Handsaw practice

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jfynyson

Jeremy
User
So after selling my log home with dedicated shop I am finally getting around to learning how to perform hand cut joinery. Step one for me is to learn how to use my dovetail saw. I took with me from the move a couple of scrap boards of birch for practicing on.

I first marked every 1/8” all the way across a ~5” wide board. Took about 30min just to learn how to start the cut (still the toughest part) and after 3 or 4 cut lines I felt I was cutting decently along the lines. That was a couple weeks ago and tonight I came back to a new set of lines this time 1/4” apart. I’m trying to stay very close to the line (just to the left) without actually cutting the pencil line.

These are not yet angled cuts like for dovetails and I’ve not yet (due to poor lighting) tried to cut on the right side of a line but after only using the saw twice now I feel like these cuts are a decent start for practice. Sorry if the pic is crooked but it’s in normal portrait mode on my phone and no way I see to edit it from this site using my phone.

Any pointers before I finish these cut lines and start on dovetail angle cuts ?
 

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Graywolf

Board of Directors, President
Richard
Staff member
Corporate Member
Just continue to practice following and cutting to the line. Oh and try cutting with both hands, it takes practice but you can become good with both hands.so try ten cuts with the right hand and ten cuts with the left. Trust me when I say this is invaluable in becoming a better with any saw.
 

CDPeters

Master of None
Chris
WRT starting the cut, I've found Paul Seller's "knife wall" method to be very useful. Scribe a knife cut on (or just to the waste side) of the line, then with a chisel coming from the waste side into the cut pare out a little up to the knife cut, leaving a tipped V with one leg of the V vertical (the "knife wall") and the other angled into the bottom of the knife cut. This leaves a nice guide for starting the cut accurately. At some point or another in just about every video, Paul uses this technique. A dedicated marking knife with one flat face and all of the bevel on the opposite face works best. I have an old pocket knife I ground to this profile that I keep close at hand for this.
 

jfynyson

Jeremy
User
Thank you both for the input. I never thought about trying to use both hands for sawing but I took your advice and thought that if we all learned how to write, draw, etc... with both hands when we didn't know how (muscle memory) to use either then learning both would be easier and I was amazed at how similar the learning curve was using left vs right hand since I'd never really done this before. I'll continue to practice in this fashion. Also I had seen but forgotten the trick of carving out a saw rest from the knife line using a chisel so I'm working on that as well.
 

Graywolf

Board of Directors, President
Richard
Staff member
Corporate Member
I plan on putting together a handsaw skills workshop this fall, we would cover a lot of sawing techniques from breaking down stock to joinery. It's a fun workshop that lasts about six hours, of instruction and practice drills that you can take with you the rest of your life. Keep it in mind when I post in a week or so.
 
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