Shaker Sideboard: I'm In Fine Woodworking!

[Hank Knight]

My process for wide panels for table tops and such is more complicated. I first run the mating edges through my powered jointer. I've never been very happy with the mating surface I get from the jointer, so I make a very light pass or two over both mating edges with a jointer plane. Then, with one board held edge-up in my vise, I balance the other one on top and test to see if the second board rests solidly on the first one. Usually it doesn't on the first try; it'll want rock back and forth or there will be a high spot that will make the top board want to rotate helicopter style. I then inspect the joint closely by passing a flashlight behind the joint to see if I can see light between the mating surfaces. If I can, I mark where the mate is not perfect and make another pass or two over both edges with the jointer plane. Once I've eliminated the light slivers and the top board rests solidly on the bottom one, I check to make sure the assembly is flat by holding a straight edge across the width of the assembly. If the assembly is not flat, I take another very light pass with the jointer plane to adjust the angle and repeat until the assembly is perfectly mated and flat. Once I have a perfectly mated joint and a flat assembly, I clamp the assembly together and test for twist with winding sticks. If it's twisted I adjust with light plane passes to eliminate it. When all of these errors are eliminated, I take one or two very light passes along both edges until I get a perfect, full length shaving. Then it's ready for glue. Clamps can easily pull the assembly out of flat or twist it, so I continue to test for flatness as I apply clamps, alternating them over and under the assembly, making sure the bars are parallel to the surface of the assembly. When all the clamps are secured I test for twist with winding sticks. I can remove some twist by adjusting the clamp pressure or angles before the glue sets up. I believe that if I have perfectly mated joints, I don't have to worry about using sprung joints. It's a tedious and sometimes frustrating process, but I get flat panels every time and I've never had one separate at the ends.

[adamcherubini]

Hank- if it works for you, then you are golden. But if you are interested, there may be a faster way.

First - for everybody else - the problem Hank is pointing to is- what happens when the boards you are joining are not perfectly flat. If they have any twist, when you joint the edges using a jointer, you are stuck with that twist after the glue up. The std solution is to machine the boards' faces flat, to develop a reference face for the jointer. But that requires a wide jointer. A surface planer creates only straightness across the grain and uniform thickness, it won't make a twisted board flat.

So- What I do is take both boards to be joined and clamp them to the front face of my Nicholson bench so that they are clamped flat. Many times for large thin table tops, the clamps don't need to be super tight. Then I match plane the mating edges together such that any out of square condition in the edge, corresponds to an equal and opposite angle in the mating board. I always spring my long joints, but that's another discussion.

When I release the boards from the face of the bench, they typically spring back twisted a little. When I clamp the edge joint, that twist is usually forced back out. I rarely use a caul or bother to restrain the boards flat during glue up.

My approach is VERY easy to do. Very easy to make good joints. All you need is a long wide plane (S#8 is barely big enough) and a bench that you can clamp boards to the front of. Sometimes I do this as a demo because I feel its such an important skill for all woodworkers. As a parlor trick, I sometimes do it blindfolded, listening to the cut of the plane to know when the joint is straight and then sprung. I start by making a little hollow, then go end to end until I get a complete shaving. Its a parlor trick.

[Hank Knight]

Hi, Adam. Thanks for your post. I've always been a klutz at match plaining. I have a Stanley 608, so I may have to revisit it and try your method. I have one question. The front apron of your Nicholson bench is pretty wide (deep?). Is that width necessary to clamp the boards flat? The apron on my bench is 4". I'm not sure I'd be able to flatten two wide boards by clamping them together to my 4" wide apron. My process is often tedious, but it works. Faster would be nice, even if it is a parlor trick. ;>)

[adamcherubini]

Hi Hank- I recall someone telling me I had to hold my plane perfectly parallel to the ground and that after years of practice, this person could just feel level. 25 years later, I still cannot. The trick to match planning is clamping the boards face to face so the angle doesn't matter. The plane doesn't need to be level because the edge doesn't need to be square. The edges just need to match, thus the name "match planning".

