Day 4 and 5 – Handsawing class with Christopher Schwarz

My last post really went into a lot of detail on what cuts I used on which joints, to demonstrate where the different classes cuts can be used. I won't bore you with that kind of detail in this post. Instead I just give a general overview of what we did for our final project in the class.

Out final project was a Shaker Silverware Tray. It's a "simple" and clean design, as you would expect from the Shakers. Clean and simple can be hard to pull off. Everything has to be just right, from the design to the execution. Otherwise it will look like someone just through it together. This tray is simple in design, but the proportions and slight curve in the handle give a pleasing look. Whenever I walk by it, I just want to pick it up and look at it and feel the shape. I try not to let my wife catch me fondling my projects :).

As you might have guessed, this tray was made with using only hand tools. Well, only after the lumber was given to us. The wood was prepared beforehand by the school. There wasn't time in the class for us to prep the wood ourselves using only hand tools. This was a handsawing and cutting class, not a rough to ready hand planing class.

Before this class I think I might have cut 10 practice sets of dovetails. The first sets weren't the prettiest, but I kept trying. I can say it does get easier with practice. The more time you spend with saw in hand the better you will get. During the first part of the week we did have a lot practice sawing, which helped prepare for the hand-cut dovetails.

Let me also put in a plug for Rob Cosman here. Before I took this class, I watched a couple DVDs by Rob Cosman on hand-cutting dovetails. Rob has some very nice DVDs covering a few topics on hand tools. They are very informative and walk you through all of the steps in cutting dovetails. The DVDs are so good I can watch them over and over again. I can't say that about a lot of woodworking DVDs. Rob has even come out with a shop manual you can take with into your shop. It covers cutting dovetails step-by-step. Also, Chris mentioned that he took a class from Rob, years ago when he (Chris) was starting out in woodworking. Rob will give you the confidence that you can do this, and it's within everyone's reach.

The curved end pieces were marked out from a template Chris had. I then used a chisel to chop away the excess wood. You could use a coping saw or some other method here, but a chisel does quick work of it too. I refined the curve with a rasp and then a spokeshave. I haven't used a spokeshave that much, but I was really impressed with the clean smooth surface I got with. As with most hand planes, no sanding was needed after I was done.

The holes for the handles were made using a brace and bit. We drilled overlapping holes, with the brace and bit. The cherry we used was only 1/2" think and a little brittle. One of my ends did crack, because I didn't have it well supported. A little cyanoacrylate glue, fixed it right up. You can't hardly see the crack.

After few pass with a Smoothing plane, I applied a few coast of Tung Oil. The dovetails came out pretty well. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there a few small gaps. I'm making process but also realize that these are suppose to look handcut and not machine cut. I'm not saying they have to imperfect or gappy to be hand-cut, but that absolute perfection is not needed. I know I will get better overtime and my cuts will get tighter. Until then I'm not going to beat myself up over it.