Perfect square cuts with hand tools.

welcome to woodwork for humans the series where we use the most basic tools to make great things out of wood and even though the things we've made so far really are great they could be better I've been hearing from fans of this series and they've been telling me hey Rex it would be great if we could make you know some furniture some boxes gifts things to actually show people and you're a hundred percent right that is definitely the direction this series needs to take but before we can start getting into things like fine furniture we're going to need to improve the quality of our work just a little bit here's the problem saws like this and even like this are really great but they're maybe not as good as we need them to be if you've tried to make good accurate cross cuts with either style of handsaw you might have been frustrated by how difficult it is to get a really accurate cut on a perfect 90 degree at the end of a board you might have thought that was your fault but it's totally not saws even the best hand saws aren't really designed to be used just by themselves for perfect accuracy if you want really great ends and perfect 90-degree angles out of your cuts you're actually gonna need a couple of accessories now the bad news is that tool manufacturers never tell you about these accessories and so you might not have heard of them before but the good news is that simple jigs like a bench hook and a shooting board are cheap and easy to make and they don't take very long in fact we're gonna make both of them right now the first jig that we're gonna make is called a bench hook it's just a simple platform of wood with a fence along the front edge and that fence has a little 90 degree cut out right here and then on the underside it's got a cleat that cleat literally hooks on to the side of your bench which is why it's called the bench hook then I can take a piece of stock I've already drawn a line on it put that piece of stock against the fence and line up my mark with the edge of that fence then when I come in here with a saw that fence is gonna do two things for one thing it's going to encourage the saw to stay straight up and down instead of wobbling the side to side it's also gonna make my saw more likely to perpendicular to the edge of my piece so when I finished making a cut with this jig I'm really likely to get an end that's 90 degrees in both directions and ready for further joinery to make this jig you're just gonna start with any flat and square piece of material plywood works really well for this but I've got some old-time cabinet doors that I salvaged out of the trash and these are perfect to get started on measure and mark my dimensions and cross cut and rip a small rectangle of material the exact dimensions are in the free tip sheet and in the plans and there are links to both of those things down in the description last week I made a vise for the end of my bench it only cost 30 bucks you can watch that video if you're interested but I can use that vise to hold my platform while I use a plane to clean up the edges and ends of the board I can also use it to hold the piece while I cut off the old pegs that are left over from the cabinet then I'll clamp a little scrap of wood into the vise and use that as a planing stop while I plane all the finish off my cabinet door that's gonna let the glue stick a lot more easily now I need to make the fence and a cleat for these I'm gonna use a piece of dimensional pine that I bought from the big-box store this piece is really good because it's very flat square and straight when you're making little appliances like this it's a great idea to start out with machined stock it's gonna make it much simpler to end up with a square and accurate jig in the end I'll use the width of my platform to mark out my crosscut and then carry that line over the edge with my shop made square then I'll mark Center on the piece and rip it in half I can't make that hole rip in the vise but if I loosen the piece and grab it with the corner of the vise I have all the clearance I need to finish off the rip once I'm done ripping this piece in half I'm gonna have one face that's rough from the saw I'm gonna find one of the good factory faces mark that with an F then I'll check both of my ends with a square find the one that's the nicest 90 degrees and Mark that with an arrow now this piece which is going to become the fence needs to be about an inch shorter than the width of my platform so I'm gonna mark and cross cut that off of the non-square and now I'm gonna glue my fence to the front edge of my board I want the F facing towards me and the arrow I drew pointing to the right with the fence laid out this way the ragged face for my cut is facing up where it's not going to interfere with anything to get an accurate joint I'll clamp one end double-check that the fence is square to the right edge of my platform and then clamp the other end I'll let the glue tack up and then flip the whole thing over and clamp it upside down to my bench then I'll countersink drill holes and drive in screws if you need to countersink or twist bits for your brace I've got links to all these tools down in the description I do one fastener leaving one of the clamps in place and I only remove the last clamp when I've got two fasteners and I know the fence isn't gonna move and it's gonna stay perpendicular now I'm gonna repeat this whole process to make the cleat that goes on the underside of my bench hook I'll identify a good face and a good end this time I want the end facing to the left I'm also gonna place this cleat a couple of inches up from the back edge of the board that's gonna make way more sense in just a second just like I did before I'll glue clamp countersink drill and add fasteners just like the fence this cleat needs to be Square to the edge once you get the fasteners installed you can pretty much use it right away now that we finished making our bed shook we need to learn how to use it don't worry it's not complicated we're gonna hook the cleat against the edge of our bench like this and then I've got this piece of material and let's say I've got to cut off this end here I've made a mark across the face and then used a square to carry that mark around the edge that way when the piece is sitting in my bench hook I've got marks on two adjacent faces and that's gonna make it much easier for me to create a good perpendicular cut now when I come in with my saw sometimes I can get that saw right against the fence in the beginning but sometimes I can't but in both cases the bench hook is still useful even if your piece