Machine cut joints....imporantance of cleaning up with hand tools??

[George Farra]

Good Morning All,

I watch a couple of woodworking shows and like anything in life there are always differences in how things get done. Tommy McDonald emphasizes that machine cut joints need to be cleaned up with hand tools yet other show hosts do not.

So, is this one of those things where if the joint will be seen clean it up where it wont don't bother?? I can see the benefit of cleaning up a half lap, which will be seen, but not a mortise and tenon if the joint fits snug off the machines.

Thoughts??

Thanks

George

[Mel Fulks]

I can only guess he wants the joints to look entirely hand cut. I don't think its a good idea.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

If I'm cutting joints with a machine, they're ready to go right off of the machine. What exactly needs "cleaning" up"?

[Stan Calow]

If you're talking specifically about M/T joints, I guess I have never made one that did not need tweaking with hand tools. Standard advice I've seen is always cut the tenons oversize and tweak to fit the mortise. But I also have never gotten a nice clean mortise (like you see on TV) using a hollow-chisel mortiser. They've always needed to be cleaned up by hand chiseling. The TV programs edit out a lot of the uninteresting details.

If you're talking about joints in general, I think power tools get you most of the way there, but the hand work finishes the job. The better your technique with machines, the closer you get to not needing hand tools.

[glenn bradley]

There are some machine cuts that leave a less than ideal surface. When cutting a rabbet with the tablesaw as two perpendicular cuts as opposed to using a dado stack I will sometimes leave a little ridge in the rabbet that I clean up with a shoulder plane for example. The fact that I can quickly clean it up with a shoulder plan may actually make me a little casual now and then. Unlike epoxies, PVA glues work best on smooth mating surfaces. That being said, I'll echo what Stan says in that proper machine setup and careful execution will generally leave surfaces well 'within spec' for gluing (IMHO). I do not build with any 'show' surfaces coming right off the machine but, joinery is a different matter. Different strokes . . .

[Jim Becker]

There is always a need to remove machining marks from wood components...saw blade scratches, planer/jointer knife marks, etc. How you do it is up to you. In some cases, using properly sharpened hand tools appropriate for the given job can provide a superior surface as compared to sanding, but subsequent finishing steps many or many not call out the benefit depending on choices that are made.

And since there is a learning curve to using hand tools (including the proper sharpening piece), unless one has the time to invest in that extra work, sanding may be the better choice at a given moment.

Relative to M&T, refining the fit with hand tools is a given...but while a snug fit is important, there's an advantage to an "imperfect surface" in the joint relative to glue-up. IMHO. Modern glues (PVA and it's variants) penetrate the wood for a strong joint once cured so a super slick surface might not be best for that initial penetration, especially on certain species of wood. What you actually want is "perfect shoulders" and what's inside is less critical if it fits properly.

[Alan Bienlein]

I only ever use a hand tool on a joint only if it needs some tweeking to fit otherwise it goes straight to glue up. The only exception is hot hide glue joints. We always make sure to have a smooth plane cut surface as the hide glue likes it much better.

[Frederick Skelly]

I find that my machine made dados fit better when I use a router plane to make sure I have a consistent depth. I tried a machine made mortise this morning and see some value in trimming up the very bottom of the mortise with a chisel. Works for me, anyway.
Fred

[George Farra]

thanks everyone. For me i seem to mess things up when I bring a hand tool to the party, but that is primarily due to a learning curve. I get the whole need to use hand tools to tweak parts to fit correctly. what confused me was the need for smooth mating surfaces on joints that would never been seen like a M/T joint. I cut my tongues oversized and fit the part, but I have never worried about the mortise walls.

I guess I never considered a shoulder plane to clean up a rabbet since I use a router rather than the TS. All good stuff here. Thanks for taking the time to reply

Regards

George

[Lee Schierer]

Back before I got my tenon cutting jig, I would nibble or use a dado blade to make the face cuts on half lap joints to remove the saw marks. Most dado sets cut slightly deeper with the two blades than the chippers do so some clean up would appear to be needed. With the tenon jig I make a single face cut then remove the rest of the material with the tenon jig and a ripping blade. This leaves a perfect glue surface. Router cut dadoes are usually good to go right after machining. Machine cut dovetails require little if any clean up if your set up is right.

[pat warner]

Router cut? Then don't re-tool those surfaces.
If your fixturing is on the money, and it should be (or why bother?),
then leave the work alone.
Good cutters with solid fixturing yield the best of joinery. (http://patwarner.com/images/dovetailed-lap.jpg)

[Brian Tymchak]

I would think that from a "strength-of-joint" perspective, the higher amount of mating surface in an M&T joint the stronger it will be when glued. If the walls of the mortise or the faces of the tenon are milled haphazardly, that would lead to less mating surface and a weaker joint, IMO.

