Friday, July 28, 2006

Not sure about thee

For the love of Norm, someone give this guy a crash course in how hand tools could improve his woodworking experience:

I have made small table tops e.g. 14 to 20 inches square and beveled the edge using a table saw and a fence height extension and it works well since the board is not very high when running the edge through. I want to make a hall table about 4 feet long and would like to know if there is any advice on how to bevel the edge since the short edge would have me holding a 4 foot board up in the air through a table saw. Do people mainly bevel this edge by hand? BTW I usually use about a 25 degree pitch which is not common for a router bit. (Culled from the pages of the FWW Knots forum.)

It's almost the flip side of the coin that's had me wondering about neanderthals trying to cut stopped grooves and sliding dovetails with a slope on both sides - why make your life so hard? But then maybe I'm just crazy not to think it natural to do this kind of thing on a tablesaw or with a router? Is it in fact a sign of my own insanity that I believe using anything but a plane for the job, no matter if it fits on the tablesaur or not, is just plain nuts? Well I say "A" plane, but maybe a jack and then smoother. Perhaps something skewed for the cross grain finishing cuts...



But then as the saying goes, all the world's mad 'cept thee and me, and I'm not so sure about thee...

1 comment:

  1. And when I got to the bit where he asked "Do people mainly bevel this edge by hand?" I thought at last he's seen the light. But no, he meant do they use an electric router. All very sad really. Chippendale must be turning in his grave.....

    Paul Chapman

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