of work is larger or broader and you can't engage with the fence at the beginning of the cut the fence is still just visually extend the line of your cut forward it's going to give you sort of a bigger target to aim for with your saw in this case I can rest my saw against the side of the fence so I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna start making my cut once I've got my cut established I'm gonna drop my hand a little bit and work on both edges of the cut at the same time I want to cut across the top and down the side simultaneously because working on two cuts that way is gonna keep my cut more perpendicular at this point I might pause and just check how everything's going right now everything's fine but if I noticed that my saw was a little bit away from my fence I would take the thumb of my other hand and then just pull my work against that fence really quickly that's gonna help correct any bit of wobble that I have in the cut now finish it off here's my cut you can see visually that is very clean and very square looking and if I take a square and check it it's pretty good it's not perfect but it's good and we're gonna make it more perfect with the jig that we're gonna build a little later in the video now at this point you might be a little bit confused about what's going on you might say wait a second Rex what are you doing using that fancy saw that's not one of the woodwork for humans tools what are you doing sitting at the bench facing it instead of sitting on the bench like we usually do well I wanted to show you how this J is typically used with a traditional western saw but I know that we don't work with this tool and we don't typically work in this configuration in this video since although you easily can I'm just sitting on a milk crate it's perfectly comfortable let's switch our position and I'll show you how you can use our normal tools and our normal position with this exact same shape so now I'm sitting at the end of my bench with my legs on either side this is how I've been using the bench throughout this series in this configuration there's no way to use the bench hook tradition there's nothing for it to hook on to but I've modified this design just a little bit so that you can flip it over and rotate it 90 degrees and then your old fence becomes a cleat to hold it to and the piece that was functioning as the cleat now becomes your fence this way you can hook it over the end of the bench like this and pull it towards yourself that pulling action is really important because we're gonna be making all of our cuts with our inexpensive pull stroke reel the saw will take our piece of stock and put it on the opposite side of the fence and the pulling action of this saw is only gonna pull that stock more tightly against the bench hook and pull the bench hook more tightly against the bench itself now using this saw is a little bit more difficult than a traditional back saw but not very much here's what I figured out you still want to line up your mark with the fence just like you would do it and then come in with your cross cut teeth and I usually take my index finger and I use it to back the blade up right against the fence and apply a little pressure as I begin my cut once I get my cut established I can switch to a more traditional detail cut with my finger up on the spine of this saw I can pull the piece of wood in tight against the fence and finish the cut off just like before I've got a nice 90-degree end it was easy to cut I've been learning a lot about using this inexpensive real basalt from the comments I've been getting from my viewers a lot of you know more about these tools than I do so keep giving me pieces of advice I really appreciate it the bench hook is really effective for making good cross cuts but it's got another trick up its sleeve you can also use the bench hook for an operation called shooting that's where you use hand plane against the side of a jig to really dial in the end of a board and make a 90-degree cut as square as possible here's how it works I've got this piece of stock that I already crosscut using the bench hook and the end is good but it could be even better so I'm gonna take my bed rook and flip it upside down and put it against the edge of my bench like this now my cleat from the underside has become a fence and this side right here can guide my hand plane so I'll put my piece of work up against the fence with the ragged part sticking out just a little bit then I'll take my hand planer and slide it against the piece of work cutting against the end that's not square [Music] after just a couple of strokes I've cleaned up all the saw marks on the edge and it's much closer to being a perfect 90 degrees now of course I'm sitting facing the bench again and I might be just working straddling the bench working off the end well that's no problem with the way I've designed this bench hook you can just flip it around this way put your piece of work against the fence like this and then all you have to do is use your plain left-handed which is really not a big deal and you can pull it towards yourself and do that same shooting operation and get a better joint now you can do some pretty decent shooting against a bench hook but it's not the best you can possibly get for that we're gonna build a dedicated shooting board and that's gonna make our shooting operations as accurate and easy as they can possibly be making the shooting board is the same basic process as making the bed shook you're gonna need a flat material to use as a platform I lay mine out with my large try square and then cut it out you're also going to need a raised central section that your stock can sit on I'm using this poplar craft board from the big-box store it's already the right thickness about 3/8 of an inch and it's got straight sides and ends it's really idiot-proof now I've got a bench hook that I can use to make preparing my components much easier I cut an accurate 90 degree angle on the end and then flip it over and shoot it even more square I'm also gonna need a section of fence material that's the same width as my craft board or maybe just a tiny bit wider I'll use my bench hook to cut that component to I'll put my raised central section in the middle of my platform and trace both sides to make it easier to glue down the glue joint here doesn't have to be super strong so I'm just gonna use some spray on super 77 adhesive I line it up with the trace marks that I made and then press it down with firm hand pressure this joint is pretty much good to go as soon as I've got it on there I don't need to wait for it to dry I'll take my fence