Rough to ready...with handtools.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Hi everyone, bit of a newbie here to the forum and woodworking for that matter.

I started out in the hobby just a couple years ago and had decided i would start w/ handtools. So i've spent the past 2 years acquiring handtools, learning to sharpen, learning to use them properly (via DVD's, books, 1 seminar w/ David Charlesworth @ LN, and just doing it).

I've done a few odd's and ends little projects and milled the wood from rough sawn lumber. I've gotten to the point though where I just want to work wood. I'm ready to buy the power jointer and planer I think. I am a weekend woodworker, so I spend a lot of time milling lumber.

I'm curious how many Neander's out there are still milling by hand or if most have crossed over to the power tool side. BTW, I do have a cabinet saw, so usually i'm flattening, jointing and edge by hand and then ripping to width on the TS. Then thickness by hand (or the dreaded TS resaw operation).

I am certainly not into the whole "Zen of woodworking" thing - I don't feel handtools are better, etc. I'm now more into the "what is the quickest, most efficient way to do it" mentality. Granted, since i lean towards neander, I believe if you learn to use handtools properly, there are many many operations that can be done quicker and more efficiently than power tools...but milling lumber? I'm thinking those power J&P's are pretty nice...

Cheers.

[Greg Cole]

I openly admit to having tailed apprentices in the shop (love that term, thanks Marcus ;)). I have no interest in 4 squaring 100 bf of material, just not going to spend the time on it when I can take a couple hours with a tailed jointer and planer & table saw. I don't put a price on my time in my shop, but if I buy a truck load of lumber for $2 a bf and spend a month of weekends just prepping stock for a larger project, the price of the lumber isn't as "cheap" as it would have been IMO.
There's going to be a pile of people on one side or the other of the line in the neander sand per say, but you'll find an awful lot in the middle.
As with many other things about this craft, there's no real right nor wrong answer just a bunch of opinions along with alot of "it depends". :rolleyes:

[Joe Close]

I'm new as well. I use both, hand tools and power tools. I have a bandsaw for ripping. A table top planner for initial thickness dimensioning. I use handplanes for the rest of the squaring up and smoothing.

[Rob Luter]

I initially surface most of my rough sawn lumber with a lunchbox planer, and joint the edges straight with a table saw. After that I use hand tools to joint the edges for glue ups and smooth the surfaces to remove mill marks. Small pieces of stock (about 18" or less in length) are done with hand tools only. I have a limited amount of time to spend in my basement shop and I'd rather be spending it on joinery than on getting lumber dimensioned.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

So even after milling on power J&P, some finish work will need done via a smoother to clean up the surfaces?

I agree, Rob. I would rather be spending time on joinery, which is more fun.

The workbench I'm using is home-built with some real rigging for clamping and holding wood - I had thought maybe if i had a proper tail vice and front vice to hold the wood, it would be easier and less hassle.

I think my minds' made up that i need to just buy the J&P. I've already reasearched my decisions, but a few momentary lapses in reasoning and thought i'd stick it out w/ milling by hand. Back to reality - that's just nuts.

[Chris Padilla]

I like to use electrons for the most part but I'm always looking for an excuse to whip out a handplane when I can...so I often do!

Dimensioning lumber is primarily tails only, however.... :)

[John Keeton]

John, I have very little finishing to do after I plane my stock. Depending on the task at hand, a quick run over with the ROS/handsand lightly, or a scraper. But, for the most part, I do that after the subassembly is made. In other words, I take my planned wood straight to construction in most instances.

[David DeCristoforo]

This is an ancient point of contention. Where the line should be drawn is up to the individual. For example, for me there is no "glory" in ripping boards "by hand". Just ask the guy who spent most of his life as the "bottom man" on a pit saw. It is good to be able to do work like this "by hand" and there is no question that skill in involved. But there can be a fair distance between being able to and wanting to. At the same time, I want to be able to use a hand saw with accuracy when I need to or just want to. I am comforted by the thought that if the power went out, I would not be helpless. The same goes for surfacing. Who wants to hand smooth a couple hundred feet of hard lumber? But it is good to be able to get that fine hand planed surface on a table top.

