Oh helpful ones,
                since we're currently discussing dovetailing.....
the next project on my list is a bookcase for my daughter's
bedroom.SWMBO would like it to be 60" tall and about 42" wide.
I've been running through designs in my head and would really like to 
dovetail the carcase top and bottom to the sides and sit it
on a pedestal.Thought ,maybe, half blinds on top and through
dovetails on the bottom end.
     Then I got to thinking it might be tough to mark and saw
the pins on the ends of a 60" board. I could obviously cut the
tails on the top and bottom boards and then mark out the pins
by laying the sides flat on the workbench and offering up
the tailboards.But what about making the cuts accurately ..
..with the boards laid flat it would seem to be a pain to make
cuts with the saw held vertically.Alternatively,to stand the board upright 
and make cuts at a 60" height would be awkward also.
   So,does anyone have any useful tips or experiences with
long boards?BTW,I have read your oak bookcase project several times
Jeff.
    No rush for replies but SWMBO is standing over there
tapping her toes up and down somewhat impatiently.

        Phil Bassett     Stealth galoot #99

p.s SWMBO just said "just nail some boards together hubby" ...sigh..


Phil Bassett,
Gainesville,sunny Florida.

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

Phil Basset wants to dovetail long boards but doesn't have a hole in
the floor to drop the long end through (Old timers will recognize the
story reference).

Phil - if either you or a friendly neighbor have a raised deck plus a
couple of clamps, your problems are over. Position the end of the
board to be cut at the appropriate height for yourself by fastening it
with clamps to the outside of his/her vertical deck rail. Then stand
on the deck and cut away.

FWIW

Alan N. Graham

> p.s SWMBO just said "just nail some boards together hubby" ...sigh..

to which I reply, "OK, but only if you swear that you'll be the one to pick
up all the books when the thing falls apart..."

...OR... (wicked grin)

"what, do I look like Norm to you?"

>      Then I got to thinking it might be tough to mark and saw
> the pins on the ends of a 60" board. I could obviously cut the
> tails on the top and bottom boards and then mark out the pins
> by laying the sides flat on the workbench and offering up
> the tailboards.But what about making the cuts accurately ..
> ..with the boards laid flat it would seem to be a pain to make
> cuts with the saw held vertically.Alternatively,to stand the board upright
> and make cuts at a 60" height would be awkward also.

I've done this with a couple of large carcases.  Like you, I'd concluded
that marking the pins from the tails was the easier way to proceed (and so
it proved).  However, I found that laying the sides flat on the bench didn't
work very well; the top had a tendency to wave around in the air and marking
in the space formed by the tail openings and the benchtop proved very
awkward.  I employed two cheating devices in order to help with the vertical
approach.

1) a small platform to stand on when sawing  pins with the sides held
vertical.  I actually borrowed a 2' by 4' platform from a local theater, but
obviously anything would do.  Incidentally, given that my bench is backed up
to a wall rather than freestanding, the easiest way to hold the sides
vertical proved to be with the vise, having first replaced the vise facings
with longer ones that extended past the end of the vise.

2) a right-angling device.  This was a jig essentially consisting of two 12"
wide pieces of plywood, as long as the carcase is deep, held at an exact
right angle with blocks and glued and screwed together.  You want the blocks
set in a few inches from the end of the jig to leave a place for clamps.
You can then use this device to hold the top and sides at a precise right
angle when marking.

It proved useful to make a support for the free end of the top just to take
weight off the jig.  I have one of those adjustable work rests, which I put
on the benchtop.

Hope this helps,
Tb.

>      Then I got to thinking it might be tough to mark and saw
> the pins on the ends of a 60" board. 

Paddy has experience with this I believe.  ; )
Maybe he'll share it.

Erik von Sneidern

Phil wrote:

>      Then I got to thinking it might be tough to mark and saw
> the pins on the ends of a 60" board. I could obviously cut the
> tails on the top and bottom boards and then mark out the pins
> by laying the sides flat on the workbench and offering up
> the tailboards.But what about making the cuts accurately ..
> ..with the boards laid flat it would seem to be a pain to make
> cuts with the saw held vertically.Alternatively,to stand the board upright 
> and make cuts at a 60" height would be awkward also.
>    So,does anyone have any useful tips or experiences with
> long boards?BTW,I have read your oak bookcase project several times
> Jeff.
  