piece and make sure it's totally perpendicular to the edge of my raised section then I'll glue it down flip it over and add fast now I can trim off any overhang from the back end of the raised section I'm also gonna need a cleat which I'll attach a few inches back from the rear edge once everything is assembled you can put your plane on the track and shoot the fence until it's parallel to the edge of the raised section and everything runs nice and smoothly when people use a shooting board for the first time they're often a little bit confused about why the plane doesn't cut along this track here and constantly chew it up well that's simply standard bench plane irons don't go all the way to the edge the mouth only extends most of the way across the plane and there's a little space right here where the cutter doesn't reach when you actually put the plane on the shooting board it will take a couple of very light shavings off this raised section the first couple of times you use it then it'll stop cutting and it'll never cut that way again using the board is really simple especially if you've already shot on the bench shot take your piece of stock put your jointed edge against the fence give it a nice firm pressure put the plane against it and just shoot along it until you get a nice consistent edge I broke off a little splinter on that one but overall that is a nice clean 90 degree I'm pretty happy with the way this tool is working now I'm again I'm sitting at my bench in a way that I don't usually work but if I'm working off the end of the bench it's no problem I built this board with two tracks so that I can just flip it around hook it over the back edge position my stock and then I can lay my plane on the shooting board like this and use it in pull mode it's a piece of cake or if I were using a japanese-style tool that pulled instead of pushed I could just always use the shooting board in this position it's really easy I've also positioned to the cleat a few inches from the end and that just makes the board a little bit more convenient to use when I'm using it in push mode that keeps the end from being all the way off the side of the bench where it's sort of difficult to reach when I'm using it in full mode that keeps the fence over here a little bit further away from my body when you're working really close into yourself you don't have a lot of strength but when you're working further 'we like this more strength and dexterity in your arm I tried a couple different locations for this cleat while I was prototyping this shooting board and this was the one that worked best for me but you can put it wherever is convenient for you making your bench hook and your shooting board is not complicated you could probably knock them both out in a day but once they're done you shouldn't expect them to work perfectly right out of the gate they're probably gonna need a little bit of fine-tuning for instance a lot of the time when I make bench hooks and I start making test cuts the cuts kind of veer off a little bit down at the bottom and when I look in and check out my fence I often find that I have a little too much material right on this lower edge I'll check it with one of these little machinists squares these are useful and inexpensive I'll link to one down in the description and I can just sneak in here and see what's going on and it's obvious you can see the square rocking a little bit there is a tiny bit too much material at the bottom of this fence that's no problem I'm gonna take my broadest chisel and just slowly pare down that end grant taking little slices and checking it off in with the square it is not a big deal to dial this in until it is perfectly perpendicular and then this jig is gonna work a lot better I've got a similar problem with the shooting board that I make as I slide the plane around it tends to bump out right here where it gets to the fence and the problem is there's a little bit too much material down here it's hitting that lip at the side of the planes mouth and causing the plane to deflect how it worked a little bit the solution is the same thing I'm just gonna come in with a chisel and gently pare away that material I might even undercut it a little bit so that I have perfect clearance for the plane that way the plane can slide through true-up this edge and shoot pieces accurately from here on out the problems I'm describing here aren't the only possible problems there could be all sorts of little things the matter with your bench hook and shooting board and what you have to do is just use your perception and your common sense to address what's going on and come up with a solution I am sure that everybody watching this video can make a good bench hook and a good shooting board with a reasonable amount of effort you might have to make them more than once so what it's woodworking it's fun just like with all my videos I've got a free tip sheet and a set of plans that you can check out and that links to both of those down the description and before I go I always have to thank my patrons on patreon who are making these videos so much better for instance this week I built the shooting board and bench hook that you see here and then a couple days ago I built two more these were the prototypes and prototyping is a whole new thing for me in this channel I used to just sort of figure out what I was gonna do turn on the cameras and let roll and sometimes that did not work out but because of the support that I have from my patrons I can now take a day or a half day and prototype the entire project before I even turn the camera on that means my videos are quicker and more efficient to make and I'm a lot happier with the finished product that prototyping time is only possible because of the support that I get from my patrons if you'd like to support independent unspun sir DIY content like this go on over to patreon comm rex Krueger and check out the exclusive content and early access rewards that are only available to my patrons and even if you can't become a patron I just love having people watching these videos really appreciate my viewers who recently hit fifty thousand subscribers and that's amazing that's like a lot of subscribers so to everybody who made that possible thank you so much I'll see you next week

Channel: Rex Krueger

Views: 273,697

Rating: 4.8970399 out of 5

Keywords: hand tool, handtool, wood, woodwork, bench hook, shooting board, saw, cut, 90, 90 degrees, square, joint, joinery, shop, shop life, tool, tool making, diy, make, maker

Id: HsGrAqSB5Cc

Length: 19min 28sec (1168 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 07 2019