Against the clock

[Derek Cohen]

I am curious about the speed at which the pros work. One reference I had was 6 1/2 hours to make a high end drawer. I consider the style of drawers I am currently building to be high-end drawers - that does not imply that I can build them at the level of the pros (I do not), but one measure of improving skills is the efficiency with which one completes these tasks. In other words, could I build a drawer with reasonable speed?

6 1/2 hours includes, I assume, all preparations: thicknessing and dimensioning of boards, finishing and installation of handles. The first two were done earlier. The last will come later.

So I set the target at 4 hours. Not the 20 minutes that Frank Klausz gives himself. Not the 3 minutes which he can dovetail an end. Fours hours because it is about 3:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon, and I have until 7:00 p.m. before I must shut up the shop and get ready to join friends for dinner. Later than that and my wife will have a few choice words for me!

There are about 25 pictures here. I hope the documentation is interesting rather than pedantic. Well, you can always skip to the end! http://www.sawmillcreek.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yellowsmile.gif

The start. 2:54 p.m. Fresh boards.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked1.jpg

15 minutes to mark and saw the tails ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked3.jpg

The shortcuts involve doubling up where ever possible. Gang sawing boards and ditto clearing the waste ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked4.jpg

10 minutes to chisel the waste ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked5.jpg

3:17 p.m. and time to start the half-blind tails.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked6.jpg

How long does it take to mark out with the blue tape? Including applying the tape, transfering the tails to the pin board, and removing the excess blue tape .. 10 minutes ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked7.jpg

Sawing the pins ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked8.jpg

Using the kerf chisel ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked9.jpg

OK, now for something completely different (on a hand tools forum) ... using a power router to remove waste. I was shown this method a year ago by Niel Erasmus. Simply, it is just an extended platform for the router ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked10.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked11.jpg

.. and the use if a 1/8" carbide bit ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked12.jpg

I could have set the fence to run against the boundary of the pins, but decided to end a 1/32" short and finish with chisels ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked13.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked15.jpg

The remainder of the waste was removed ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked16.jpg

This took 12 minutes

[Derek Cohen]

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked19.jpg

The remainder of the waste was removed with chisels ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked20.jpg

So, 23 minutes to remove all the waste from the pin board. I would estimate that this required about 1 1/2 hours with a chisel (emphasizing that I am referring to removing hard, brittle Jarrah).

The tail board goes on without any need for fine tuning ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked21.jpg

Note: Ian asked whether I bevel the tails before fitting. Bevels are cut on both the insides and the ends of the tails to avoid maring the straight edges of the pins.

The second side is repeated - I will spare all the detail here - and this takes about the same time as gthe other side ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked22.jpg

Now the front end of the drawer is complete. It's taken about 2 hours so far. Time for the other end.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked23.jpg

19 minutes to mark, saw and clear the waste from the tails ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked24.jpg

15 minutes to transfer the tails to the pin board, saw and chisel. And then about 30 minutes for the other side (both boards shown here) ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked25.jpg

It takes a couple of minutes to test the fit of all four sides ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked26.jpg

A test fit of the drawer into the drawer space reveals that some tuning it needed.

It was very close but I decided to glue it up as before (in the squaring jig), then tune it once the glue dried after 25 minutes ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked27.jpg

I will write a review of this new small Veritas BU smoother. It is exceptional.

The drawer fits perfectly ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked28.jpg

... but the slips now need to be added (gad, we are cutting it fine for time - Lynndy will kill me if I am late) ...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked29.jpg

The slips attach quickly with rubbing, and we are done!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked30.jpg

Installed with one coat of Danish Oil on the exterior ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Against%20the%20Clock/Clocked31.jpg

I am off for a few beers, and never do I want to work at this pace again!

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jeff Wittrock]

Derek,

Very fun to read!

You are a brave man and far more skilled than I will ever be. I would be afraid to time myself on any project I do at home. I have enough of racing the clock at my paying job, and I would be very embarrassed to admit to myself just how long it takes to do things.

