my Crosscut saw and uh we had some wood there for people to try put his glasses on he probably wouldn't have been the same age then as I am now and he came over and he made a cut and he looked at the saw and he made another cut looked at the saw again kind of gave it once over and he left about 15 minutes 20 minutes minutes later he came back and he came right back to the same piece of wood that hadn't changed and he picked up the saw again and he came in he made another cut and he made another cut he may have made three I don't remember and he said under his breath but I heard it he said that is the smoothest cutting Crosscut saw I've ever used I was there I heard it so that's the smoothest cut smoothest cutting cross cut saw I've ever used we designed it that way it works beautifully you will not find a cross cuts off I used to represent another company and their their small Crosscut saw was the most problematic saw we had they could never get the saw set right and it just was it was just lousy it just really was couldn't sell it with confidence so we went out and said you let's make a good one and I think we did I think we I think it's I think our Crosscut that Joiner Crosscut saw is better than any other Crosscut saw out there more so than our dovetail saw is better than the other dovetail saws out there and we have people Rave about that so I guess we're doing something right next f r what questions Luther's making some up and I haven't got them yet he's making them up yeah you mean out of his head yeah well if there's any more in the chat please let us know how many people do we have on tonight uh almost 400 that's good well here's one I'm using your saw and your methods but my dovetails are always way too tight okay well uh if you're using my method then you're using the Sha shim big shout out to Shawn McDermot who uh came up with the idea for the Shan shim we turned it into a product named it after him pay him a royalty on them and if your dovetails are too tight you just have to understand how this thing works so shoot I really need two clean pieces of wood let me uh can you hear me talk if I go I just going to run down there and grab couple pieces of wood everybody hit that like button while you're waiting thanks Michael dodo for the suggestion so you need to understand how this works and it um made me every once in a while have to stop and once you do this reink it yeah Gary Nellis wants you to demonstrate cutting a tenant um might not have time to do that tonight well not make just basically got to follow your layout okay so I'm just going to uh quickly rough this out okay so there's our there's our dovetail this is going to be the pin so we lay that out now just so that you can see the whole process and understand it um tape four layers of tape on the underside of the dovetail just crossing over the line enough so that it'll register now trim that on the sides I'm out so that it won't interfere whoa what the FR like vinegar hope nothing goes wrong they' both left me now cut through that and then peel off that little piece so now I've got that little wall so with my plane on its side put this piece in get it flushed with the top set that back okay so my saw curve is 24,000 of an inch so I'm going to take the 24 th I'm going to flip it over like this there's the offset and doing it holding it like that and I push this up against it I now have the thickness of the saw blade right there so if I B my take my dovetail marking knife and put it through right there that should leave me with a piece over here to fill this void when this piece gets cut off that will fill it perfectly however if I make this a little bit bigger and to do that I would go 25 thou so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to push that over an extra thousandth of an inch that'll end up resulting in this half pin that's going to fill this void is going to be a thousand of an inch bigger this piece in here is going to be 2,000 of an inch bigger because you're going to gain you're going to gain a thousand of an inch on this side and a thousand of an inch on that side that'll make for a tighter joint if I want to go a little bit less then I'm going to go 23 thou and 23 thou means I'm going to take a thousand of an inch off of this half pin and it'll be one thou less than it would have been otherwise this will be to out less than so if your pins are ending up too tight if you drop down to 23 then that should make this that'll relax the fit a little bit for what goes in here and obviously what goes in here here and here right so I always found that if I just focus on right here that's easiest that's the easiest way to figure out okay which way do I need to go in order to make the joint tighter which way do I need to go in order to make the joint a little loose and that's why we give you the four different options on your Shan Chim okay that should help okay now the question was cutting laying out cutting a question can you show how to saw a tenin and follow your layout lines yeah so I'm going to use my Mor disengage over there just continue time I'll go grab it okay you got your wood right there on the drill press what oh you brought me overpiece so I always I always uh I always chop the Morts first because it's easier to adjust the Tenon than it is to adjust the mortise so assuming that I've already gone in and and U chopped my ten my mortise then I'm going to take my marking gauge my marking gauge and I'm going to determine I would have already done this in the layout but I'm determining how deep I can go into this piece which other words means how long can my Tenon be so I will come in and I I make sure that I cut this really deep and across the end watch