Dovetail Project - Easy Bench Hook (Amazing)

hi i'm rob cause and welcome to my shop we're gonna build an easy dovetail project a woodworking bench hook now this is what i give my students in our beginning class it's easy to do a great way to work on your dovetail skills and when you're done you've got a great bench hook that's very functional let's get at it i'm rob cosman and welcome to my shop we make it our job to help take your woodworking to the next level if you're new to our channel make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell which will alert you whenever we release a new video anytime we use a new tool or technique we'll leave a description down below so that make it easier for you to find all right let's get back to work when we first put together our training the hand workshop we were trying to come up with a project that could utilize the skills that we were training for or being taught and at the same time have something to take home that you could fit in your suitcase since most people flew in and we came up with the idea of a bench hook now its function is to support your work while you're cutting it it's protecting your bench so instead of running across this is for people who are using both power tools and hand tools instead of running across the shop to the table saw or the chop saw if you had something at your bench that would support the work allow you to make that cut with your saw and then protect your bench from scars from the saw this is it there's got a cleat it has a cleat on the front that catches the front edge of your bench to prevent anything from going in that direction it's got a cleat on the back to secure the work with your thumb and it's made out of a mild wood so that as your saw passes through the piece you're cutting and then hits the piece underneath it's not wearing excessively on your side now you could do this out of scrap you could nail it together screw it together but why not do something that you'd be proud of and a chance to show off your skill in fact apprentices often were taught to build their own shop implements and this would be a great way to show off the skills that they've had so i'm going to walk you through this here we go now the only thing that i'm suggesting that you definitely do is that the piece that you're going to cut into the sacrificial part wants to be something soft that's going to go easy on your saw i like to use contrasting woods because particularly for the students it gets to really show the joint well so i've got a piece of pine for the base now it's seven and a half inches wide by 12 inches long i've got a piece of cherry you could use anything as i mentioned and the piece of cherry is going to be used for the cleat on the front and the cleat on the back we'll cut both and then cut it down you wouldn't want to start with a piece that is only that wide because in the process of putting the joint together there just isn't enough material there and it's almost for sure you're going to split it so we'll actually assemble it and then cut it and finish it afterward so this piece that i'm using is six inches long by seven and a half inches wide and you'll see how we'll end up addressing the second piece to be a little bit narrower than the base itself now these pieces have already been milled however we need to get rid of the mill marks and if you want to do this by hand we'll leave a link below and it'll show you the process of taking a rough piece of lumber and turning it into time something that is flat smooth and square on all six sides i've done this by machine but as i said i gotta get rid of the mill marks so i'm gonna use my shooting board and my bench plane you want everything to be square and precise makes the joint process so much easier i'm just going to check and make sure that my blade is projecting parallel to the sole now the first thing we have to do with something of this length is we've got to get a reliable straight edge that we can put against the fence to square the end so i'm going to shoot that long edge and this came off the table saw so i can assume that the sides are parallel and as long as i engage the blade through the entire length i should be taking off the same amount and that'll keep these two edges parallel now put that against the fence i'm going to clean up this end but the first thing i've got to do is pull it away and cut a little chamfer right here and then flip it over and plane until that little chamfer almost disappears we don't want to go past it if we do we end up breaking off fibers that's good then we'll do the opposite side again pull it away from the fence over here first allowing you to cut a little chamfer right there flip it over remember when you're using a shooting board you always have to be pushing the wood into the plane but at the same time you've got to be pushing the plane into the shooting board a little bit harder you don't want to lose that square setup okay those edges are done now we do the same thing on the piece of cherry now we want to clean up these faces get our grain direction i think it's going to go this way first pass part of the blade hangs over the edge and then you overlap each successive pass and the final pass part of the blade hangs over the edge this is where you find out how inaccurate power tools are you can hear the plane engages and then skips where there's some machine snipes now i've got some plane tracks i want to get rid of i think that feels good and we'll check this way real quick that's good and flat okay so here's our two pieces now the interesting thing about this is when we do this we can't we and uh and finish our cleat on the bottom side we can't plane all the way through so this has to be pre-finished and i'm actually going to cut the dovetails a little bit different and i'll show you how that works be the front this would be the back for no particular reason so we'll go ahead reference the thickness of this is going to be the pin board this is going to be the tail board scribe the face the edge the underside and the opposite edge now on this one i'm going to cut the little rabbet with the skewblock plane and then take one two three should do it yeah four now i would normally do this side but i'm going to do it a little bit differently just and you'll see why when we get there okay