How would you do this?

[Tom Jones III]

I'm migrating from the power world to neander ... the more my hand tool skills grow, the faster I am moving. I'm not sure the best way to make this cut. I have a piece of maple that is 8" wide and 2" thick. I need to cut a rabbet across the grain, all 8" long. The rabbet will be 1.25" deep and 1.25" across. How would you do it?

[Archie England]

Score the edges the rabbet with a marking knife then chop out the 8 inch length with the appropriate chisel (for me, 1"). Once the rabbet trough is roughly defined, finish out with a router plane or a large shoulder plane. The walls should not need work if you have scored well with your marking knife. Alternatively, I sometimes establish the walls with my back saw, then chisel out the waste before finishing with my LV router plane and/or my large LN shoulder plane. A shoulder plane works delightfully in the trough but offers less control for depth concerns.

Of course, if the rabbet is close enough to an edge, you might do okay with using a well-honed plow plane. Sometimes I struggle with butchering the side wall with the knicker (cause I'm pushing too hard to try to stay on track).

I'm sure others will have better suggestions.

Have fun (BTW, I've been making the same transition)

[Dave Parkis]

There are a couple of options that I can think of. One would be a rabbeting plane if you can find one wide enough, a rabbeting jack plane would probably be most efficient. Another would be to saw most of the work. I'd clamp a batten to the wood and saw down the 1 1/4" on each end and then put the board into my vise for the other cuts. HTH

[lowell holmes]

I would define the walls with a tenon saw and then chop the waste out with a sharp chisel.

[Chet R Parks]

I'd carefully saw the shoulders, then 2 or 3 additional saw cuts in the dado to make it easy to chisel out most of the waste and finish up with a router plane.

[Tom Jones III]

Thanks for the ideas. Sawing then cleanup seems to make sense to me, I'll give that a try.

[James Waldron]

I'm migrating from the power world to neander ... the more my hand tool skills grow, the faster I am moving. I'm not sure the best way to make this cut. I have a piece of maple that is 8" wide and 2" thick. I need to cut a rabbet across the grain, all 8" long. The rabbet will be 1.25" deep and 1.25" across. How would you do it?

A rabbet (rebate) across the grain is called a fillister, to get technical, and is typically cut with a moving fillister plane, if one is available. A Stanley 45 or 55 combination plane (or the new Veritas conbination plane will do the job. Old wooden moving fillister planes are hard to find in good condition and the good ones are fearsome expensive these days. With a batten to serve as a fence and good knife wall cuts, a rebate plane, eg., Stanley #10 or 10-1/2 can handle the job. Smaller rebate planes are likely to be problematic. A better approach would be to use a plough plane to make a groove to define the rebate wall and then chisel out the waste at the edge. If you use a relatively narrow groove and let the chisel do the bulk of the work, it could be reasonably quick to do. Sawing the shoulder and removing the waste with a chisel is much the same if your saw work is steady enough for the cut. Finish work with a router plane applies to all the saw and chisel techniques.

Good luck and post pictures.

[Pat Barry]

I'd carefully saw the shoulders, then 2 or 3 additional saw cuts in the dado to make it easy to chisel out most of the waste and finish up with a router plane.
This is how I would do it also if I had to do it. What I would ask myself though, is there another way, ie: do I really need a dado that deep and wide? What is the purpose?

[steven c newman]

There was a plane made for this sort of work....Stanley No. 78.....

[Jim Koepke]

I'm migrating from the power world to neander ... the more my hand tool skills grow, the faster I am moving. I'm not sure the best way to make this cut. I have a piece of maple that is 8" wide and 2" thick. I need to cut a rabbet across the grain, all 8" long. The rabbet will be 1.25" deep and 1.25" across. How would you do it?

My guess is since you are in the process of migration you may not have a lot of the various tools for the methods mentioned.


Thanks for the ideas. Sawing then cleanup seems to make sense to me, I'll give that a try.

Since this is on the edge and only 8" long, if the piece is not too long it may be just as easy to saw both edges of the rabbet. Then it could be cleaned up with a rabbet plane if you have one or a chisel.

Chet also mentions multiple saw cuts in one direction, this might be the easiest way if you would have difficulty cutting in from the end.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Since this is on the edge and only 8" long, if the piece is not too long it may be just as easy to saw both edges of the rabbet. Then it could be cleaned up with a rabbet plane if you have one or a chisel.

I agree with Jim on this approach. I got sidetracked previously by seeing the word dado. I'd still wonder why it needs to be so massive of a rabbet.

[steven c newman]

Maybe that 1/2" left goes into a groove? Or, the1/2" covers the end grain in a butt joint? Seems to be involved in making a corner joint?

[Jerry Olexa]

The stanley 78 is ideal for this but i would pre-score.

[Robert Hazelwood]

That is a pretty big rabbet (fillister). It's trivial on a table saw but can be daunting with handtools. I find a long shoulder cut (the crossgrain cut you'll have to make on the face of the board) to be one of the more difficult cuts to nail with a handsaw.

A rabbet/fillister plane with a nicker is a good way to make these long cuts, but there is so much depth in your rabbet that it will take forever, assuming you even have one of these tools. So I think sawing from the face and end, like cutting a giant tenon, is the most sensible way to go. Knife your cut lines carefully. If you are not very confident with a saw, you can make a few practice cuts in the waste, away from the shoulder, to see how it goes. Then you can gauge how close to the knife line you want to go on your real cut. You can clean up whatever remains with a chisel and/or router plane.