Bench hook Saw Guide

[Tom Blank]

I was just watching a Matt Kenney video on Fine Wood Working on making a couple of boxes. At about 3 minutes into episode 1, he uses a bench hook with an approximately 2" square piece across the front edge that has kerf guides at 90* and both left and right 45*. The kerfs are very thin to match up to a back saw that he uses for crosscutting.

Matt may very well have cut those kerfs in place. I'm not that good. How else might that bench hook be cut and assembled and maintain decent accuracy? I'm about to attempt my first boxes (for granddaughters) and Matt's bench hook looks like a very useful addition for my bench.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/56997/two-ways-to-build-a-box

Thanks,

Tom

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

You can do something like knife a line with a square, and carefully chisel a bit of a "v" shaped groove on the waste side of your line to give your saw a good starting point. You could take a small square offcut, clamp it on the fence, ensuring it's square, and slowly cut holding the plate against it. I suppose there's other ways.

Matt Kenney did have an article in Fine Woodworking a while back (#214) He builds the hook and shooting board shown in that box video in that articles. He says he doesn't worry about getting the kerfs perfect, just close - you'll be cleaning up most of those edges with the shooting board anyway. From the article, it looks like he used the "knife a line, chisel a guide trench" technique.

With a decent saw and good technique, if you get started right, the line should follow pretty well.

I've never really tried a bench hook with those kerf slots - I've just always gone with an open end.

[Tom Blank]

Thank you Joshua.

I dug around on the FWW site and finally found a .pdf showing Matt making the bench hook. I would not likely have found that without your tip. That's an iteresting point that the bench hook only needs to be "close" as the final fit is done with a shooting board. I also found Matt's recommendation on planes for a shooting board. Guess I need to add a shooting board and a low-angle jack plane to my neander arsenal.

So much to learn (so many tools to buy) ...

Tom

[Jim Koepke]

My take on this is bench hooks and other "shop helpers" are the first tasks taught in schools or to apprentices long ago to build their skills and confidence.

If one has a miter box the kerfs on the back fence would be easy to make. Doing it by hand following Joshua's suggestions would be the best way to insure success.

jtk

[Bill Houghton]

I made a miter block - similar concept to what you're describing here - some years back for a very small picture frame I was building. Very careful layout, very careful cutting, holding my breath during much of the cutting; it wasn't hard, and the resulting miters were (and are) tight.

One of the lessons I've finally learned is how much cutting on two lines contributes to accuracy: lay out the desired cut on both edge and face, and then cut a little on the edge along the layout line, then on the face, then back to the edge, back to the face, etc. I just finished making the frieze boards for the chimney on our current remodel, and was able to cut pretty accurate 45 degree miters across the width of 11" boards, getting into the right rhythms after completely messing up the first two.