What's Wrong with this Picture?

[Thomas Wilson]

I am building Bill Schenher's split top saw bench with mostly hand tools (Billy's Little Bench (https://www.billyslittlebench.com/blog/new-improved-sawbench-split-top-sawbench)). I wonder who first came up with the design. Schenher states up front it was not he, but his plan is the oldest I found when was looking to build something like this. This is from 2013. If you know of an older plan, I would like to give it credit.

I am only able to duck into the Cave of the Modern Neanderthal for an hour here and there. I am spending a lot of time watching the construction of the new power tool woodworking shop at Norris Lake. Several weeks ago, I was able to plane the lumber square and to cut two dovetails for one side of the bench. Another weekend, I had an hour before a concert. So I marked and sawed the tails for this dovetail. The next morning I thought I had enough time to clear the waste and then cut the matching pins before I left for the lake house.

Now, Billy's saw bench involves big, sturdy dovetails that give good practice and are a good test of sawing accuracy because the wood is 1.5 in thick. I am using David Barron's dovetail guides as an aid to accuracy. I thought I was doing great--nice clean sawing, clearing the waste without crushing the baseline. Then, I took an actual look at the shape of the "tails". Hahahaha! These are nice big, sturdy tails but I won't be able to hammer this joint home. Oh well. I need to keep my head in one place to build things.

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Some people take on the hand tool approach for authenticity of the craft ort o figure out how their grandfathers built stuff with the tools they inherited or just for the challenge of it. For me, it is to build stuff quietly in an apartment. I am using a rubber mallet and I put a draw liner pad under my sacrificial board when I am chopping. I have no reluctance to use various guides and modern tools when I can do more accurate work with hand tools. There is no historical authenticity and there is a minimum of skill in my projects. I will happily tell you if a guide on a plane helps a beginner with planing a square edge (it does) or whether a dovetail saw guide is helpful (it is). These devices are little different to me than a bench hook or a shooting board or a miter box. If it helps me, I use it.

I am suffering imposter's syndrome when I post things here. It is all about telling a good story and getting a response. Have a great day and may all your dovetails have an airtight fit.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Ha, been there, done that! Luckily for me, last time i did that, I realized what I did the moment that I did the first one..... and I was able to fix it by changing the size of two tails. I don't even remember what I was working on, it was probably a drawer... So I could probably figure out which drawer it was (if it was not on something that I gave to a friend), but it would take some time.

It was a reminder to me that I needed to always mark my waste in some way, or I would simply cut out the wrong piece.

So I guess you needed to redo that piece?

[Mark Herdman]

Now you know to mark up the waste.
It's what my old school woodwork master would have called "Now you know what I was talking about" or "You'll not do that again."
Hope you have enough spare to cut that off.

[Thomas Wilson]

...So I guess you needed to redo that piece? Yup. I planed the new one the other day. I am dawdling here before recutting the dovetail. The first top was better because my plane blades were sharper. I have some tearout.

I have a mental checklist for the router dovetail jig: check the marks, are the pieces inside out and on the correct side of the jig, check the clamps, are they tight, tug the boards to test, check the stops, run the straight bit, run the dovetail. I am practically a robot. I need to have that for hand saw dovetails. The waste was marked on these pieces. I just cut the wrong part without looking or thinking.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The waste was marked on these pieces. I just cut the wrong part without looking or thinking.

Oh, I so feel your pain and can relate to that.......

I am building a dovetailed carcass, and I always place the tails on the sides so that the geometry of the dovetail will have better holding power if I am carrying the carcass. I cut the tails across one end then took a break. A day later, i was staring at the boards and it occurred to me that I had cut the tails on the top board as opposed to a side board.

Even worse, I measured my pins for one of my drawers with one of the boards backwards... Luckily for me, it was with a board where I just happened to have marked everything so consistently and I happened to cut consistently, and it still fit fine. In case you are wondering, that is a rarity for me to have such consistency. By rarity, I am not convinced that I have done it before. The fit was a bit tight, but it all worked. I had been cutting a bunch of drawers by hand so I was really in the groove having done about four hours a day for some days in a row.

[Steven Mikes]

Thomas,
Maybe you should take it as an omen. I built this saw bench as my first one and thought it was great for a few weeks. Then its flaws started to become apparent as I became more used to sawing by hand.
Firstly and most importantly, the "feet" that stick out from the four corners become an aweful tripping hazard, making it clumsy to move and work around it. Second, it's too big. After making a pair of the staked leg saw benches from Schwartz's book, I cut this one up into firewood.

[roger wiegand]

My darling wife told me I'd made duck feet rather than dove tails.

[Jim Matthews]

If you're the one holding the hammer - it's authentic.

If you retained the off cuts, glue the necessary wedges in place to reform tails. If concern arises regarding strength, apply a discrete, long grain end block inside the joint.

[Phil Mueller]

I built this saw bench about 2 years ago and use it constantly. I did not use any formal plans, so I may have interpreted the spacing of the top/legs wrong. I would ensure that the spacing provides an opening large enough to fit clamps. I have since cut the opening on mine wider and added a few hold down holes as well.

[glenn bradley]

You mean that you didn't intend to use the famous "cork in a bottle" dovetail technique made famous by W.C. Fields!?! :D

[Andrew Seemann]

It seems to me I have cut pins that would fit that:)

[Thomas Wilson]

It seems to me I have cut pins that would fit that:) We should work together on a project.

