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RWW 47 Let The Games Begin

2 comments
15 years ago
Hand Tool Olympics     Hand Tools     Videos

This week is the first part in a series of 6 talking about the Woodworking in America Hand Tool Olympics. Over the next few weeks I will be releasing a video to cover each of the 6 events in detail. Make sure to head over to Mike Siemsen’s blog where he has posted details of each event, the tools provided, and how the judging will be done. Mike is the president of of the local Society of American Period Furniture Makers (SAPFM) and he is organizing and running the hand tool olympics. He is also the director of the Mike Siemsen School of Woodworking so check out his site and look at the classes he offers. Mike is a traditional woodworker and you will learn a great deal about hand tools and period methods at his school.

Anyway, this week I tackle the first event, the 1 meter dash where contestants will be asked to rip a 36 in long 2×12 piece of white pine. The event will be judged on accuracy to the line and squareness of cut as well as time.

Enjoy the video and start practicing!

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Bob Rozaieski

Nice job Shannon! Love the intro! You sort of beat me to my next podcast with this episode though, as I’m planning an episode on sawing mechanics, lol. I’ve been away from it for several weeks due to some busy and unexpected events at home but I should be back this week…I hope.

I’m not sure what kind of saws they will be using or that it will matter for cutting a 2 x 12 but in my experience, the saw and how it is sharpened has a lot more to do with the speed of the cut than the sawyer. You can only power a saw so much but ultimately you can’t force it to cut any faster than it can clear the sawdust. Once the teeth gullets fill with sawdust, the teeth stop cutting. I’m not going to WIA but here’s my tip for you and anyone planning to compete in this event. Don’t try to power the saw through the cut. More downward pressure will only make you work harder to move fast and ultimately make you tired faster. You need to let the saw do the cutting. What you are trying to do is to get the saw through the kerf fast to clear the sawdust as quickly as possible. So I would focus on making fast straight strokes but not necessarily trying to power the saw to bite more wood, which will actually slow it down. Again, the saw can only cut as fast as it is filed for. Fast strokes are your friend here, not powerful ones.

Be sure to check out my next podcast that I hope will be up this week. I’ll have a few other sawing techniques I’ve found over the last several years that have really helped my accuracy out a lot. If I recall, you will be judged on squareness of cut in the ripping competition as well so it’s not something you want to ignore. This is actually the more difficult part of sawing. Good luck in the olympics! 😉

Mike Semsen

We will be using a 26″ 5 1/2 ppi rip saw freshly sharpened by tecnoprimitives in a rough 1 x 12 in white pine… ONE by 12 not 2 x 12. Don’t want to kill anyone. How did you get Bob Costas anyway? See you in the Arena!!
Mike Siemsen