[George Farra]

thanks everyone. regards, george

[Robert Engel]

I've found the time it takes fiddling around to get an exact cut right off the machine is better spent fine tuning the joint with hand tools.

I can do them faster and much more accurately.

That's how I do it, others go strictly with machines.

Find what works for you. A lot of guys don't want to have several hundred $$ invested in hand planes.

But I find them worth their weight in gold!

It depends on your philosophy about ww'ing.

I decided a few years ago I wanted to be a craftsman, not a "wood machinist".

[Mel Fulks]

Robert, good points. I'm used to using machines to often make stuff in quantity ,with plenty of scrap to get machines exactly right. When using machines to make single pieces of furniture it might well be good policy to fine tune by hand instead of using inordinate time and material to adjust machine.

[Art Mann]

I decided a few years ago I wanted to be a craftsman, not a "wood machinist".

That is quite an odd comment considering this is the power tools forum. Are you saying that people who use power tools aren't craftsmen? I suppose people from the stone age who used flint to shape wood would call you a "wood machinist" because you use steel tools. You are choosing an arbitrary time in the history of woodworking equipment (19th century) and defining that as the time past which woodworkers aren't craftsmen. What is your reason for doing that?

[Pat Barry]

Good Morning All,

I watch a couple of woodworking shows and like anything in life there are always differences in how things get done. Tommy McDonald emphasizes that machine cut joints need to be cleaned up with hand tools yet other show hosts do not.

So, is this one of those things where if the joint will be seen clean it up where it wont don't bother?? I can see the benefit of cleaning up a half lap, which will be seen, but not a mortise and tenon if the joint fits snug off the machines.

Thoughts??

Thanks

George
I used my dado blade to make some half lap joints and found that the surface quality was not adequate to make strong joints. The joints were much stronger when I took the extra time to clean up the dado tracks with a chisel or sandpaper (removing the ridges). This allowed the two half laps to sit with more shared surface area and this then resulted in stronger glued up joints. Note - Its a misconception to think that glue is stronger than wood - its not. A proper glue joint made with adequate glue and two well mated surfaces IS stronger than the wood itself in many instances.

[Michael Moscicki]

That is quite an odd comment considering this is the power tools forum. Are you saying that people who use power tools aren't craftsmen? I suppose people from the stone age who used flint to shape wood would call you a "wood machinist" because you use steel tools. You are choosing an arbitrary time in the history of woodworking equipment (19th century) and defining that as the time past which woodworkers aren't craftsmen. What is your reason for doing that?

I understood his post to mean that he uses power tools to cut the wood as close as can be expected and then uses planes and other hand tools to get it exact. I guess hybrid woodworking is what that would be called. I think what he's trying to say is that he goes the extra mile on his projects.

I agree on needing to clean mortises from a hollow chisel mortiser with a chisel. It's unavoidable.

[Brian Holcombe]

There is a lot of convienience in hand tools. Consider that you can apply a flat and smooth surface to a piece at nearly any stage of the build. If you are reliant upon machine tools than you must use a sander to finish anything that is assembled to finish the surface, not ideal for critical surfaces that you would like to remain true.

As a practical example; I apply a tiny chamfer on nearly every surface with a chamfer plane that I have setup and ready to go. It leaves a finished chamfer that to produce with a router table or hand held setup would be slower and offer more potential for damaging the work and require finish sanding which will break the crisp lines.

I disgress, so rather than thinking either or, think in terms of both. I don't have shop capacity for machine tools, but those who do are not damaged by proficiency in both.

For the hobbyists it also means that you can minimize reliance upon needing professional grade machine tools. Consider that you can do things like create moldings with a set of planes that will cost much less than a shaper and bits.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I think both woodworking machines and hand tools have their place in the woodworking world.

While you may prefer one method over another and have reasons to justify your preference, that doesn't make it the right method for someone else. For anyone to suggest one method is more righteous than the other is just arrogant and narrow minded IMO.

I use both machines and hand tools. Generally speaking, woodworking machines can mass produce faster than hand tools. So if I have a bunch of tenons or mortises, for example, the machines are quicker even if you have to touch the results up with hand tools. The white oak swing I built for my wife required 51 (IIRC) mortise and tenons. BTW, when I take time to set up the mortiser correctly, I don't have to touch up the mortises with a chisel. I did the majority of the 51 mortises in a few hours. After having to repair a few tenons that were cut too thin, I now set the dado blade awfully close for a proper tenon thickness, check the fit, final trim the majority of the planned thickness error with a sharp low angle block plane and finish the fit to the shoulder with a sharp chisel.

Someday I hope to spring for a good shoulder plane.