Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by wormil on April 11, 2013 at 10:55am

Here is a hand sawing tip from Roy Underhill .. only saw what you can see. Strike a line across the end and both sides of the board. Start sawing at a corner and only saw the 2 lines you can see, then flip the board and saw the back line, then saw out the peak in the middle. Do this while working your way down the board.

For a jigsaw, see if you can rig up an edge guide.

A jack plane, if you have one, will straighten the edge quickly.

Permalink Reply by Wiley Rutledge on April 11, 2013 at 11:06am

I agree with wormil, a jack plane or smoothing plane is the best way to straighten an already cut piece if hand tools are what's available.

Permalink Reply by Scott aka Farmer Ted on April 11, 2013 at 11:20am

next time, use a table saw and finish with a plane or jointer

Permalink Reply by Wiley Rutledge on April 11, 2013 at 11:30am

Easiest way is table saw but everyone doesn't have one or access to one.

Permalink Reply by Tony Brown on April 11, 2013 at 9:35pm

Just looked up what a Table Saw is.

Starting at about £150 ..forget it.

The point is making CBGs for me is about cost..as near to nothing as possible.

Will just have to struggle on with my Jigsaw, Plane and Orbital Sander.

Permalink Reply by Tommy Phillips on April 11, 2013 at 12:16pm

Definitely use a straight edge guide next time.

For this time, you want to be careful in order to successfully sand it straight. One way is to use a marking guage to find the line you are sanding to. If you don't have a marking guage, you can use a compass (with a pencil) or a divider to mark the parallel edge.

-Tommy Phillips

Permalink Reply by Marmelade on April 11, 2013 at 9:00pm

Things take time. The easiest way is not always the best way. That's too common, many mistakes have been done in our world for taking shortcuts.

Permalink Reply by MadGomer on April 13, 2013 at 4:27am

To finish with a plane is an excellent plan.  One other thought though to help saw as straight as you can - - if you have a long straightedge and a utility knife/razor knife/chisel - score along the cut line with several passes, ideally on both sides of your board.  Your hand saw will tend to follow the path of least resistance, so some deep score marks will help keep it reasonably straight.  Don't try to press too hard on any one pass as you score it, simply make multiple passes on both sides, then saw it, then finish it up with your plane.  Good luck!

Permalink Reply by Tony Brown on April 13, 2013 at 5:17am

Now that sounds like a plan.

I use a 1 mtr steel rule for most things and my Stanley Knife is also a much used tool.

Will try that next time.

Have a straight neck now but slightly narrower than originally intended. Certainly a 3 string rather than a 4.

Have just cut the hole and glued in a white plastic sink waste (Grill) if thats the right word, for the 2" sound hole.

Also glued on the Nut so it's " leave it all alone "  overnight for the glues to dry.

Permalink Reply by Michael Recchione on May 13, 2013 at 9:40am

I don't know if this is resolved already, but I'll add my two cents.  I only use hand tools, so I'm not going to tell you to go get a table saw.  I DO try to avoid ripping something that long, and don't do it if I'm just trying to get something closer to the width I want and don't care about the waste.  I will rip if I'm trying to get more than one usable board out of a single raw board, but if I don't care about what happens to the waste, I'll use a less painful method that just "wastes" the waste.  For example, if I'm trimming a board from say 2" to 1.25" or something like that, I won't bother ripping with a saw.  For that sort of thing, I'll use a drawknife to get really close, then finish up with a plane.  If the grain is well behaved, you can even use an ax or hatchet for this step - either way, it's much faster and less effort than ripping.

When you do have to rip, a sharp saw is a must.  I learned to sharpen saws on rip saws, since they're much less finicky to get perfect than crosscut - the angle of the file is perpendicular to the saw, so you don't have to worry about jigs or anything - you can eyeball it.  There are loads of sites that'll tell you how to do it on the web - just google it.  But the bottom line is that the saw has to be sharp, and the set has to be even on both sides, or the saw will wander or refuse to cut and just cause you no end of grief.  Once you get the hang of it, sharpening a saw goes pretty quickly and easily.  It takes about 10 minutes to sharpen a saw for ripping, and will save you tons of heartache and sore muscles.

In either case, whether I use a saw or draw knife, I'll try to stay a little proud of the line.  For the rest, if it's a 36" length, as you said, I would NOT use a smoothing plane to joint the edge.  Start out with a "fore plane", which would be in the 15" - 18" range.  In Stanley's numbering system, that would be a #5 (which Stanley called a Jack), or #6 (Stanley's Fore Plane).  When I was buying old tools, a #5 was as common as dirt - I don't know about now.  #6s were also pretty cheap and not hard to find at flea markets and on eBay.

You set the fore plane's iron for a relatively aggressive cut - not too much, but not for transparent thin shavings the way you would for a smoother, either.  When you're really close to where you need to be, you could shift to a longer plane if you have one.  I use a #7, set for a pretty fine cut.  If you don't have a #7, a #6 will do.  I never sand to joint the edge of a board - that sounds like a lot of unpleasant work.  That's what planes were made for.