   I've had a couple of instances where I needed to do this.  
For marking, I used the little Pony miter clamps (mitre cramps,
Jeff) to hold the boards at right angles to each other.  I 
clamped the pin board at an angle so that I could easily reach 
the end.  

   For sawing, I laid the board flat on my bench with the end
overhanging slightly more than the depth of the baseline, and
got down on my knees and used a dozuki to saw the pins.  I found 
that a pullsaw seems to work better than my regular dovetail saw
at that angle.


      Chuck Vance

Gary Yarrow would like to recall the message, "How about dovetailing long
boards?".

Patrick Olguin wrote:
> 
> .............................................. He also used an unusual
> repair technique to salvage split boards; some sort of variant of a
> Dutchman patch.

And what sort of repair would that be...?

-Ken

>
> p.s SWMBO just said "just nail some boards together hubby" ...sigh..

This reminds me.  Whenever I suggest, "oh, I could make a . . . . " my
spouse says, "Yeah, that would be nice, but only if you use the tablesaw."
Huh?  "That way the lines will be cut straight etc etc etc"  I try to
explain to him that I can make an edge at least as straight using a handsaw
and a jointer plane, but I'm not convincing, I guess.  (So much for being a
lawyer.)  Am I the only one who gets this grief?

By the way, I have an in-progress table-top with perfectly straight edges
and 90-degree corners sitting right there as proof!

-Shannon

Phil asked:

"So,does anyone have any useful tips or experiences with
long boards?"

I had reason to ponder this point myself recently.  SWMBO admired the Tuscan
sideboard on display at Charles Shackleton's showroom when we stopped by last
summer:

      http://www.shackletonfurniture.com/products/069/069.html

and I'm in the process of building a similar one now in red oak.  I've joined
the two top rails to the sides with through dovetails, the two lower rails
(about three inches from the bottom) with through mortises, and the rails for
the drawer support framework with blind mortises. The piece is 65" long and I've
had ample reason to conclude that  some sort of threshold in awkwardness is
crossed when the carcase length exceeds about 4'. Everything seems to become too
long to handle readily.

I cut the tails in the rails by resting on end on the floor than clamping the
rail in my bench vise at an angle so that the end was at about chin level. I had
to steady the rail with one hand while I sawed the tail or tenon to keep the
board from flexing excessively. The pins were much simpler as the sides are
about 36" high and I was able to clamp them in the vise and easily improvise a
support for the rails when laying out the pins.

Planing the faceframe edges on the sides,  trimming the tenon ends, and scraping
with the case assembled has also been fun. I've been setting the carcase on end
then standing on a little 18" utility table/bench (ordinarily used for sawing).
If I remember what I'm doing I can usually avoid hitting my head on the ceiling
or against a shoplight.

The shooting board which I've been using for quite a while now is only 48" long
so I wound up building a six-footer to make the bottom shelf (poplar) and the
oak top. This was a place that I thought the extra length of a #8 joiner was
useful (sorry Esther, its true).

SWMBO has adopted some new tactics recently. When she stops by to see how the
work is coming, she points at whatever tool is lying on the bench and declares
"I've never seen that thing before, why?" then not accepting whatever
explanation is offered. Often she's correct; the flea markets are open around
here again.

Ed Balko
Middletown, NJ
Toying with the idea of digging a pit under the bench vise

Gentle Ones,
Some of you old-timers might remember this technique. I've posted it once
or twice over the years...

This is how gramps did it in his shop in Lancaster, PA (wish
he'd stayed in furniture-making, instead of getting in the
bowling pin manufacturing business). My maternal great-grandfather
(we called him Grandaddy-Bob) was one of these rich fellows, who
could afford to have his shop in the house. Matter of fact,
his shop was upstairs, just above the back stairs. He was
rather Normish (as much as you could be, back in the 20's),
but still had a traditional hand tool set-up too. I dunno
what poor bastuhds he got to carry his p-tools up the stairs,
but there they were (so mom says).
 
