Paul Sellers | Splitting and Paring Tenons

you know a lot of times we talk about tenon saws and of course the tenon saw was created to cut Tenon's it cuts in a straight line but 90% of my Tenon's I actually split and depending on the wood I look at the grain and I try to determine which way the grain is oriented before I split so I've got three different woods here so pili is notoriously bad for splitting it has very undulating grain within its structure pine of course is usually easy depends on whether there's a nut in there and oak splits very easily and that's how I just made an old chest and I used a splitting technique on most of mine I want to show you what I look for when I'm splitting when I'm splitting a start away from my line usually about halfway and I pop you can see how that grain is splitting away from the line here so I'm going over to this side now and that one is actually splitting straight so that means I can split right up to my line probably so I'm going to go right on to my gauge line and I'm going to partially split like that and you can see that grain is splitting away I'm going to turn this around so the camera can see it on this side let's see what happens over a three inch width so I go in here right onto my gauge line like this watch here this side is splitting exactly to my line so I could I know that somewhere in the middle this is likely to change back to this side and now I'm going to take that midsection so I'm going to take the whole of this outside section off so I can look into migraine there you go so I can go directly on here split split and I can take that off completely now I could either continue splitting down here like this or I could go into my vise like this using the double handed method like this I go straight on to the gauge line on this side into that gaze line and then with the heel of my hand I just pop it so I've got a nice flat start and then 200 pair away at the face of my tenon the other side if you remember was rising up a little bit so I'm going to how can I do that so you can see I'll stay up there I can work this way start from the outside when you get a little bit of resistance you start on the outside like this and move over to the right and that's how you split your tenon it's much faster now obviously if you remember before one side of this split straight the other didn't you go to the other side of your tenant pop it that's working parallel now on this side if you remember it was leaning out this way so if I was to split again this could lean into the face of the tenon I'm hoping it will so you can see what I mean see it's moving slightly in towards my tenon so I'm omit a little bit more reluctant so I'm going to split this side here here and I think you'll be able to see here this is fairly parallel to the surface so I can actually split all the way down this one without going into the face of the tenon this one I can't do can't do all of it but I can start away from it just 1/16 because I can gauge the grain orientation took out some of that waste wood as you can see there so to gain the same level I go right in onto this here split and split and just use the heel of my hand just to take off the bolt of the waste and now I can pair the whole of this face all the way across just to take off the high spots and that's how you would split an old tenon to near perfection there all right so that's an oak tenon let's see what happens with the pine again I do exactly the same technique split and watch my direction split now this one went towards my shoulder as you can see so that gives me a signal now on this side let's see what happens on this side it's moving away this side is parallel so I've got the same situation I had with the oak so I can split all the way down on this one but I can I can do it on this one watch this now let me take that middle bit out a little bit just get rid of some other ways now go on here and instead of allowing the wood just to split like this keep control of your chisel with your left hand and chopped to you gauge line then overlap your chisel on the cut you just made control your chisel and go down to your line so you've got one side almost completed then you compare cut the surface of this you can see this is you know in oak and time it was very comparable it was no harder in oak than it is in this pine so now let's see what happens on this side you can see this was cutting towards that line so I'm reading the grain which is so critical for as woodworkers get rid of that extra waste in on your line in on your line and be prepared for this last bit because you're going to have to pare across because you can't split cut so you come in here on the low spot and move towards the high spot by pairing just hand pressure like this and that's how I cut ninety percent of my talons now I've picked a piece of I picked a piece of sapele because this is notorious this this may not do what I want it to do let's take a look it's not a guarantee I'm going to split again I'm coming away from my line half the distance it's doing exactly what I didn't want it to do this is splitting towards the line again here watch this so it's actually going within the parameters because I started away which is great so let's see what happens in the middle so there is the the uneven surface I can't get exactly what I wanted there a lot more resistance here turns more resistance to my chisel this double-handed method like this gripping your chisel is short stabbing movements now I get resistance when I get resistance how you start over on one side and use half the witches or wedge and I'll move over like this so I not to just burst through here just come in here and you'll get a clean turn and cheap one last method that I want to show you if you have got wiry grain let's say this is very wiry just take the heel of your hand go halfway down 1/8 from the top in and pop it with the heel of your hand if you if you are not used to this just go in with this with the chip with the chisel hammer and go across this way I'm going to continue with my healer mahan method because it works well for me now watch here instead of sawing go to chisel I'm going to go down to my registration line here I go very carefully go on the outside like that keep working down that surface now I'll see you and tip normally I would work from both sides so it down a little bit more here you can see a lot of resistance so come out so I'll lower the point of my chisel down to my surface and then it's just clean up after that now I'm getting down to your final depth like this and if you're uncertain and you don't want to burst all the way through you could work from the other side minded just fine so I've got a perfectly flush tenon and I'm ready to fit that to the mortise hole that's how I split my Tenon's accurately to get the exact size I want

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 158,109

Rating: 4.9606004 out of 5

Keywords: Paul Sellers, tenon, mortise and tenon, split a tenon, woodworking, hand tool woodworking

Id: H3VTOpumi58

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 15 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/mollythecat]

awesome content and asmr-quality sound. :)

[u/sendmorekittens]

I love all of his videos...

How does a guy in an apt get started in woodworking?

[u/jayman1466]

Is this method preferable to just sawing down your tenon? It seems more cumbersome, if anything.

[u/iAboveTheClouds]

Incredibly satisfying. Thanks for sharing.

[u/SpacePineapple]

Dat Chisel. Dayum.