Making a Japanese Cutting Gauge! (kebiki) // Low-cost tool making.

you know what I think about all the time efficiency and I know you're thinking well this is a hand tool woodworking channel that's not very efficient but think about it we're using very small space compact inexpensive tools and we focused on techniques that minimize waste that is efficient but I also think a lot about time especially with things like repeated operations so let's say I wanted to cut a rabbet on the end of this board to make a box well I would start by coming in with a marking gauge to figure out where that line needed to go then that would come back in and go over that line again with a knife to sever the fibers before I come in and cut my joint that kind of repeated operation is inefficient what I need is a single tool that's gonna mark my line and cut those fibers all at once so I don't have to come back now I couldn't just take one of my existing marking gauges and I guess like put a blade in there and turn it into a cutting gauge but what I would much rather do is have a vintage tool that I can copy something with a proven time-tested design and wouldn't you know it I was on ebay a few weeks ago and an honest I had probably had a couple of beers so when this Japanese cutting gauge arrived in the mail a couple weeks later but I wouldn't say I was shocked or anything but there was a moment of confusion I had to think back and I thought to myself well this is good timing I want to make a tool like this anyway and this one looks excellent and besides what am I gonna do return it what what reason would I pick oh I'm sorry I have to return your tool because what I bought it back had been drinking that's not one of the reasons I looked so why go to a Japanese tool well this thing is really optimized for cross grain cutting especially at the ends of boards that's why the beam is so short it's only intended to work right at the end of a piece and you see the fence it's really wide so it gives excellent registration against edge of the board and it's got this rabbit which engages both the top and the end of your board and brings the cutter in for an efficient slicing action this design probably evolved over generations of day-to-day use and we are not gonna mess with it we're just gonna copy the first thing we need is this cutter right here but don't worry you can make one yourself out of stuff you've probably just got laying around your shop a great material for this blade is steel from an old handsaw you can see that I've already hacked this one up to make other tools before saws are made from tempered spring steel so they flex instead of breaking and they're hard enough to hold an edge but soft enough to cut with common tools now you might not have an old handsaw sitting around and that's fine just grab an inexpensive putty knife that's also made from spring steel it's gonna work great just grab the biggest one you can find put a screw clamp in your leg rights and then grab the saw in the clamp this setup gets the work up to eye level and gives you more access this cut is tough to start so we'll use a little triangular file to make a notch then the hacksaw can go straight through this steel you only need a little piece of steel to make an excellent cutter my is pretty rusty so I stick a bit of tape to my finger and that lets me hold the steel flat Ted sand off the corrosion get your steel shiny and don't worry about little pits you can use any old file to clean up the edges and get them parallel now grab your cutter in the screen clamp and start filing one end into a smooth curve I took off a little bit of the waste with the bench grinder but you can also hacksaw off one corner that would save a lot of file in time now bevel one side of the cutter the bevel should face the inside of the tool when you're done so be sure you're working on the correct side I used the coarse side of my file to rough it in and then switched to the fine side to smooth things out you're looking for a smooth even bevel across the whole image you can use stones or sandpaper to hone the blade it's a lot like a plain iron work the bevel while rolling blade to get the whole curve of the edge when you feel a burr move on to the next stone pull across the back to flip the bird and then work the bevel again I've got a couple of videos on sharp if you need a refresher the final edge doesn't need to be crazy sharp if it cuts paper you're done let's take the original gauge apart it's just three pieces there's a wedge that holds things together the beam that holds the cutter and the fence which is the tricky part there's a lot going on here so we'll take it one piece at a time I'm cutting my stock from this mystery orange colored wood that's a little bit like mahogany whatever it's hard and close-grained I swear up my piece and get a good face an edge there's a lot of lay out here and you need reference faces I'm tracing the curve off the original gauge just so I remember which side was which I know you don't have a gauge to copy from but that's why there are plans I've even got a little printable template that you can stick on to the wood so you can get that curve no problem the first thing we need to do is cut the mortise that the beam and the cutter are going to sit it I'll strike the line for one side of my mortise but we haven't made a mortise gauge yet so how do we get that second line and make it really accurate no problem grab a half inch chisel place it right on the end of your line and give it a tap now you have