His first-born was my grandfather (we called him Daddy-Bob),
and like any first son, his pops had visions of him playing
for the Pirates (not the Athletics; no self-respecting
ballplayer would aspire to play in the Junior Circuit).
He played a little semi-pro, but that was all.
It wasn't too long before Daddy-Bob joined his dad in
the shop, and not too much longer after, that Daddy-Bob
was helping in the family business.
 
Aside from working at his old man's business, ole Bob (in
his mid-twenties) made custom bunk beds on the side. It
came naturally, as he was the eldest of 11 children, and
after about the sixth kid he was conscripted to make bunks
for the rest of the young'ns. He got pretty good at it, and
like many folks who don't know any better, got talked into
doing commissioned work from friends, neighbors, and family.
 
Turns out, all that these rather conservative folks wanted was
those damn bunk beds; no Windsor chairs, no highboys, no
patternmaker's chests, just those damn bunks. You know, come
to think of it, whenever he was trying to get me and my
little brother to go to bed, he'd yell, "Get in the damn
bunk!" He called it a damn bunk, even if he wasn't mad.
Ours wasn't a Daddy-Bob original, unfortunately. The piece of
crap, me and my lil bro shared, must have been a Monkey Wards
special, because it came apart in sections during the Sylmar
earthquake in 1971. Well, at least it saved us having to
get out the bed. All we had to do was get up off the floor,
go to the doorway, and watch the palm trees sway from the
shockwaves, but I digress.
 
Anyway, my momma told me that he got really good at knocking out these
damn bunks: maple bunks, oak bunks, sycamore bunks, cherry bunks. It was
freaking bunks a-go-go. These damn bunks had mortice and tenon joints,
with dovetailed aprons on the bottom bunk. Remembe r, This was in the days
before CNC routahs, bisquick joiners, ROS's, RAS's, CMS's, and a dozen
other offenses to God; Daddy-Bob was turning out two bunks a week in his
spare time. Dunno what kind of finish he put on 'em, but I do know that he
tried to patent his knock-apart joinery technique. He also used an unusual
repair technique to salvage split boards; some sort of variant of a
Dutchman patch. Anyway, to hear my mom describe his joinery cleverness, it
sounded like a modified tusk tenon arrangement. He didn't get *that*
patent, but later *did* get one for the seminar-style name badges (the
wiggly part of the pin, that stabilizes a safety-pin against a name tag)
patent, and made an outrageous fortune (later lost in real estate - easy
come, easy go, I guess) from those stupid pins. He had 'em by the
garage-full.
 
Being a good businessman (think greed and blind avarice in the pupal
stage), Daddy-Bob didn't let anyone help him in the shop. My guess is he
didn't want to share profits. Still, he'd "recruit" the younger kids to do
"family" chores around the shop. Wasn't too long before the kids were old
enough to stay away when it was chore time, or demand some kind of
payment. In the interest of profits, and quality control, Daddy-Bob
elected to go it alone, preferring to work at night. This nocturnal
woodworking lead him to the way of Neanderthal woodworking, and is
probably when he started cutting those dovetailed aprons by hand;
therefore the problem of how to cut joinery on the end of a long board.
 
The old Budinger (mom's maiden name) noggin must have been working
overtime one day, as Bob got the bright idea of cutting a hole
in the floor below the vise of his workbench. You guessed it,
Bob just fed the long boards through the hole, clamped 'em up,
and sawed away in a standing position, like a real man. He fashioned
a little trap door, and even made a re-positionable dust chute,
so that instead of having to bend down to pick up shavings, he
just switched a little lever (used twine, after the lever broke),
and swept shavings and dust down the hole.
 

I get my height (6'6") from my momma's side of the family. Daddy-Bob
was about 6'3", before being stooped by arthritis. My mom's brothers
were both close to 6'4", and so I'm sure that Daddy-Bob's sibs were
headed in an upward direction, growth-wise. 
It wasn't too long until Bob's little
brothers became Bob's almost-as-tall-as-Bob little brothers. One
evening, when Bob was hard at work on one of his damn bunks (doing
his best to honor the capitalist notion that if you work hard,
ignore your family, and gouge the customer, that you'll get ahead),
not-so-lttle brother Jake came home from a night on the town with
his hard-drinking buddies from Penn State. 