we'll go ahead and lay this one out using my dividers first thing i do is get my outside half pin about like that this is just uh based on looks put the pin in the hole move the gauge over to it i'm going to use a one and six slope on this flip it over and do the other side we'll save that one and we'll space off for the rest of them open the dividers up now if you're unsure what i'm doing we'll leave a link below on laying out with dividers that's good leave a mark leave a mark leave a mark leave a mark then go back starting on that half pin leave a mark and we come in using the one and six rake make sure these lines are perfectly perpendicular across the end of the board the angles are not nearly as important but those cuts across the end are pardon me the marks across the end it is critical that they be perpendicular and you can put as many tails as you want again strength is not a big issue here so it's more for appearance okay doesn't hurt to have a quick mark with an x to identify which side of the line you should be sawing stuff but i can't find my colored stuff right on that gauge line it just pays to be able to see line it up so that the saw is parallel to the line stop at the base you want to be i always leave the line so that i can tell where i am if you saw through your line you've lost your reference saw beside it [Laughter] now i'm going to take my five and a half set it on its edge okay so which of these sides are we going to use we've got a little bit of sapwood here we can actually cut most of it off and you'll see why and how i'm going to leave this side that has no sapwood showing on the end and what i'm doing is i'm positioning this so that it's flush with the top of the plane then i'll lock it in place push this back and i'm going to set that up and i'm going to use that little rabbet as a means of lining these two pieces up perfectly but just before i do that i need to measure my saw kerf so i'll take a marking gauge set this on a nice flat surface right out at the tooth line making sure the gauge is only touching the saw i'm not resting it like that just on the saw make sure that drops down and touches lock it now i'll put this back in place i like that what's so valuable about that little rebate is you can move it side to side like that now what i'm going to do using my sawtooth blade set this with a cutter on the top side move it over now i've effectively offset my tail board from my pin board by the thickness of one so if i move my tail board to my left i'm going to go to the right side of each tail to make it a little bit easier i'm just going to come in here with a pen that works and put a t on there and circle it so i know so the t represents the tail that's the part i'm paying attention to so i move the tail board to my left i'm going to go to the right side of each tail i'm going to reach down in that kerf the nice thing about this is this little blade is the exact same as my saw blade so when i put it down in this kerf it does not move side to side it just has room to fit in there which guarantees that when i pull it through leaving a mark on the end of the cherry pin board that that mark is exactly where i'm going to want it right in there now i'm going to take my marking gauge dovetail marker holding it on its side like this just get rid of that fuzz it turns it into a square oh i forgot to mark this now this piece should be the same however because i made a uh cut a rabbet right here this is going to be a little bit thinner so what i'll do is i'll go in and i'm going to mark or i'm going to reference that part of the board with my gauge so i'm actually taking this measurement as opposed to that measurement now i'll take it out make it easier to do describe my line on both faces now i'm going to reposition this in a minute but i've got it up here high just to make it a little bit easier i'm going to go in and i'm going to run my vertical marks from the gauge line up to the pin side of the saw kerf put the sock put the saw right in the kerf and follow that line to your gauge line you could put tape along that gauge line as well if you [Applause] wanted [Laughter] [Applause] uh [Music] all right check and make sure we get right to the gauge line if you didn't come back and fix it makes it a lot easier when you're cleaning out the corners and using the fret saw broke a blade okay drop down to the bottom you want that blade to be really tight so that it doesn't bow and follow the line i find that cherry cuts so much slower than most other woods at least with the fret saw slow down as you get to it now i'm going to raise this up so i can saw a little easier and i'm going to try to get even closer i hate having to go in and chop twice but if i can get right along that line it speeds up the chiseling a lot now while i've got this in my hand i'll go in and do the same on this piece drop down to the bottom come just off the bottom and this on its side and i want that to be level i just eyeball the top edge along that strip now come in here make a little cut on the waist side up against didn't quite get it up against the marking gauge line and that gives me a little reference spot to reference my saw slow down as you get toward the bottom now we're using a rip saw on a cross cut but we've already scored all the way around so we don't have to worry about it leaving a rough finish only focus is getting it plumb now when i'm chopping pine i use my chisel that has a 17 degree primary bevel and what you'll find is it cuts that soft wood a lot cleaner than the standard 25 degree bevel this is another area where that rabbit comes into play it provides a good support for the chisel and it doesn't allow it to push back behind your scribe line if you have too much material on the waist right there on this side it can possibly push this back and that leaves you a divot so i always go in and just do a little preliminary chop first before setting the chisel in the gauge line and chopping down till you meet the cut you made from the back side now i think i left just a few little pieces here i hardly need a chisel on them okay i want to finish each one of these before i move on then i don't worry about forgetting something grab my quarter inch simply because you're pushing less chisel through the end grain so you're gonna have um it's easier to do and if it's