out for your thumb because it's uh it won't cut very deep but it'll C cut if you happen to slip so I got a really good gauge line so we shouldn't let fre use that one either no uh set this in place now I would take my mortise chisel match it up I'm going to just use this one because the one I grabbed so this is a mortise engage that uh my good friend and and genius Paul up in Ontario helped us develop you set that in there like so and you back this off enough so it allows me screw that outside cutter until it squeezes it squeezes the Chisel between the two and then lock that in place right now I'm going to Center this so I eyeball it and what I do to check it is I push it down like that and make two little marks flip it over from the other side and it looks really good now drag that across the end slowly or lightly I should say not slowly because otherwise if you try to do it too hard too quick those little uh Cutters May wander because they cancel each other out unlike a normal marking gauge but if you just keep going a little deeper each time you eventually get a pretty good line and then go down the face or the edge and go down the edge okay now if you're new to this and you want a way of doing it even faster or not faster easier here then take your sharp chisel and this is assuming that you've gone in and uh and made that line really deep using a sharp chisel I'm going to come in and I'm going to cut a little trough right there like that now that little trough I can I could use my dub tail saw on this or I can use my Tenon I got my Tenon right here I can come in here like so this is your medium Tenon yeah it's my medium Tenon put that in there and by doing that you see how it gives me a little wall now there's no I don't have to worry about trying to follow anything I've got a little wall right there and I'm going to start that cut but before I get too deep all I want to do is just get the curf established across the end then what I'll do is I this is this is like marking the end of the tails with the dovetail marking knife you set the saw in the in there and you no longer have to worry about that you only have to worry about coming down the face so with this established would you put the piece on an angle uh it depends now I can pay attention to this line on the side and I'll follow this all the way down now if you're doing something really small like this what'll happen sometimes is that that piece will have a tendency because it's thin to lay out like that and in doing that it'll allow the saw to wander and it won't stay true so I put in a piece behind it which helps to hold that it what it does it forces your saw to track better once I get to the bottom here then I can kind of cut while raising this off until it's level don't cut below and then this would just be a repeat of that I would go in and make that cut so that you have that nice little wall to work against makes it so easy now when it comes to cutting off this piece I'm going to use a bench hook but again I'll come in in the waist and I'll cut a trough now this is where I would grab my joinery cross cut come in here like this clean those saus off lay that in there got to get a nice Plum cut mean your Saw's got to be standing Plum I didn't I didn't make that saw cut deep enough so my next move would be I'd come in here and lay my chisel against that cheek and just finish that cut that I should have done with the saw but I wasn't pan close enough attention then from this side so I have lots of control I'll set my chisel in there and just finish that cut now if I see if I see the marking gauge line and a little lip above it then I know I have to set my chisel in the marking gauge line and clean that up but that saw cut nice and clean see that there's no Ridge left there so I should be able to join right to that so combination of Sharp Tools and some good technique and you should be able to make Perfect Cuts anything else you want to mention our new uh Venture coming up here uh yeah we have a new website it's called Rob Cosman Woodworks Rob Cosman woodwork. comom robman woodwork. comom I'm getting back into the game I'm going to be making boxes I'm going to be making custom chisel handles out of really nice wood I'm going to be doing some you'll be able to buy my custom saws with the fancy doah handles and uh some other stuff I I miss I miss the woodworking part and selling it now that may sound a little bit weird but it was always such a thrill that somebody would walk into a gallery and buy something that I designed and built they didn't know you they just liked it and it was all I don't know whether was uh what's the word Frick how would you describe that come on you're the English major why do you think we have you here because I'm the tech Guru um it validates it validates who you are as a woodworker maybe anyway watch for it we'll release it here soon we almost had it ready to go today but so the website's on the screen right now if you go to it now you can enter your email address so you uh get notified when it launches and it's it should launch this week uh with just the boxes on it first but they're all oneoff boxes Handmade by Rob so each box that's listed that's the only one and when you purchase it it's sold out there there's the the serial numbers on each box and it's shown in the picture and Rob signs each one on the bottom with a what is it a heat wood burning yes yes all right okay have we giving away stuff tonight uh yeah we have over $1,000 in donations uh Luther if you can put the update in the chat exactly and I'm just going to get all the names here give your little blurb or whatever okay we got to give away some dead cats what's my little blurb this is what