[Brian Ward]

I mill roughsawn by hand not just because I have no choice (no room for power), but it's also enjoyable. That said, it's not exactly quick. If I wanted something motorized and wanted an aid for this sort of thing, I'd probably consider a bandsaw. The resaw capablity is nice; going the rest of the way with a handplane isn't so much work.

[Robert Rozaieski]

I do it but because I want to. If you don't want to do it or don't like doing it then by all means get the machines. I like doing it. But it doesn't really matter what I like. What matters is what you like to do ;). However, I don't believe it takes a that much longer to do one off pieces by hand (production runs of identical parts are a different story). But working rough stock by hand is a different process than by machine. The process is what makes the difference.

First, I don't dress all of my stock at once like most folks who use power to do the job would do. I only plane the pieces I need for the step I'm currently working on. If I'm building a case side, I plane the pieces for that side only; if a drawer box, only the drawer sides, front and back; etc.

Second, I don't 4 square most of my stock unless the process requires it. If I'm making a drawer side, I'll 4 square but if I'm making something like a case side that is the result of a 2 board glueup, I'll only plane one face of each board and then match plane the two and glue up. The opposite faces and edges remain in the rough until I'm ready to flatten and finish plane and final dimension the final glued up panel.

I also don't necessarily dimension to 3/4" or 7/8" as is typical with machine work. I dimension to the thickest I can when finishing a panel. Sometimes this is 7/8", sometimes 13/16", sometimes 15/16"; depends on the initial flatness of the stock. I remove the minimum amount necessary to get a flat enough piece and don't concern myself with how thick the board actually is. Sometimes my case sides won't even be the same thickness but this typically isn't a problem since I gauge everything. I'm not making interchangable parts so they don't need to be identical. I do very little measuring so "standard" dimensions don't mean a lot to me.

Working this way is much more effecient when using hand tools and wastes less wood. It doesn't have to take a long time to plane rough stock by hand but you have to think about the process differently. It typically takes me 8-10 minutes to face one side of a board, another 5-10 to match plane a pair. So that works out to about 40-45 minutes or so to glue up a panel (2x10 for facing, 10 for match planing and 10-15 for glueup). I suspect that someone doing it by machine isn't doing it much faster since they typically need to 4 square everything due to the limited capacities of the machines. Plus, I can work 12-14" wide boards just as easily as a 6-8" wide board. Try doing that with a 6" or 8" jointer. Then you still need to flatten the final panel (belt sander, ROS, hand plane?) so I'm not sure that it's that much faster by machine.

Now if you are doing production runs, forget everything I just said. Machines excell at producing multiple identical parts. If you see yourself needing to make multiple identical parts frequently (I'm thinking something like a kitchen full of cabinets) then machines are your best friend. However, I don't do production runs of the same parts so I don't see a lot of benefit to having machines. I had the jointer and lunchbox planer years ago. After I sold them, I really didn't notice a huge difference in stock prep time, but I changed the way I thought about the process and actually did the work.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Thanks for the input, guys. For myself, I think I'm probably going to use a combination of both power and hand tools.

Robert, I think you make an excellent point that if you do things solely by hand, you really need to re-think the process and find all those areas, as you described, to cut your time down. And most certainly, in a production environment, hand milling is almost foolish.

Thanks again, everyone.

[Joe Cunningham]

I've gone from rough to 4S4 by hand. It was a good experience, but I don't think I'll work that way all the time.

Right now for instance I am working on a jewelry box where I bought the rough stock and the lumber yard planed it to 13/16 for me (part of their service). I crosscut by hand with my miter saw, then hand planed to final thickness (5/8), though I wish I had a good bandsaw so I wouldn't have wasted the wood. If I did have a bandsaw, I would have resawn to thickness first, then crosscut.

I then made all the sides 4S4 with my planes. I used a long shooting board to joint one edge, then used a different shooting board to square the ends, using the jointed edge as the reference. Finally I ganged the sides together with a clamp and jointed the other edge, and did the same with the front and backs.

Maybe there is a more efficient way to do it, but that is how I got my stock prep'ed for my most recent project. My planes were in tip-top shape, but my rip saw not so much.

I don't own a power planer or jointer, and really only want a bandsaw and maybe a lunchbox planer.