the exact width of your mortise set your gauge to the very end of that chisel mark and run the other line you should also trace the whole thing with a knife to make your lines really clear is this your first mortise don't worry it's gonna go just fine start out just inside your knife line we'll cut out most of the waste and then trim the ends right up to the lines point the bevel of your chisel in the direction you're traveling and take little taps as you walk the chisel down the joint when you get close to the end turn around and do the same thing in the opposite direction notice that I'm still staying away from the knife lines on those ends as I come back through and take out another layer of waste at the end I can use my chisel as a depth gauge you can see that I'm halfway through or even more time to flip over on the far side I have the same layout I used a square to carry it over from the other side so it's in the same place I'm just going to do the same thing again small taps and stay away from the knife lines oh hold on there's something cool right there did you see it that's where I broke through to the other side now the hard part is done and it's just cleanup with the waste gone I can get right in those knife lines and chop straight down for a crisp edge I do this on both edges and I'm done this isn't everything you need to know to cut a furniture mortise but it's a really good start I bet you'll get it right on the first try and if you don't make another one and do it again it's not a very difficult piece and you could probably use the practice now that we've cut the big mortise we need to do this little notch right here that's the part that holds the wedge this notch is open on one side and that makes it really easy to chop out I've got my little mortise laid out and I'm gonna thread a coping saw in there and sawed out that inside wall that way it can't break out and give me any surprises I'm using a quarter inch chisel here and the waste falls into the big mortise so this thing goes fast you can see that I have the angle penciled in on the side and that helps me line up the chisel for the last little bit of paring take your time here you need a smooth slope to that wall or your wedge won't work now making the beam is pretty easy just saw it out and plane it down to fit the mortise this is another place to go slow take a few shavings and test it then take a few more you really want to sneak up on a snug fit that still slides in the morris the wedge is little and that makes it hard but there's a simple trick to little parts start with a piece that's much bigger than you need and do all your operations with the final piece still attached to the waist so get your angle rip it to thickness get everything right and then just at the end cross cut off your final wedge this piece is way too small to put in the vise and plane so put your plane in the vise and pull your piece over it this way you can trim it down to a snug fit I know this looks a little dangerous because of the exposed cutter but I do it a lot and I've never hurt myself but I'm also careful so be careful now all the parts are made and they all fit together I can move on to making it all work so here's a little mystery how do you set this cutter into the beam especially across the grain like this it's really a lot trickier than it sounds I mean you'd think you would chisel it out but my finest is way too thick to make an opening that narrow and you know you could saw it out but then how do you get the saw in there in the first place honestly I was a little bit stumped about this until I grabbed my copy of Toshio oddities book on Japanese tools it is a super interesting read and he's got a chapter specifically on these little gauges odete explains that the Japanese craftsman would have drilled a little hole and then used that hole to thread in a coping saw well I couldn't get the pins that hold the blade through the hole that I drilled so I snapped off the end of one of my blades and that finally did the trick I was able to get the blade in there and slowly saw my line then I used a narrow strip of sandpaper to widen it up a little bit and now this was the really slick part I realized that the cutter I made was fine and sharp enough that I could use it to get in there and slice the last few fibers then I just put the cutter over a dark hole and tapped it home perfect installation and a tight friction fit now I can just chisel off the curves on the face i'm using my advanced joiners mallet here you can make one of these for your shop and I've got a video to show you how use your widest chisel here and take light cuts for control this mystery wood is a little chippy so I'm being careful but it's going just fine now I need to cut this curved rabbit and that is no joke even though layout is tricky but here's the secret if you bend the last joint of your middle finger like this the nail and the nub will give you two points of contact with the wood and two points will follow a curved rest that finger against the edge and then set your pencil to the edge of your mortise lock your hand and then run that curve forward when it's good double-check your distance and run the line back to the far end this freehand technique is actually super accurate and it'll give you a great curve I can rip down the rabbits vertical wall with a tenon saw you can see I have tape on the blade for a depth gauge it's really important not to go too deep here and I get the whole kerf established before I saw down to my final depth