easier to do you have more control so when this is in use and we're holding our piece of wood we want room over here for the saw to land on the bench hook and i'd also like to have my spacing the same so what we can do is simply put this in here and instead of having one two three four five we'll go with four tails so we're gonna this is where we're going to end we need a little bit of extra so i'm gonna say we're gonna go right about there so this is going to be the end of the board now we'll go ahead and lay this one out remember we got to turn it around i'll carry that over so we'll treat that like the end of the board so i've already got my half pin setting so we'll set it on there and that'll leave me my half pin mark and i'll do the same thing on this end and that'll give me my half bend mark i i'm gonna just lay this out just for the sake of helping you keep it straight this one's being done on this side i forgot to put my marking gauge line in there again which is just as well because i can show you how we're going to do it i'm going to use the yellow tape this is automotive tape it's a little bit thicker than regular painters tape or masking tape and i'm going to put four pieces rub that on there firmly it's not quite as good a solution as the skew block plane but we can make it work i'll just trim that off both sides i'll set my marking gauge to the thickness of the piece of cherry and i think that's already set but we'll just verify it now we want to carry this mark down so we know where to stop i can see it on here so we're going to cut we're going to go here and along the bottom side cut all the way through that tape and i want to leave a mark on the wood as well and then a nice deep cut here and then from that mark over nice thing about wheel style gauges is when you don't need to get close to the line you can just roll that last little bit now we'll peel this off no it doesn't matter and that will function as our knife line actually i should have cut that all the way off but i'm going to see if i can get away with it so you remember this is the face on one this is the face on the other so we'll put this in place go back to where we were using a one and six rake angle and we'll do the same thing on this side now we should be able to use the same setting let's just try it before we leave permanent marks in there that's a little bit bigger so i'm going to close these down just a bit but it won't be it'll be small enough that you won't notice it that's good so starting here leave a mark leave a mark leave a mark then on this half pin leave a mark leave a mark leave a mark in here and draw them out put the pen in the hole move the gauge over to it okay just making sure we're down to depth on these okay on this one there's no slope so we're going to come across the end and then plumb we'll take our pin board same as before put it in the vise so that it's flush with the top of the plane set that back make sure we're doing this right that one's going to go this way this one's going to go this way now we're going to work from this side but we're going to do the same thing that'll hold put our cutter up on the top move that over until it makes contact now we've got our tail board offset to my right i'll go ahead it always helps to come in here and just identify what piece you're working with t stands for the tail so if i move my tail board to my right i'm going to go to the left side of each tail reach down and drag that through [Laughter] uh maybe i'll start up here [Laughter] uh [Laughter] okay we're going to assemble the front one first and when we assemble it we can then clean up the outside clean up the outside but we can't explain the inside because this piece is going to be sticking like this so before we put this together we have to clean this inside get rid of the pen marks so we'll put that back in the vise check grain direction so a little plain wax just a little more blade woof check for plane tracks okay now we also want to come in here and cut some chamfers down the inside edge of each tail choke up on your chisel so you have lots of control start in about a sixteenth don't start out here start in about a sixteenth and this will help ease the joint together and it'll also help disperse the glue and if i haven't already mentioned it we'll leave a link in the description i'll take you to a video that will give you a complete lesson on cutting through dovetails we're just clipping these off make sure you do that only on the inside and make sure you don't start out here and while we're doing it we may as well do these ones on the top side as well okay now we'll go in here and apply just a small amount of glue to all of the long grain surfaces and i prefer this little palette knife as opposed to a brush it allows me to get the glue exactly where i want it and i'm going to come in here and i'm going to also apply glue on the long grain sides of the tails and the only exception i'm going to make is i'll put a little bit on those outside end grain shoulders right here all right make sure that's securely held i always want to start it by hand so you don't start pounding it now i need a rag just to avoid splatter clean that up i didn't want to get glue on that check for square it's a little out so we'll just adjust it now a little bit more okay that looks good now okay so this didn't come down tight and it's a little bit of a gap right there so what we're going to do is we're going to put a clamp across here so that as we tap that that clamping pressure will hold it so i've got a couple little blocks of wood no sense putting a clamp here because it has to be put pressure just on these half pins i don't want to be touching that so i'll put that right there just put a piece of masking tape on to hold it so i'm not trying to juggle it same thing over here now put that clamp across not too much pressure just enough to squeeze those half pins now when i tap that [Music] the clamping pressure applied by the clamp will help hold so that's good and tight check the pressure on the clamp not quite square so a little bit of pressure that way okay now we'll let that sit and give that 20 minutes once once the glue is dry we'll come in and we'll cut that off at whatever height we want and on this i think i i left seven eighths of an inch which is plenty to hold whatever