[Mark Roderick]

Almost everyone uses a combination of hand and power tools. It's all about personal preference and no two people do it alike, except perhaps those who have never learned to use any hand tools (which really is a shame for them).

I joint boards by hand. Then I put the flat side down in my lunchbox planer. I sometimes wish I owned a power jointer, but what the heck.

I usually cut a 90 degree edge on my table saw, but then take a couple of see-through shavings with my jointer plane to get the edge perfect.

I usually do my rough "sanding" with a hand plane, but almost always finish with fine sandpaper, by hand. I actually enjoy sanding by hand, especially at the final stages. I like to feel the wood.

I rip wood on the table saw, and if I need an exact 90 degree crosscut I typically use my radial arms saw. But I was rough-cutting some 8/4 maple into lengths recently and chose to cut them with old hand saws I inherited from my grandfather instead. My son and I did it together, which was fun. For fine work, like a jewelry box, I clean up the RAS crosscut with a hand plane and shooting board.

If you're not trying to make money, it's all about personal satisfaction. I worry about things like speed and productivity at my daytime job.

[Tim Sgrazzutti]

Learning to foursquare stock by hand is a good experience. What you learn from it will make your work with machine tools better and faster. Personally I don't own a powered jointer, and doubt I ever will. They scare the heck out of me, and besides, I find face jointing stock well enough to get through my tailed thicknessing apprentice to be dead easy. Edge jointing is easily accomplished with a straight edge and tailed saw, and refined with a jointer plane.

Unless you have the dough and the space for a jointer, you may want to skip it for a while. My second hand lunchbox thickness planer has definately earned its keep though. Also, beware that powered jointers have their own tuning and technique issues, that can tend to waste a lot of stock.

[Chuck Nickerson]

Of my 20 completed woodworking projects in 2008, six were handtool-only from rough stock, and they weren't the large projects. I do handtool-only when time permits. (Oh, to be retired!)

[Rob Luter]

So even after milling on power J&P, some finish work will need done via a smoother to clean up the surfaces?


I find that the mill marks left by the planer really need to be smoothed out or they show after finishing. The application of any kind of stain really makes them pop. While the difference isn't visible to the casual observer, if you compare two surfaces side by side where one was smoothed after power surfacing and the other wasn't, it's really obvious. Some rely on sandpaper and elbow grease. I like a few whispy thin cuts with a 4 1/2 or a little time with a cabinet scraper.

[Marcus Ward]

There's a point beyond which doing it by hand is just deliberate masochistic oddness (at least for me it is). I can s4s by hand and do when I'm in the mood, but I have a huge Grizzly jointer for cranking 300 bd ft of stock through when I need it done. The object is to produce the piece, not to measure your manhood or womanhood by the amount of complexity you can add to the process. :)

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Wow, you guys are making this tough. There are so many ways to do things.

From a few of the last comments, I can see holding off on a jointer, but using a power planer. I know I can flatten a board and joint an edge by hand and it really doesn't take much time...but where i struggle and take time is thickness planing down to the scored line. Naturally, some parts of the board are thicker and I seem to monkey around more.

I may have to think about that some more. I could save about $1100 bucks that i would have spent on the Grizzly 8" jointer by continuing the face joint by hand and then have a thickness planer to just chug through down to size.

I can see a solid workbench is a must have...need that tail vice.

[Mark Roderick]

20 Projects in 2008? That's terrific. I'm lucky if a finish a few each year.

[Joe Close]

Robert Rozaieski's note above said it best. Essentially, do the work the way "you want" to do it. Personally, I enjoy using handplanes. There is something relaxing about using them. I get a bit more sense of accomplishment when looking at the finsihed product, knowing what it took to build it. So I use every oppoutunity to use the hand tool. But this is just how I feel about it. Each to his own...:)

[Marcus Ward]

Yeah don't take my statement to mean that anyone who does it entirely with handtools is engaging in some sort of non-useful enterprise. I admit a bit of jealousy for people who can do that. It's very satisfying. I just have to balance satisfaction with expediency (as do we all). Do what works best for you, anyone likely to judge you for your method of working is probably not worth being friends with anyhow. Amirite? :)

[John Schreiber]

Lots of great comments above. I'm in the position where I have little money to spend and I have chosen to spend most of it on hand tools.

