Have one and a half hour to spare?

[Kees Heiden]

Last night I was especially lazy after the usual noncense at the day job, and was browsing around my favorite woodworking channels on the Internet when I happened onto this: http://www.renaissancewoodworker.com/resawing-by-hand/

I can heartilly recommend watching this video. Most impressing was how Shannon was casually resawing a 9" wide board while talking and doing like he is used to do in his video's. It looked like fun. I allready have some leads out to see where I can snap up a suitable length of spring steel.

[george wilson]

WAYYYYY too talkey. He spent a full 15 minutes talking at first, then, used his rip saw to saw 1/8" off to the side of his guide line. This was supposedly to accurately guide the resaw into the center of the piece to be resawn. I gave up at that point. I didn't feel like listening to more talk.

I did love the iron work on his resaw saw. We used a very similar one in the harpsichord film, except it was original. Our saw had a heavier frame, and each end of our old saw's blade was embedded in a folded piece of iron that must have been nearly 1/8" thick. I don't know why that was necessary. Our blade had about 3 teeth per inch, but our original blade was only about .030" thick, or so. Left a much thinner kerf. Marcus and I sawed the veneer for the inside of the spinet's case with it. We did not use starting guide cuts, though I would recommend them, especially if you are trying to use that saw by yourself! At least use them accurately!!!

The ironwork on the saw in the video was very nicely sawn and bent into nice curves and spirals. If I made a saw like his,I'd use that idea. I would not make my saw from poplar, though. His smaller saw was made from a hard, heavy African wood. Better all around. Stronger, and the weight would help the saw to keep sawing better.

[Prashun Patel]

Shannon is one of the guys on wood talk. I have come to love that podcast. I have asked him questions directly and find him knowledgeable (at least relative to me ;)) and very amiable and helpful.

His 'step away' technique for sawing straight was particularly helpful.

Like Marc spagnuolo his strength is his ability to teach.

[David Eisenhauer]

3 TPI does not play around, does it. This monster eats wood and, what would appear to be a somewhat unwieldy operation, in fact appears to be fairly straight forward operation.

[Kees Heiden]

Yes I was surprised how easy going it looks. Resawing with my handsaw it sweaty and slow work.

[Normand Leblanc]

Yes I was surprised how easy going it looks. Resawing with my handsaw it sweaty and slow work.

He's using his body quite a lot and not so much his arms. Make sense to me. On the other hand he doesn't look to be very accurate and that means a lot of planing after.

[Simon MacGowen]

WAYYYYY too talkey. He spent a full 15 minutes talking at first, then, used his rip saw to saw 1/8" off to the side of his guide line. This was supposedly to accurately guide the resaw into the center of the piece to be resawn. I gave up at that point. I didn't feel like listening to more talk..

That's his style. If one can stand Charles Neil, one can accept Shannon's long-winded videos. Not meaning to be disrespectful, I stay away from his videos because I don't want to go through them to find the segments that matter. I remember watching one of his earlier videos that was about 30 minutes long on a subject matter than could well be covered in 5 minutes or 8 tops -- no exaggeration here. That was the last time I clicked on any of his videos.

Rob Cosman is in the same boat, partly because he does not edit any of this online videos. Someone told me it took over 100 episodes (half an hour each) for him to complete a project. Two of his DVDs that I have watched-- professionally shot and edited -- on the other hand are an entirely different animal, far better than many of Chris Schwarz's DVDs out there. David Charlesworth is a skilled woodworker and teacher, but I can't stand the pace of his DVDs either -- I fell asleep every time I watched one of his. Different strokes for different folks, of course.

Frank Klausz, Paul Sellers, Norm Abram and Tage Frid made clear and to-the-point presentations in their videos, with no or minimal fillers. Theirs are well edited but no critical information is lost. I avoid all podcasts or woodworking talk shows including the Fine Woodworking or 360 Woodworking as, by their very nature, include a lot of time wasters.

Simon