we do to help support this is our our primary fundraiser for our Purple Heart Project so next year starting in April we have six classes April April May June July September and October we will bring a total of 42 combat wounded veterans vets in in the last two years we've had them uh from Australia from Ireland from Denmark from United States mostly and from Canada so uh if you know anybody who is combat wounded whether it's a physical wound or a mental wound have them go to our website robcosman.com and you can see there's a place on there under their Purple Heart Project they go in there and they can fill out the application send it in and Jake and I and Luther uh go through and through a point system and then some chitchat we decide uh who we're who who gets the seat and we only get three or four applicants for each seat so it's not like you're one in a million you may be w a million but you're not one a million when it comes to getting a spot in our in our class we cover airfare we house you we feed you well we send you home with in US Dollars approximately $4,000 worth of Premium tools and thanks to um thanks to Jack Lane and uh and uh Jim Rosetti up here in Canada and a host of bench Brigade volunteers you you heard about some of them tonight we uh have them build a bench to our standard and deliver it to your home so that you'll have a bench your bench to work on also have to say out to Angie Tonight I almost forgot Angie and Lynn have the t-shirts arrived no they're down there we got a we got a big shipment of uh purple hard t-shirts that you can get in time for Christmas all three colors Navy Angie's color which is kind of a um I don't have one up there oh yeah do right here Jake oh yeah that turquoise of them we in the shop and uh the green and Angie and Lynn package them all up they do a beautiful job it's the most professionally packaged thing that we have we carry so and you're you're going to be busy real soon Jake should have them H you this week big thank you to Ken uh we big thanks to Kip Christensen who we had here for a week training uh six of our guys on using the lathe to uh to turn handles and it was a great time having him here and he's awesome teacher instructor and an incredible Craftsman as well okay Frick ready yep just one sec so what are we GNA give away should we give away a panel saw we raised almost $1,500 15 we had to have 2,000 in order to get give away two prizes if something happens between now and the next 10 seconds we'll bump it up so uh we always give away three dead cats compliments of moose and they'll keep everybody warm so let's give those away first and then we'll give and then we'll do a draw for a panel saw all right so the three dead CR or rip Jake do a rip all right here we go first dead cat sweater I draw three at once do you first one goes to Bob Stevens in Denver Colorado hey Bob you will be happy in Denver with this next one next one goes to Mark Patterson in Roseville California Mark where's Roseville hey that's where uh yeah what was his name for Mark Patterson Mark Pon that's that's far enough North you'll you'll enjoy it too Mark and the third one and third one goes to Todd Wilson in Queensland Australia my nephew my nephew um Carter just got his mission call to uh Roseville California so you see you see a guy with curly blonde hair around with the last name Cosman on there be nice to him where's the last one going Queensland Australia yep they are just entering summer but it'll still be well received okay so now we're going to give away a uh one of our new rip Crosscut rip uh panel saws like this beautiful saw big thanks to Chris Davenport who has been helping us can we give him an update on the planes Jake no so I can't give you an update on the plane that we're making the 5 and A2 called the Super 5 and A2 and I can't tell you that we found a local machinist that most likely is going to be doing it and stay tuned okay who we giving it to winner of the saw drum roll John deckman in Wisconsin John in Wisconsin congratulations contact us and uh Gina will put that in the mail for you on Monday you'll love it so we are on again Before Christmas right yep yeah we've got a uh two weeks from tonight we have a uh charity Venture that we're helping out it's for a a fellow sawm maker who has um uh some serious health issues and this is a this is uh a kit of tools that's been donated and being auctioned off I think I think is being auctioned off I'll get tuned up on that raffled raffled off and all the proceeds are going and it's going to be done through through it's going to be done through GoFundMe and all the proceeds are going to his wife and children which great cause so we will we'll have them we'll have the Chapo doing it on live with us next time and I also want to have um who's our bench Brigade Builder we talked about earlier jie Jamie f fagel on as well to tell you about the bench Brigade and I'll get Jack on there too all right we'll see you and I should be able to see you in a couple weeks frck two weeks have a uh hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving for those of you in the US and is a season start singing your carols and putting up your Christmas tree and remember the reason for the season see you in two weeks thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he

Channel: RobCosman.com

Views: 9,552

Keywords: Rob Cosman Live, best table saw, table saw, table saw reviews 2021, best table saws reviews, top table saws, best table saw 2021, best table saws, table saws reviews, best table saw 2020, table saw review, table saw blades, table saw accessories

Id: ELG7k3tHR38

Length: 121min 25sec (7285 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 26 2023