I have a skill saw, which is good for long rips and a 2nd hand lunchbox planer which can remove a lot of wood, but which also wastes a lot of wood and still leaves a surface which needs to be planed. My router helps a lot too, but it is so easy to screw something up with it.

I enjoy doing work by hand and take pride in the fact that I can saw to a line and tune the fit of a joint with a hand plane. It's also sometimes after 10:00 pm when my family is asleep before I can get out in the shop and I can't make much noise at that hour.

BUT, when I have the money, I'll hire a bunch of those "tailed apprentices" to do the grunt work. I could turn out more work faster and still do the final joinery and surfaces by hand.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Like many here, I'm mostly a hybrid of hand and power tools except when I have an exceptional amount of time. I will say however, that I personally believe that every woodworker who aspires to hand tool use should at some time go through the exercise of making a lidded box or small piece of furniture like a Pembroke table entirely by hand. by this I mean starting with rough stock and 4 squaring, doing the joinery, and every step up to the final finish with hand tools. Even if you only do this once, you will learn a huge amount that will improve your skills and your ability to "read" the wood. I would do all my work by hand more often, but having the tool business demands on my time and having a day job prevents that for now. Ah, maybe when I retire.

[Adam Cherubini]

I'm curious how many Neander's out there are still milling by hand or if most have crossed over to the power tool side.
I don't think there are a LOT of guys who work entirely by hand. I think the overwhelming majority of woodworkers don't even have the basic tools required to do the job efficiently. I don't want you to have the impression that lots and lots of guys are building furniture without power tools. Also, I think there are more folks working by hand now than there were just 10 years ago.



I'm ready to buy the power jointer and planer I think. I am a weekend woodworker, so I spend a lot of time milling lumber.

I don't know jack about power tools. But if I were to choose a power tool for my shop, I think it would be a band saw. I think you could do a lot of great work with a band saw. Planes work pretty well for edge work. I think I'd put off buying a jointer and planer.

Table saws seem to be designed and marketed to people who work with sheet goods. I draw the line at sheet goods. I'll never work with them. And the table saw seems like such a commitment.

Adam

[Jim Koepke]

I'm curious how many Neander's out there are still milling by hand or if most have crossed over to the power tool side.

My main reason for not using power tools is that I do not have them. Until just recently, I was resawing with a handsaw. That is a pain. Finally put together a small band saw. It takes almost as long to resaw some pieces, but that is because if is a bit on the wimpy side.

Do the work in what ever way you find suits your pleasure. When all is said and done, does it really matter to you if you say to friend, "I built that myself, or "I built that without the aid of power tools?"

jtk

[Marcus Ward]

I agree with Adam on the bandsaw. A buddy of mine put a flea in my ear about using a bandsaw instead of a tablesaw in the shop and after a year of thinking about it I sold my table saw and bought a big bandsaw. The funny thing is, now I rarely use my planer and only occasionally the jointer. The bandsaw leaves a great finish that I can clean up in just a bit with a hand plane. Hooking the DC up to the planer takes longer than that. I could get rid of all my other power tools, but I like my bandsaw.

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

Thanks again, guys. An incredible amount of food for thought.

I'm in a situation right now where I could afford to buy a really nice setup of J&P and bandsaw, but I'm not the type of person to just go blow the money on cool tools - as cool as that would be, I'm just too frugal. I can see where a bandsaw could really complement hand tools far more. I hadn't really thought about it...resawing to thickness after flattening, jointing by hand would save wood and be just as accurate and easy to clean up with a handplane afterwards.


How do you neanders do things like dado's ? Or do you construct things in such a way so you avoid them? For example, simple drawer bottoms. I see my table saw as the best way to accomplish that.

[Marcus Ward]

How do you neanders do things like dado's ? Or do you construct things in such a way so you avoid them? For example, simple drawer bottoms. I see my table saw as the best way to accomplish that.

Something like this:

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=57678&cat=1,41182

Although I'd probably use a stanley 45, I can't afford one of those. :)

http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan6.htm

[Johnny Kleso]

I dont have a apprentis so I use my planer and jointer any job bigger than a small box :)

[Chris Schumann]

Something like this: http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=57678&cat=1,41182
or their: router plane (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=52609&cat=1,41182) for dadoes.

