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Sure, but then you have plastic furniture. Not the same thing at all. I don't know of any 3D printers that can create microstructures on a scale comparable to wood. The fibers in a typical hardwood have diameters on the order of 10 microns, and wall thicknesses (when dried) of less than a micron.Originally Posted by Andrey Kharitonkin
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I wasn't saying that you can always hit final geometry off the saw (though you can do so more often than a lot of people think). For larger-scale work with a rip saw or bow saw the best I can reliably do is to be accurate to within about 1/2 mm depending on the cut. If it needs to be tighter than that then the planes come out to refine the saw work, but note that I still don't have to do all that much with them.Or spend time and calories rip saw 6 boards to make them equal, glue up and then rip both edges once again to get those edges parallel. Of course then only the two edge boards won't have parallel sides.
Jim
Similarly there is a practical minimum thickness that you can saw off, which depends upon the characteristics of the wood and your skill. I'm not experienced at resawing veneers and the like, so my minimum is likely higher than a more skilled woodworker's would be.
I totally get using a scrub/jack/fore to remove, say, 1/16" of thickness. I don't understand people who use planes to blast off 1/4", though. It's just so wasteful of time and effort compared to resawing.
Last edited by Patrick Chase; 04-28-2018 at 7:08 PM.
It seems to me that it is easy to get mired in “machine language”. To an experienced computer coder “machine language” is much closer to a bunch of switches set either on or off than a “language” that comes close to representing recognizable human thought patterns. Have we become so emersed in tryng to produce what a machine can produce that we are loosing our craft skills, artistic eye, hmmm Hand and Eye, no I think someone already came up with that one....
Should, as Jim Toplin suggests, we relate the height of our bench to our specific body parts vs mm or inches? Maybe there will be a CNC machine one day that will scan human bodies and customize furniture to fit individuals...but then will it measure the height of each family member and build furniture to fit the average family member? What happens when the family has visitors, new members.....How much abstract thought will this machine be capable of? How do we build a a style and artistic appreciation in, which successfully relates to the rest of our abode? I’m just suggesting that with machines there are always trade offs. Machines are tools not artists, or craftsmen.
For this poster, the trade offs between machines and hand tools have more to do with craftsmanship and artistic expression than speed. Is the artist who paints fast better than the one who paints slowly? Is the artist who sculpts in clay a lesser artist than the artist who generates art via computer programs? I just hellped my daughter select tools to do an art project. The challenge was to make an artistic object from parts the instructor selected from everyday items presented by the students. She was given a broken skateboard. I was impressed that she came up with the idea of making a Maori, native New Zealand inhabitants, mask from the skateboard. My wife’s mother was a native of New Zealand, making her a New Zealander by New Zealand law. Ohhk, maybe family history is getting off subject, but is it really? Can we remove ourselves from our culture, tribes, family history?
I personally have been moving more and more toward hand tools, particularly “cruder” hand tools. For me this makes sense as the ”medium” I am working in is wood. It makes sense to me to start with tools that allow me to feel and work with the grain, density...in the medium. Still sometimes a hand saw, bandsaw or tablesaw can reveal what is inside the wood in new and interesting ways. I still use machines, particularly when I feel they can produce in the wood medium something that can not be produced by another method.
Last edited by Mike Holbrook; 04-29-2018 at 11:54 AM.
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My reason for using a bandsaw is it can do many tasks faster and better than my hand sawing. For a single cut, a hand saw may be quicker than having to set up the bandsaw.I still use machines, particularly when I feel they can produce in the wood medium something that can not be produced by another method.
My drill press provides repeatability and precision when hand boring would be difficult.
Other than a lathe that is about the extent of my power tools. After sawing a piece on the bandsaw three or four passes from a hand plane and the saw marks are gone. To me there is no need for a power jointer or a planer.
jtk
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Well, right now my only options for ripping are a hand saw or a circular saw. With the former I still can't cut a straight enough line over more than a couple feet, and the latter requires a straight edge to reference the fence and only cuts to a depth of 2". These boards were 80" long so definitely not representative of most furniture making stock.
Ideally I would have boards that didn't require so much prep but sometimes there just isn't that much selection. The stock I bought was all that I could get with the parameters I set and the price I could afford.
But on the subject of sawing. Say you have a board that is like these-80" long and 2" or so thick-and there's a decent crook in it so that one edge has a bow that puts the middle about 1/8" higher than the ends. The other side is correspondingly concave and the center is 1/8" lower than the ends. Would you take a rip saw and try to correct those issues rather than planing?
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You might want to give a bowsaw a try. Those can cut to unlimited depth (with the frame rotated to the side) but allow more line adjustment once in the cut than does a traditional ripsaw. I used mine a lot for that sort of work while my technique was even worse than it is now. You could also increase the set on your handsaw to give the plate a little more "play" in the cut, but that has other unpalatable consequences.
In that specific situation I'd probably plane. If it's truly a crook as opposed to a continuous bow then I might (but probably wouldn't) saw the board in two and re-attach with a scarf joint, adjusting the angle of one or both surfaces to correct the crook.
Contributor
You could do rip cut with a guide from both sides with your circular saw and get 4 inches total depth. If that's not enough you can finish the rip with a handsaw and 90% of the hard work would be done with the circular saw.
Contributor
Are you consistently off in one direction or the other? There are various things that can make the saw drift, and if that is the case correcting them makes it much easier to keep the saw straight.
Do you have a saw bench? Being able to position the stock properly helps a lot.
If the board is the width you want, I would not rip it to try to correct the 1/8 bow. I would mark it (use a chalk line if you do not have any straight edges to reference from), and then use a jack to get it close and a jointer to finish it.
Member
Hey, it's a motorized kerfing plane!
Contributor
We could patent this!
Contributor
Straight line rip right down the center....flip the boards over, so the curves match up, and glue it up. Jointer to smooth the saw marks on the edges. Simple?
Contributor
good way to ruin a nice looking board
Member
Speaking as a guy still in his 20's I'd say that's a big part of it. I know there are some folks out there that do a little woodworking from an apartment but you have to really want to work wood to be willing to deal with the disadvantages of doing it in an apartment.
Even without the perceived need for a lot of big machines, it is still a hobby that ideally requires a decent amount of space and a sizable initial investment both financially and in time. Combine that with the fact that most people in their twenties are living in apartments in cities (where most of the work is) and moving almost regularly (again...the work thing), and it just doesn't feel feasible. Of all my friends in a similar age range I know only a few that actually do any woodworking but I bet the number will double a couple times as people get older and lives become a little more stable. The desire is there, I think.
Member
This is exactly what I did to rip a 4" thick beam in half. Not as easy as it would be with a bandsaw but it works well enough. Having never used a bandsaw I may be overestimating its ability to facilitate accuracy in long rip cuts. It may well be that my circular saw with a fence gets the same end result.
Member
Ha, my current saw bench is two coolers. A proper saw bench would certainly help but so far I have avoided using a hand saw to rip these big boards. My saws are all in good enough shape that I'm pretty sure it is my doing when the saw leaves the line.
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