[Andrew Gibson]

Yup, been there. I mark all faces of every piece of waste to be removed... and sometimes write "no" on places I don't want to cut...

[Prashun Patel]

I am totally with you. Except I do think practicing without crutches and guides helps you to ultimately become quicker and more efficient. Those things are important to me as I am time constrained.

[Jake Rothermel]

I obsessively mark all waste AND all kept parts of joints like this (I've cut woefully few dovetails); and I tend to make it as painfully obvious as I possibly can, too. I'll even draw smiley faces on Keep pieces and Xs or slashes (or both) on waste. I tell myself it's because it's good practice and clarity helps lead to success and, while that's certainly true, the secondary factor is that I'm terrifyingly paranoid of screwing it all up.

Thomas, my shop time is not unlike yours: an hour here, two hours there; sometimes those hours are days or even weeks apart from each other. If I *didn't* obsessively mark my pieces I feel certain I'd come back to a project and cut exactly the opposite of what I'd intended. I mumble all the time to myself, "If I've a 50/50 shot at something, Murphy's Law says I'll get it wrong."

BUT - I think there's courage in flaunting your mistakes like this. It speaks of your willingness to get back up and fix your mistake(s) rather than be defeated by them. As many successful people have said better and more poetic than me, I love Failure. I learn so much more from it than Success.

[lowell holmes]

Cut the tails first and mark the end of the pin board using a pencil. Draw cut line on the pin board to define the depth of the cut.
Then break out the dovetail saw and chisel. :)

[Thomas Wilson]

I am happy to report that, after re-cutting with a dovetail guide, all the joints fit nicely with a gentle tap. I used the Barron’s 1:8 guide. I used the Barron 90 degree guide for the side cuts. No gaps and no paring needed. This is fairly remarkable for a rank beginner like me. My only other hand sawn dovetails were done in a Shaker tray class under the watchful eye of Megan Fitzpatrick. Those were sawn free hand. They were not gap free and all required a degree of paring to go together. Plus, I would consider those tray joints less susceptible to visible sawing inaccuracy because the material was less than 1/2 inch thick. It took me a while. The guided approach was better for me.
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I will add some close-ups of the inside of the joint when I am back in the Cave. They were really clean and accurate and fast. The whole process was fairly quiet. The noisiest part was chopping out the waste. Most of the waste was removed with a coping saw. I saw straight down into the waste and turn 90 degrees as close to the baseline as I think I can safely cut. I cut into one corner, then turn the saw over to get the other. I want to get within 1/16 to 1/8 of the baseline which I am able to do on the front. The back always seems to be 3/16 or so. Taking thin chisel cuts gradually down to the baseline with a rubber mallet makes some noise but not like chopping mortises. This apartment dweller woodwork presents some challenges with dust and noise, but the hand tool work, with aids and guides, is turning out to be within my ability.

I need to find more time. At the rate I am going, this saw bench is going to take until Christmas. If I had a solid day in the shop, it would be done.

When I left yesterday for the Mountain Kingdom, I had set up to sharpen chisels and planes. The knots in the construction lumber do a number on the blades. I used a Veritas jack plane on the edges with PM-V11 blade and mostly a
Lie-Nielsen fore plane on the faces with an A-2 blade. I could not tell much difference in the steels on this kind of wood.

With only the workbench as a work surface, I have to pull everything out of plastic tubs to sharpen and then put it away to get back to work. To confine the mess of waterstones, I cover the bench with a plastic drop cloth and put a Formica covered plywood sheet on top as a work surface.

[Thomas Wilson]

I am totally with you. Except I do think practicing without crutches and guides helps you to ultimately become quicker and more efficient. Those things are important to me as I am time constrained.
Haha. I know, I know. How Cro-Magnon of me to stick stubbornly to my guides and gizmos. I think I may be a lost cause

[Phil Mueller]

Thomas, you are not alone. Nothing wrong with guides and gizmos. I use them too. I’m a hobbyist in no hurry. Plus, I might do a dozen dovetailed joints a year. Not enough for me to want to gain any muscle memory for that task.

[Jim Matthews]

I found that with repetition, the guides were no longer necessary.

Use them until they're in your way (which may never happen).
Who cares how long it takes, so long as YOU made it?

[Thomas Wilson]

I found that with repetition, the guides were no longer necessary.

Use them until they're in your way (which may never happen).
Who cares how long it takes, so long as YOU made it?

I don't know. The magnetic guide works really well. Did I mention I was an engineer? It might explain a lot. For me, it is all about the "how to" not the final product. I happily buy accuracy if it is available or design my own jig if it is not. One of my standard jokes about my building/fixing/doing things is that the two-fold objective of any job is to get the job done well and to use the maximum number of tools possible.

I've been planing wood this morning in the Cave. It is good exercise. The sound is soothing and therapeutic and I would agree that a power planer is the exact opposite. Nonetheless, when the power tool shop is going sometime this summer, I will be in production mode for a series of built-ins for the lake house and the shop. The Cave may gather its own dust without me until next fall. I will get my workouts from hauling lumber and sheets of plywood around and from riding the bicycle. My wife and my daughters all have accumulated lists of furniture projects. It is a good reason to still be around. They have all become accustomed to furnishings designed specifically for them rather than something that will do from Ikea. I really like that part of my life. I have said my wife's full name is Janicewhokeepsmehumble. Her retort is that mine is Thomasmyliveincabinetmaker.