piece of wood you're going to be sawing actually sorry that's the front cleat and about the same amount too there just just enough to catch the front edge of the bench all right okay give that 20 minutes or so [Music] okay no plane tracks that's clean now set the marking gauge for where we want to cut this inscribe that line i already put that one on i'll make it a little deeper same thing over here now i can't get my gauge in there but what i can do is use my straight edge and i'm going to do this just to prevent splintering when i saw it okay now cut this plane it after we cut it that leaves us a bigger piece to work with so i'm going to use a crosscut saw you could also use a tenon cross cut saw [Music] that's a little dangerous i don't want to hit my bench i'll hold that up a little higher i'm staying away from the line now be real careful here that you don't cause a splinter on that bottom corner now that's not a lot to balance your plane on but that's enough a little more blade okay now we'll get the shooting board out we've got our line to follow but we've got to cut a chamfer on this far side can't really do it with the plane so i'm going to come in with a chisel and using that gauge line as a reference a little more blade so just watch my gauge line to see where i am in terms of keeping the end of this parallel to the face and it's all just for looks okay that's good now use a block plane just to cut not only a little decorative chamfer all the way around but also just something to soften that edge so when you're picking it up [Applause] uh all right there's the first part so that will catch like that when we're using it now we got to do the back side and this is where we're going to take this piece and we're going to cut a little shoulder on there we'll go ahead and mark that out first need a longer square now we can cut that on our was out of the shooting bench hook me [Music] now we'll clean that up the shooting board and we need to cut that shoulder off but i've got to go in i guess i'm going to save that because that's the same setting that we used to determine the length of that piece so i'll come in here and just reset that nice deep cut get that standing plumb just make sure it's nice and clean into the corner okay now this one is going to be assembled like this we have two options we can pound it down like that or we can put it in there do it that way we'll do one one way i'm on the other so this one will be done where we pound on the pin board instead of on the tail board since the glue is going to get on here that's why i've got a piece of scrap underneath same idea now keep the square close and make sure we're keeping this i also want to put it together at the same rate get over there now bring this this is where we don't want to make a mess because we really can't plane that side but i'll hang that over so that just the pins are hanging over that's down tight yeah check it for square it's got to go out a little bit there check and make sure everything is tight okay now we'll plane we'll cut this one off now actually we got to plane this one off first in order to use our marking gauge effectively so the grain of the pine is running this way so what i think i'll do is cut a little chamfer on here which will allow me to plane across this way and not break off the ends of these again this is more for convenience and holding and since i got the block plane in hand i think that's what i'll use i'm going to turn this around so okay now i'm gonna try to take a pass or two on here without messing anything up back here just light enough to get rid of those marks that i just made in the pine so when doing this i'm just as i start to apply a little bit of pressure if i'm setting the plane down here i don't start to apply the pressure until i'm right about here so the blade just gradually starts to bite that way i don't have start marks back here [Applause] so okay now marking gauge same thing as before we'll score a line and that scoring a line just keeps the fibers from ripping back as a result of the crosscut saw now i can't use my marking gauge right here so i'll use a knife okay and before i saw that i'm going to let that glue set up a little bit and then we don't stress that joint quite so bad we'll cross cut that clean it up shoot the end and we'll be done that's flat enough i can set that on my shooting board we're going to cut that chamfer on the far side first again we'll use the we'll use that uh gauge mark actually you know what it's easier to do this with a block plane so [Music] make sure you don't get past your chamfer or else you'll blow those fibers off one more now we'll clean that up [Music] so [Music] now i don't want to rip these fibers up so what i'll do is take my chisel and then just carefully go in there and cut a little bit of a now i'm going to grab one little sharper open it up so i can get at it now when i plane across there that won't break those fibers out so okay now trim this same way so and we'll cut one here cut one here just a little one here again this is just that when you pick it up you're not grabbing a sharp edge all right there you have a bench hook a couple pieces a piece of pine a couple pieces of cherry some nice dovetails top and bottom you can look at every time you use it which you probably won't ever want to cut into it because of the time and effort you put into it but this is a bench hook makes your sawing more accurate and saves your bench if you like my work if you like my style of teaching click on any one of these videos to help take your woodworking to the next level and i've always said better tools make it a whole lot easier if you click on the icon with the plain and the chisel it'll take you to our website introduce you all of our tools and also talk to you about our online and in-person workshops good luck in your woodwork

Channel: RobCosman.com

Views: 24,447

Rating: 4.9690223 out of 5

Keywords: dovetail project, dovetail, project, dovetail joint, dovetail joint by hand, dovetail saw, easy woodworking project, hand cut dovetail, rob cosman dovetail, bench hook, bench hook dimensions, bench hook use, bench hook woodworking, rob cosman, woodworking, woodworking for beginners, woodworking projects

Id: oIicWPkaxNM

Length: 53min 2sec (3182 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020