Rob Cosman Hand Cut Mortise and Tenons
I rented this 2 DVD set from SmartFlix.com How-To DVDs
and just watched them yesterday. While I am definately a hybrid woodworker, I picked up some great tips on refining the fit of your mortise and tenon joints and I have been inspired to give the hand cut approach a try. (Once I get the bench finished).
What I found striking about this video is that the whole thing is filmed in real time. Rob actually cuts the joint right in front of you and it doesn’t fit perfectly right off the saw. He goes through painstaking detail to refine the fit using several techniques to end up with an incredible fit. I was especially interested in his use of a skew rabbet plane to trim the face of the tenon cheeks to fit. His layout technique is simple and clear and I walked away from this video with an excellent idea of how I could apply it to my own work.
The second DVD ups the ante and Rob cuts a through wedged tenon. This joint has no room for error on the face side and using the same techniques, he cuts the entire joint in real time. The finishing touch is Rob’s simple layout of the wedges and installation.
I definately enjoyed every minute of this series and if nothing else there was some gratuitous Lie Nielsen tools on display throughout with lots of wispy shavings floating on the breeze!
And for those of you out there screaming at me, “get to work on that bench”, I’ll have you know that this was studying woodworking techniques and it is work. Besides, I put it on the shop TV and sat on my benchtop to watch it so technically I was working on my bench, literally!
Check out the link below to this video series.