Getting straight can take a little practice. Many of us hang the plane off the end before we get started, then let it sag at the end of the pass which causes a convex edge condition which results in a gap at glue up at the ends. In demos, I take one hand off the plane (back hand on the back, front hand on the front) to show I'm applying pressure always and only to the portion of the plane that is resting on the stock. Kinda hard to explain, but you probably know what I'm talking about.

Nicholson benches have wide aprons to help with edge work. Mine is a 2x12 under the edge of the top so the apron is over 1' deep. But for the table tops I'm thinking of, that isn't nearly deep enough. Nicholson benches also have legs flush with the apron. So: For boards shorter than my 8' bench, I holdfast the upper portion to the apron, then clamp the lower edge to the legs. For longer boards, that can be trickier. Just clamping them together sometimes is all you need. I've done things that I think I can't explain. Like: If the front (LHS) is tight against the bench and the rear upper edge is hanging off, I've swapped sides of my bench. I use homemade parallel type clamps that have a long reach and gobs of power.

But I think one can do edge work on virtually any bench. Might just need to get creative.

Here's the key:
I can't saw faster or more accurately than a table saw. But I think we all can live without jointers. Not only is a hand plane just as fast or faster, it allows you to work pieces of lumber that would be too awkward to move across a jointer bed. And it solves the problem of twisted stock. If you run twisted stock across a power jointer, you get a twisted glue up. You have to either machine out the twist, or restrain it out before jointer.

I guess guys get accustomed to using power jointers. If its in your way I'd sell it. If you like it then keep it. But absolutely, I think every woodworker should have a long plane and a bench to use it. Somebody mentioned in that thread with the old picture that they were surprised to see those old carpenters with so many long planes. Frankly, I'm not surprised. Long planes are awesome. I'm surprised more woodworkers don't have them.

The plane I use is 30" or 36" long with a 2-7/8" wide iron. They called this a "glewing joynter" in some old texts. Good tool to have.

[Hank Knight]

Thanks, Adam. I'm pretty good at plaining straight and level. Been doing it for a long time. I can usually feel when I'm not square to the face of the board, and I check with a small engineer's square and correct as I as I go along.

I built my bench sixteen years ago and it has served me well. Your method of clamping the twist out of matched boards is the first operation I've run into for which it is not suited. My legs are not flush with the edge of the top, so I can't clamp as you instructed. I'll just keep using my tedious method for matching edges and gluing a flat panel. Time is not a premium in my world and there is a little Zen in the process.? I actually enjoy it.

I have admired your work for a long time. Thank you for taking the time to discuss this with me. I hope Philip doesn't object to our hijacking his thread.

Hank

[barryvabeach]

Adam, thanks as well for your contribution.  I wanted to make sure I understood it.  You are stacking the two boards face to face  ( or back to back ) and clamping the upper most edges against the side of the bench,  just above the top of the bench - correct?   Then are you clamping the lower edges to each other -  or are you clamping them so they lie flat against the legs?   My guess is that you are clamping the lower edges so they lie flat against the legs.  That would mean so long as the outer edge of the bench and the legs are in one plane, and the inner most face of the inner board being clamped is parallel to the face of the inner most board, the assembly will be flat  and in one plane when clamped to the bench.   Then it would follow that once you jointed the two top edges, then took them off the bench and clamped the edges together, it  would be one flat panel, correct?     The legs on my bench are not aligned with the edge of the bench ,  but my deadman is,  and it should not be hard to make a spacer to go against a leg to get something similar to your setup.

[AHill]

At the risk of stealing Adam's thunder, here's a pic from the Logan Cabinet Shoppe of a match planing setup.  The top where the plane rests in the joint that will be glued.  The outsides of each board are the tops of the panels being glued.

The complete proccess:  
https://logancabinetshoppe.wordpress.com...ng-method/

[adamcherubini]

Bob has a good write up. The picture above doesn’t quite describe what I was trying to say, but I’ve done small jobs like that too. I feel like I over complicated my response. Here’s all I wanted to say:

With a Nicholson bench, the front face is completely flat. Whatever face vise I have installed, (like the twin screw shown above), I remove.

