Thread: Underbench cabinets

Here you go Ian... Does actually make you think about tool lust vs skill...

How To Make Hand-Cut Dovetails - IBUILDIT.CA


The hacksaw's there, but he does cheat and use a chisel - albeit a footprint cheapy...

I've actually seen acceptable dovetails cut out using a hacksaw (pretty sure it was posted on this forum some years ago, but can't find it on a quick search). The bloke in your link also confesses to a bit of fiddling ("After some fine tuning and a dry fit",....), but didn't go into any details (or tell us how many pieces he chucked away before he got the result he shows, which is pretty good for a first attempt at hand-cutting with a decent saw, but what's with the half-bottle of glue slopped all over the joint? I suspect a bit of sawdust might've accidentally got rubbed in to fill a few voids...

Last year I too set out to prove that it's practice that matters & you don't need a $400 saw to cut dovetails, but came a bit of a cropper. My aim was to show you should be able to manage an "off saw" fit with any saw, with a bit of care. The saw I chose wasn't even the cheapest of the 3 available in the Big Green Shed I went to. I went for it because its handle was placed slightly better than the other two "backsaws" I tried and it felt like a slightly thinner plate & the paper wrapper claimed it was "optimised" for both cross & rip cuts (an oxymoron as well as a downright fib, since it did neither well!). My objective was to show that with my years of experience of using saws I'd be able to saw & fit D/Ts "off saw", even with a cheap plastic-handled thing. Well I couldn't & didn't, I wasn't half as clever as I thought.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Last year I too set out to prove that it's practice that matters & you don't need a $400 saw to cut dovetails,
snip
The saw I chose wasn't even the cheapest of the 3 available in the Big Green Shed I went to. I went for it because its handle was placed slightly better than the other two "backsaws" I tried and it felt like a slightly thinner plate & the paper wrapper claimed it was "optimised" for both cross & rip cuts (an oxymoron as well as a downright fib, since it did neither well!).

Sorry, IanW,
but the saw you choose was sold as "optimised for both cross & rip cuts".
as you well know, a rip saw is filed with chisel shaped teeth, a cross cut saw is filed with knife shaped teeth.

A saw "optimised for both" will have teeth that are neither a chisel shape nor a knife shape (I think that means the teeth are deliberately blunt) so it's not an oxymoron, as the saw will truthfully do neither task well. So the "optimised for both" is a true statement and not a "downright fib".





I think that in techo marketing, the term is "come in sucker"

This is dangerous talk.

I think you all need some re-programming to start thinking of clutter as a lack of organisation rater than excess of tools.

If you emptied out the Louvre onto pallet shelves it would look like a huge pile of clutter.

But in seriousness I am coming around to tools in drawers. I was swayed for a time with the view that tools in drawers get forgotten and rust. That might be true for a drawer of odds and sods like old hacksaws, files etc. But as I've developed I've noticed I always know exactly what I want. I'm not going to fail to think that my No 3 stanley would be just the thing for a task because it's not hanging on a wall.

I was leery on rust but it does seem wooden drawers or inserts either bare wood or with a porous finish are really the answer as they should wick away small droplets of sweat or moisture (and not trap them like plastic lining or a foam insert would).

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Go for it Ian ... perhaps we should create a 12-step de-clutter group?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by Cgcc

.....I was leery on rust but it does seem wooden drawers or inserts either bare wood or with a porous finish are really the answer as they should wick away small droplets of sweat or moisture (and not trap them like plastic lining or a foam insert would).

Cgcc, I can assure you that in our neck of the woods, tools are vastly safer in drawers of just about any material! When I first returned to Brisbane I lived in a few different houses, none of which had any 'proper' workspaces. I quickly found that any iron-containing tool left on benches or shelves succumbed to the demon rust virtually overnight in the wetter part of the year! I was often away for weeks at a time so I resorted to liberal applications of paste-wax, wrapping in cloth & storing in cardboard cartons if leaving them for anything longer than a day or two. Keeping your tools in cupboards, drawers, cartons, anything that restricts air-flow, is a big help.

When I finally got a permanent shed to myself, I made sure everything went into drawers inside cupboards & have had no problems since, except when I used some silky oak to make cut-outs in a chisel drawer. I thought it was properly dry, but it still caused nasty rust marks on the backs of the chisels where they rested on the wood! I've since been far more careful in my choice of wood for drawer inserts. I avoid anything that has significant amounts of tannin (eucalypts!). Camphor laurel, which is pretty readily obtainable round here, seems to be safe.

You would probably be better off with a non-porous finish on any parts that touch metal, but I've had no trouble with a combination of a thin coat of shellac followed by a coat of of paste wax over that.

Sweat can be a very nasty thing. If you do drop a bead of sweat on a saw blade or plane body & don't notice it before putting it away, this is what you get in a very short time: Rust smear.jpg

That's one of my favourite saws that I use almost every day. I tried sanding & polishing the smear out, but it was too deep already, so the mark is still very visible & serves as a reminder to check & wipe the blade carefully with a dry cloth after using nice shiny saws in hot weather!

Cheers,

Thanks Ian

I think about this more than I care to admit. I have heard before warnings about humidity in Brisbane. Indeed I was aware from professional experience that Qld humidity has caused manufacturer liability issues (not to do with rust, but other issues) when steel products have been marketed and sold in Qld.

It is also a reason why I shamefully plump for Festool for my portable power tools. The systainers could be replicated with a fair bit of hard work but they are very good to pack away, and unpack with no dust or realistic possibility of rust.

This noted, a very successful little project I did last summer was insulating my garage door just with foam boards. The door is kept closed most times, other than when car is coming in and out and maybe a Saturday morning when gardening, for getting mower etc in and out. The garage is internal (ie, under the house, connected internally) and house decently insulated so it avoids temperature extremes. I have not noticed any rust on hanging or wall-mounted tools. I am aware that particularly if you live anywhere near the coast your issues become extreme.

The disasters I have had are when I've left a plane or other metal on a non-porous surface (eg painted) that must have had moisture. It takes no time at all when the water is trapped. I have been nervous about keeping planes etc in metal drawers and my current project (inspired by this thread) is wooden inserts and holders.