getting the curved wall roughed out requires a series of straight cuts I start with big chunks and my cuts gets smaller as they get closer to my line then I pair down with a medium chisel notice that I'm not pushing straight down I'm using a diagonal slicing cut it's slow and clean and minimizes the chance of any nasty splitting okay final check against the original did I miss anything edges are straight and clean the mortises are in the right spot that curve looks nice and that rabbit that I just cut so carefully is is mother frustrating isn't it yeah I cut that rabbet on the wrong side just totally wrong and of course the first thing I thought was okay no problem no problem I've messed up before I can fix this I'm just going to UM I'm gonna uh I'm I am gonna make the whole piece over from scratch but you know the second time through I didn't have to film it and I had just made it so I actually remade this piece in like an hour and a half it wasn't a big deal and mistakes keep you humble so that's good right here I've remade the piece and the rabbit is on the correct side this time so I'm shaping the curves in the fence to make it more comfortable to hold to do a curve on a curve like on the lower part you have to have a spokeshave luckily you can make your own for just a couple of dollars and a shop-made spokeshave is a great tool don't be afraid to push it instead of pulling if that's what the grain needs they work both ways last detail you see this little dado right here at the top of the stock well that's important because that lets the cutter slide all the way in flush against the bottom side of the rabbit that means it gets all the way in there and you can cut line in any distance you want even something super thick I sawed down both walls of the dado and I tried to just pop out the waste but that did not feel right too much resistance so I added some relief cuts and went back in with the chisel that's what I was looking for this is no time to blow the whole thing apart by Russia so here is the final tool and I'm gonna be honest this thing was not super simple to make there were some setbacks but I'm really glad I pushed through to the end this is a fantastic tool not only does it look beautiful but it's also really comfortable to grip in the hand and it is super effective to use now if you're used to an English pattern marking gauge you need to learn a little bit about how to adjust these in oh today's book he tells us that the Japanese craftsman would have adjusted this style of gauge with a hammer I usually have a hammer on my bench so that's no big deal what I like to do is keep my index finger on the thick part of the wedge right here that just keeps it in place and then I can tap the beam in either direction to get the setting that I want now if I'm tapping the beam in this direction to make the cutter closer to the fence that tends to loosen that wedge a tiny bit so I will just tap that wedge one time and that keeps everything nicely locked in place now you also might notice that I'm using the cheek of my hammer and that's because if you're adjusting over here you really don't want to go in with the head you might miss the end of the beam and hit the cutter with the hammer instead and that would really ruin the day by using the wide cheek of your hammer you're gonna do less damage to the wooden parts of the gauge and there's no chance they're gonna mess up that cutter by mistake and once you've got everything locked in place this cutter is gonna keep it setting for the whole project that's why I made this tool I want something for what I'm doing like a big casework project I want a cutting gauge so that I can cut all the rabbits and I can leave the gauge at the same setting for the whole project I hate resetting a gauge or losing a setting I'm just gonna leave this and then I've got it for the entire day's work it's gonna be convenient and it's gonna be more efficient now you might want to build one of these I have a fantastic set of plans that you can get they even have a template that you can print out and it's gonna let you get just the perfect shape for this fence piece my plans are always super affordable and you can get them by going to Rex Krueger comm slash store or clicking the link down in the description just like always I have to tell you that these videos are only possible because of my patrons on patreon this is an independent unspun search amp and the only reason I can make money doing this is because my viewers support my work and I do everything I to give them rewards for their support so if you'd like to get early access to videos and a bunch of other thank-yous going over patreon.com slash rex krueger and check out all the rewards i have for the people who make this content possible now this is usually the part of the video where I tell you I'll see you next week with another amazing project but I gotta tell you I'm I'm not sure I'm gonna make it this Creator burnout thing is no joke I am really really tired I'm making these videos while homeschooling my kid and doing a bunch of other stuff and I might need to take a week off so you might see me next week and you might not we'll see but either way I'll see you in two weeks

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 161,228

Keywords: marking, measuring, layout, marking gauge, gauge, woodwork, hand tool, handtool, humans, beginner, diy, easy, free, shop, make, maker, wood, cutting gauge, japanese tool

Id: q6IoKwB-9Tw

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020