When you have big boards, if there’s any twist, you just clamp it out by clamping it to the front face of the bench. I only ever use enough clamps to do what I need. And I clamp to whatever is convenient, front apron, legs, I’ve even pipe-clamped all the way across the top to pull out twist. With a Nicholson bench this is all very easy and straight forward. Since it doesn’t weigh much, it’s easy to pull away from the wall when you need to clamp to the back face. If I had more shop space, I’d leave the vise on the front face and do all my edge work on the back face.

But you don’t need a Nicholson bench to match plane. Clamp to whatever you’ve got. Even a ratchet strap might help. I've stood boards on the floor and done it. Before you start planing, make sure the edges you are planing are tight together.

I very often face plane the boards first, since after the glue up, planing the joint can be tricky if the boards aren’t book matched. So I typically use those planed faces to my advantage and clamp face to face.

Here’s one more tip: I face plane, then match plane and glue. I work all the free edges after the glue is dry. During match planing, I often dry fit before gluing. If I don’t like what I see, I re-plane the edge. Getting the match planed edges to line up perfectly isn’t always easy. So my trick is, I sometimes screw the boards together, with the screws in the excess at the ends. I use Ye olde drywall screws, but a dowel or anything else would work. This is just to align and realign the match planed edge. This way you could easily match plane 2 boards of differing widths.

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Because this procedure removes so little wood, it’s very quick and easy to do by hand. At the same time, the power tools you need to do a comparable job are really expensive and take up a lot of space that you could use for tools that are more helpful.

I still don’t have any stationary power tools besides my chop saw. I think my dream shop would probably have a big band saw that I’d use to rip boards. I feel like I can plane edges so quickly, a table saw would not be necessary. If I were young and just starting out, I think an 18v circ saw and a Nicholson bench would be my choice/recommendation. Use the power saw to rough cut, and clean up with the hand tools. Woodworkers spend a lot of money and space to get a board with a straight edge. If they all had long planes and sat thru one of my edge demos, I wonder how their shops would change.

[adamcherubini]

In power tool woodworking, we expend energy working reference surfaces required for subsequent machine operations, not particularly required for the project. This is one example of how hand tool woodworking can save time over the course of a project compared to machines.

Power jointers work edges, but they need a flat reference face. Table saws need boards with a straight edge to reference against the fence. We machine faces so we can machine faces. And if the first face isn’t good (or the tool isn't good), the next operation (and project quality) suffers. The process is inefficient. Electric energy is used to overcome the inherent inefficiency in the process/tools.

For example: My dining table is made from just 2, 18" wide walnut boards. The free edges were never ripped or made parallel to the middle joint. I paid big money for 18+" wide walnut why "clean up" the edges to make them arbitrarily parallel? That's just expending energy I don't need to and wasting wood I paid for.

The finished table top tapers about 3/8" from one end to the other (its 8' long). So what? I put in just enough energy to transform the lumber I bought into a usable table top.

I never planed the bottom surface. These boards never went thru a thickness planer. I paid for 6/4 and wanted a nice thick table. They went from saw mill to hand plane.

Many woodworkers start projects by 4 or 6 squaring their stock. They rough mill, then final mill. I just don’t. I only expend energy on surfaces that mean something to my build or finished product.

The trick, which I don’t write about often or ever, is to build stuff with machines the way I build by hand, cherry picking the 18th c processes that add capability, short cutting machine operations, and machine purchases to increase overall product quality.

I appreciate Phillip for sharing his project with us on the Hand Tools forum. I think he raised a subject (edge work) that benefits the entire community, which, in my mind, is the very best use of forums like this one.

[barryvabeach]

Adam,  I started out with only hand tools, and learned pretty quickly that what doesn't show doesn't need to be planed.  For me, the underside of a table only needs to be planed where it over hangs the rails,  other than that, I leave it rough.