Anyone still awake? Remember where I said those stairs were?

Well, Jake (Jacob) wasn't paying too close attention, as he stumbled in
through the back door, bounded up the stairs, and clocked his head, but
good, right smack on a nice stiff piece of quarter-sawn white oak (A soon
to be Stickley-esque damn bunk). Jake wasn't hurt too bad, but he was mad.
He'd been Bob's "apprentice" more than a few times, and was sick of Bob
making all the extra money. He now had a mean bump to go with his oncoming
hangover, so he aimed to get even.
 
Bob came back to his bench, unaware that Jake had just deposited enough
scalp on the other end of the board to rival what had been taken at Little
Big Horn (the dovetails had already been cut on that end), finished
cutting the remaining end, loosened the vise, and attempted to retrieve
his board. Jake had other ideas. He jerked the board out of Bob's hands.
Bob was so shocked, that he literally dove after the piece, thoroughly
wedging himself in the hole. The cussing and screaming woke up the whole
household. The downstairs kids came to see about the commotion, and saw
Bob hanging there. He screamed at them to help him, so they started
gingerly pulling him out. In the meantime, the upstairs kids came running
into the shop, saw Daddy-Bob's legs, and heard his voice yelling, "Pull!
Pull! Pulllll!". They immediately jumped in, and began pulling with all
their might. Imagine Daddy-Bob's shock and dismay, as Jake stood by, his
head gushing blood, with an evil grin on his face, while nine other busy
Budingers set about stretching Daddy-Bob to the length of his future
grandson.

The tug-of-war continued, until Daddy-Bob's yowling, "Stop!" finally got
the first-floor contingent to cease and desist. The second-floor brigade
also heard the command, and stopped pulling his leg... as I'll stop
pulling on yours now.

O'Neener - running and ducking
Great shellackings administered daily.....
http://www.shellac.net

Way cool Alan,
              I think you may have struck on the perfect solution
in my particular case.The only other problem is that if SWMBO sees
me out there with tools she'll think I'm starting the deck extension
project I promised her eons ago.
        Thanks to Alan and everyone else for their responses
so far ....keep em coming though.

               Phil.

>From: "Alan N. Graham" agraha-@w...
>To: basse-@h... oldtool-@w...
>Subject: Re: How about dovetailing long boards?
>Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 12:36:04 -0500
>
>Phil Basset wants to dovetail long boards but doesn't have a hole in
>the floor to drop the long end through (Old timers will recognize the
>story reference).
>
>Phil - if either you or a friendly neighbor have a raised deck plus a
>couple of clamps, your problems are over. Position the end of the
>board to be cut at the appropriate height for yourself by fastening it
>with clamps to the outside of his/her vertical deck rail. Then stand
>on the deck and cut away.
>
>FWIW
>
>Alan N. Graham
>
>
>
>

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

If I remember correctly, wasn't this the Viking patch?

-Tom Ellis

-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth Stagg [mailto:kstag-@h...
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 12:44 PM
To: Oldtools
Subject: Re: How about dovetailing long boards?


Patrick Olguin wrote:
> 
> .............................................. He also used an unusual
> repair technique to salvage split boards; some sort of variant of a
> Dutchman patch.

And what sort of repair would that be...?

"Thomas R. Bruce" wrote:
> 
> >      Then I got to thinking it might be tough to mark and saw
> > the pins on the ends of a 60" board. I could obviously cut the
> > tails on the top and bottom boards and then mark out the pins
> > by laying the sides flat on the workbench and offering up
> > the tailboards.But what about making the cuts accurately ..
> > ..with the boards laid flat it would seem to be a pain to make
> > cuts with the saw held vertically.Alternatively,to stand the board upright
> > and make cuts at a 60" height would be awkward also.
> 
> I've done this with a couple of large carcases.  Like you, I'd concluded
> that marking the pins from the tails was the easier way to proceed (and so
> it proved).  However, I found that laying the sides flat on the bench didn't
> work very well; the top had a tendency to wave around in the air and marking
> in the space formed by the tail openings and the benchtop proved very
> awkward.  I employed two cheating devices in order to help with the vertical
> approach.