Very nice looking chest by the way.

-Jeff

[Hans Braul]

Well deserved beers Derek! Although we who love to work by hand are by definition not primarily interested in speed, it's interesting to know how quickly such work can be done by someone who knows what he's doing. Thanks for showing this!Hans

[Steve Branam]

Beautiful fit of that tail board, Derek! My wife was asking me today if I have some sort of schedule worked out for the projects I'm working on, breaking down the hours to pace out or anything like that. I told her no, I just do it and it takes as long as it takes. I always have a sort of wishful thinking timeline, but everything inevitably takes longer than I expect. If I start worrying about getting things done by a certain time, I would get rushed and frustrated. So I just go with the flow. One of the benefits of being a hobbyist. Yes, I would starve if I was a professional!

[Mark Baldwin III]

This is a good reminder for someone like me to SLOW DOWN! For whatever reason, I have it stuck in my head that I should be able to build quickly (probably because I've always worked under tight time restraints in my job). I think that is one reason why I make more scrap than anything. Thanks, Derek.

[Derek Cohen]

The point of the exercise was not to work fast, but to work efficiently, and to experience what it means to be continually working. In reality what usually happens is that I work for about an hour, at an unhurried pace, check on the family, slip back into the shop, then after another hour, have a coffee or sharpen a blade .... I try not to hurry - after all this is just a hobby. However I was curious to see how the other half live and work, and to get an estimate of what is reasonable to expect working the methods I do.

There were a number of factors that emerged from this learning experience, and I will comment on them later.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Kim Gibbens]

Nice TAG, nice work.

[John Coloccia]

The point of the exercise was not to work fast, but to work efficiently, and to experience what it means to be continually working. In reality what usually happens is that I work for about an hour, at an unhurried pace, check on the family, slip back into the shop, then after another hour, have a coffee or sharpen a blade .... I try not to hurry - after all this is just a hobby. However I was curious to see how the other half live and work, and to get an estimate of what is reasonable to expect working the methods I do.

There were a number of factors that emerged from this learning experience, and I will comment on them later.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I'm trying to turn my hobby into a business, and I fully understand the time pressure. Doing something for fun is so much different than doing it for a living in terms of discipline...not skill or love but discipline. Like anything else, when you're doing it on a clock, it turns into work BUT that's not necessarily a bad thing. As you get more proficient (because you need to make money) your skill level goes way up and suddenly you find yourself challenged to do high level work quickly....and it becomes fun again! :)

...assuming you like a challenge, that is :) I suspect that's why most of us are doing this.

It's nice to see, though, a real life assessment of what it really takes to do this kind of work. If you're like most people, you're not making drawers day in and day out. If you were (for a living), you would get very good and very fast, but it's a different kind of skill and talent to do this kind of craftsmanship occasionally. Personally, I think it's even harder to do it as a hobbyist because it's easy to sweep mistakes under the rug when we know it's just for ourselves.

Craftsmanship takes time and it's about time someone speaks up for us normal folk to make it OK that our dovetails take longer than 3 minutes!

[Paul Murphy]

Derek, can you tell us more about your "kerf chisel"? I'm guessing you made it yourself, I don't think I've seen one before.

Nice work on the drawer, I know it takes me much longer to do anything approaching that level of quality.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Paul

Here are a few pictures of the Kerf Chisel.

It was made from a stainless steel trowel ..

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chisels/Kerf%20Chisel/Chiselmarkingknife1a-1.jpg

This was ground flat and as thin as a saw plate.


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chisels/Kerf%20Chisel/KerfChisel1.jpg

The end is flat - any bevel would act as a wedge and split the wood along the grain.


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Chisels/Kerf%20Chisel/KerfChisel3.jpg


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/Derek50/Furniture/Military%20Chests/Dovetailing/Dovetailing9.jpg


Regards from Perth

Derek

[phil harold]

Why knot hog out all the wood with the router and clean up with the chisel?