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| Professor Pekovich |
Whereas Matt spoke mostly of hand tools and achieving an efficient flow and rhythm with bench appliances (read about his demonstration here), Mike’s demonstration included the use of a cabinet saw and custom ground blade and focused primarily on cutting dovetails.
Here are my (imperfect) notes on Mike’s demonstation:
- Get in the shop every day
- Thinking can and should be done outside the shop
- Figure out what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it outside the shop
- Work is for in the shop
- Dovetails
- Have a saw blade ground to the dovetails angle. This will cut and clean out the corners of tails beautifully and quickly.
- To square the tail board on the pin board for marking the pins, let your thumbs tell you when the two (2) boards are even with each other.
- Use a plane on it’s side or a scrap board to set the pin board’s height in the vise and to hold the far end of the tail board while marking.
- Saw with confidence.
- Gaps are more likely to occur when paring then when sawing.
- When you’re not confident you’ll cut straight
- Cheat in from the line
- Steer away from the line
- Sawing Pins
- Get setup in a stance, start sawing and let the saw go (in terms of steering, you still have to hold on).
- Keep your arm straight and tight to your body.
- Practice cutting all the way down to the spine of the saw.
- Make all the pin cuts in one direction, then change stance and make the cuts in the other direction.
- By cutting the tails first, the pins are able to absorb the slop.
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| Mikes test board for setting the angle of the saw and the custom ground blade. |
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| Cutting tails o the table saw. |
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| Set the pin board height and support the tail board with a plane on its side. Align the tail board with your thumbs. |
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| Cut all the pin cuts of one directions first, then change your stance and then cut the other direction cuts. |