I was making a 7' high carcass and faced with the same dilemma. I found
that using a Japanese saw with the pull stroke worked pretty well for
sawing pins on a horizontal board. Only time I went back to the Dozuki
since acquiring my first IT saw.

Carl
-- 
Carl Muhlhausen				ledze-@a...
AT&T Labs					732.420.2539
200 Laurel Ave. S. - Rm C5-3W01
Middletown, NJ 07748

Personal Web Page at: http://www.geocities.com/harvwoodwrks

From: Esther Heller

Ed said:
The shooting board which I've been using for quite a while now is only 48"
long
so I wound up building a six-footer to make the bottom shelf (poplar) and
the
oak top. This was a place that I thought the extra length of a #8 joiner
was
useful (sorry Esther, its true).


As someone who jointed a 5' long table top 5 boards wide with a
#4 size old Craftsman (it was what I had and I didn't really know
better yet) if you have it, use it!


But having looked at the original picture, I am curious about
the drawer fronts.  Are they built up moldings around the edges
that fit the frame beautifully or what?  My eyes have trouble
resolving which is drawer and which is frame since "sunken"
faces are not the norm.

>.But what about making the cuts accurately ..
>..with the boards laid flat it would seem to be a pain to make
>cuts with the saw held vertically.Alternatively,to stand the board upright
>and make cuts at a 60" height would be awkward also.

For layout,if you have em',  a couple of miter clamps at both corners of
the layed-out joint will  give a simple and solid orientation for marking.

Recently while hand cutting DT's on 6' boards (inside a huge Normite
cabinet shop where I was graciously granted access) the owner saw me
struggling with the vices trying to support the long board along it's
length, and alternately,  somewhat awkwardly clamping the boards
near-vertically to the huge square-cross-section pillars that hold up the
shops ceiling and sawing while standing on a sawhorse (this for cutting the
tails,. btw). He kept casting glances my way and when walking past he would
look on in indulgent stupifaction. Eventually he spoke his mind, wondering
why I was making thing so difficult.
He suggested I clamp the board flat onto the benchtop and then lay on the
floor on my back, positioning myself at the correct relation to the board.
For those that have never tried sawing while laying flat on their back, I
highly recommend  it.  Although I didn't need it, if you need to fine tune
the prone woodworker-to-wood distance, a chaise lounge or low bench should
do the trick, or alternately clamping the board to be cut beneath the
workbench. Many possibilities here.
It worked out so well in fact, that now I have my workbench mounted upside
down on my bedroom ceiling and I do all my woodworking directly from my
bed.

-Neal Weiss
Lurker who will Bio forth after eventually aquiring his first old tool,
hopefully a pre war #4 Stanley in good+ condition (smoother, Jeff) [struck
out twice so far, casting cracks, gah!] to finish his flatfile project.
Nudge, nudge...

Dropping late into this...

But it seems to be a description of cock-beading.  An applied moulding which
'frames' the drawer front.

(Hides a lot of sins, does cock-beading)

Richard Wilson


esther.helle-@k... wrote:

> From: Esther Heller
>
> Ed said:
> The shooting board which I've been using for quite a while now is only 48"
> long
> so I wound up building a six-footer to make the bottom shelf (poplar) and
> the
> oak top. This was a place that I thought the extra length of a #8 joiner
> was
> useful (sorry Esther, its true).
>
> As someone who jointed a 5' long table top 5 boards wide with a
> #4 size old Craftsman (it was what I had and I didn't really know
> better yet) if you have it, use it!
>
> But having looked at the original picture, I am curious about
> the drawer fronts.  Are they built up moldings around the edges
> that fit the frame beautifully or what?  My eyes have trouble
> resolving which is drawer and which is frame since "sunken"
> faces are not the norm.
>
> --
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> Public replies:  oldtool-@l...
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