[John Schreiber]

How do you neanders do things like dado's ? Or do you construct things in such a way so you avoid them? For example, simple drawer bottoms. I see my table saw as the best way to accomplish that.
As shown above, there are neander tools to solve those problems and they solve them wonderfully. The problem is that each tool does a very specific job and is not very adaptable. They also either cost significant money or require some combination of good luck and time to find them and bring them to working condition.

A power router is very adaptable and serves for me, but I would love to replace it with quieter choices.

The other problem with a power router and power tools in general is that it's easy to totally destroy a workpiece with a moment of inattention.

[Jim Koepke]

How do you neanders do things like dado's ? Or do you construct things in such a way so you avoid them?

Depends on the size and how many.

A Stanley 45 is one of many good tool for this. It helps to score a line for the dado first.

Other times, my approach has been to cut with a saw then chisel out the waste. Have also done all the cutting with a chisel, it is just a big mortise, then side rabbet planes to fit the edges. If the wood is 3/4 inch and 3/4 inch chisels are used, the fit will be a a bit loose.

One of my thoughts on using hand tools over power tools:
If one is under weight, then power tools are fine.
How ever, if one is like me and needs to lose some poundage, then maybe resawing by hand will allow me to have that piece of pie and keep it from showing.

jim

[Robert Rozaieski]

How do you neanders do things like dado's ? Or do you construct things in such a way so you avoid them? For example, simple drawer bottoms. I see my table saw as the best way to accomplish that.

Dados were historically cut with dado planes. These were specialized planes designed only for cutting dados (i.e. grooves cut across the grain). They have scoring irons ahead of a skewed cutting iron and were built to be the exact width of the dado and came in incremental sizes for different sizes of dados. The skewed iron excels at cutting across the grain. I my opinion, there is no better hand tool for cutting a dado. The Stanley 45, 50 or any other combination plane for that matter is a poor substitute for a proper dado plane. I've used the combination planes and there is no comparison between them and a well tuned wooden dado plane.
http://www.oldtools.co.uk/images/tools/planes_scrapers/pl263/pl263.zoom.jpg

For grooves with the grain like the drawer bottom you are referring to, there are several choices. First is a dedicated drawer bottom groving plane. These planes have a fixed or movable fence and a single 1/4" iron and are again a dedicated function plane. The benefit is that they are always set up to make a perfect drawer bottom groove, but the drawback is that you cannot change how far from the edge you want the groove in the fixed fence model.
http://www.phillyplanes.co.uk/images/planes/andy2.jpg

http://www.robcosman.com/images/TOOLS/tools_drawer_plane1_lg.jpg

Not having a dedicated drawer bottom plane, you can also use a plow plane. These have a movable fence and usually a set of graduated irons. I prefer the wooden type but the metal types are servicable as well.
http://www.planemaker.com/images/plow1.jpg

http://www.oldtooluser.com/ToolImages/combination/sno45combplane.jpg

Bob

[Dave Anderson NH]

John, many of the Neander tools are far more versatile than you think. It just requires a different mind set. Cutting a dado is a case in point.

Option 1 Clamp a board across the workpiece and cut to the depth required with a carcass saw or any reasonably fine toothed crosscut saw. Move the board and cut the other side. Chisel out the majority of the waste as close to a smooth depth as possible. Clean up the bottom of the dado with either a cranked neck chisel, a piece of coarse sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood, or use a router plane.

Option 2 Use a dado plane

Option 3 Use a combination plane

[JohnMorgan of Lititz]

After reading all of these posts, I believe I've decided to first off get my workbench squared away and setup...I'm buying one, not building - mind is made up there. I think once I have a workbench w/ proper tail vices and front vices for holding the wood, handplaning will go MUCH better than my setup now.

Once I've worked w/ the proper bench, I will see how things go. I believe at a minimum I will consider the bandsaw route and use that in combination w/ handplaning.

The bottom line is, my wife wants end tables and some book shelves and bookcase. I want to get building things - so speeding up my milling is what i need right now.

I'm definately a handtool guy, so i believe a combination of things is what i'll shoot for.

Thanks again, guys.