Techniques

Sharpening Bench Hook

December 5, 2010 By The Inquisitive Woodworker 3 Comments

I didn’t have a lot time to spend in the shop this weekend, and it’s been pretty cold and I don’t have heat in the shop! So I thought I would work on a simple project. I’ve been wanted to make simple bench hook to use while sharpening. My sharpening method is based on David Charlesworth’s technique of sharpening. He uses a simple side clamping honing guide. I believe he developed this concept of a sharpening bench hook, and I think guys over at Lie-Nielsen refined it. You can find a free article and plans at the Lie-Nielsen site.

This is a quick an easy project to knock out. You can customize the projection stops to the angles and honing guide you use. I’ve only set up a few so far, but I have room to add others. I gave it a test run today, and it worked great. I like the compact size. It’s easy to store and to travel with, when I take classes.

A few words on different sharpening techniques. There are many different techniques out there on how to sharpen, and I’ve tried many of them. It has always been a goal of mine to develop my freehand sharpening skills. The problem I ran into, I don’t sharpen on a regular basis. Meaning I’m not working in my shop on a constant basis. I could go months between needing to sharpen a tool. This made it difficult to maintain my freehand sharpening shills. David’s approach might not be as fast as freehand sharpening, but it’s pretty darn quick and repeatable. When it comes to sharpening repeatability is key. The stops on the bench hook are what make this approach repeatable. These stops, set your angle projects dead on every time. This makes resharpening fast and reliable.

David has several DVDs on sharpening, that go into great detail on his approach. It’s much more than this bench hook concept. If you want to learn more about his approach, you can find those DVDs over at Lie-Nielsen too.

Filed Under: Jigs, Projects, Techniques

Practice Makes Perfect

January 28, 2009 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker Leave a Comment

How do you become good at something? Practice, practice, practice. This holds true for woodworking, as it does for: sports, games, cooking (Bar-B-Q!), etc. I don’t do my own Bar-B-Q, and I don’t mean grilling in the backyard. There are some things I just leave to the professionals.

This last Saturday I had a fun day at our local Woodcraft store. Rob Cosman was there teaching a hands-on class. The course outline was: Sharpening, Hand planing, Dovetails, and Mortise and Tenon. Rob said this would generally be a 3 day class. We had to cut something, so we voted. It came out to something like this. Dovetails and Hand planing I think were tide for 1. Then Mortis and Tenon, then Sharpening.

Rob paused for a minute. He then said, one the most fundamental skills needed for hand tool work is sharpening. Without a solid understanding and the skill of sharpening, your work will suffer. Who could argue with that? He then took a brand new plane blade from a Lie-Nielsen plane, and had it perfectly sharp in about 3 minutes. Rob does all his sharpening freehand, no jigs. After seeing how quickly he was able to sharpen that blade, it was a skill I wanted to have.

The next day I played around with Rob’s approach to sharpening. I still have some practicing to do, but I was getting some good results. Not perfect yet, but enough to encourage me to me continue. In that vain, I have taken all my sharpen jigs and boxed them. Not that any of them really worked that well anyway. Having the jigs gone, I will force myself to learn to sharpen freehand. Practice, practice, practice.

In the class, Dovetails took up most of the time that was left. My sample corner came out about the same as some of my recent attempts. The nice thing about a class like this, you get firsthand help. The tips and critiques Rob gave, were amazing helpful. With more practice, I can see that my skill level should rise quickly.

Today, I had some time after work and shop wasn’t too cold, so I practice some sawing. One of the exercises Rob had us do, were a lot of vertical cuts. You are practicing the perpendicular cut across the grain, which is so important on the tails. You are also practicing a vertical cut, which is very important on the pins. I thought I would take this exercise, and cut a few rows each night when I get home from work.

Here are 3 rows I did tonight. The order I cut them is from top to bottom. You can see I was very ambitious on the first row. My lines were pretty close together. I spread the lines out on the others, so the lines would be easier to see.

The first row, I cut from right to left, on the left side of the line. The second row was cut left to right, on the right side of the line. The last row was another right to left.

If you can make the lines out, I’m a little better when I cut on the left side of the line. I still have some work to do, on getting the cut perfectly perpendicular but I’m getting there. One of the tips Rob gave, was to establish a shallow kerf across the end-grain then stop. Pausing after you make this kerf, allows you prepare for the vertical cut. I found this technique very helpful.

Most of my vertical cuts came out pretty well. Although, part of the vertical cut is cutting to the baseline and not going past. Here I still need a little practice.

My goal it cut a lot of these rows, over the next couple of weeks. If you add up just what I cut in these 3 rows, how many full dovetails would I have had to cut? Quite a few. The other skill needed for dovetails, is chopping to the baseline. I also plan to do some similar exercises for my chisel work. Practice, practice, practice.

Filed Under: Education, Techniques

Shaker Silverware Tray – Cutting the Tails and Pins

December 15, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker 2 Comments

Cutting the Tails
The last installment of this series I showed how I layout the tails. Now it’s time to do some cutting. When cutting Tails first, you really only need to concern about cutting perpendicular across the end of the board. If you can get this perpendicular cut dead on, you have solved most of your problems. The lines for the angle cuts on the tails really are just guides. If the angle is off it’s not a big deal. These cuts will be transferred to the pin board. Some people don’t even mark the lines for the tails, they just eyeball them.

I ganged the two boards together to save on sawing. This is the first time I’ve tried ganging boards together. These boards were only a ½” think each, so the overall thickness wasn’t that great. It worked out pretty well.

I used a fret saw to cut the waste between my tails. It makes pretty quick work of it.

I didn’t take pictures of doing the shoulder cuts and the chisel work needed to clean up the waste cuts. I need to work out a way to easily take pictures, while I have 2 tools in my hands. I’ll work on that and post some updates later.

Tail Transfer
The first step is to clamp the pin board into your vise. A good way to do this is put one of your bench planes on it’s side, and set the top of the pin board flush with the bench plane.

Next move the bench plane back some distance from the pin board, and use it to support your tail board.

Now remember when I talked about the 140-Trick in the layout post, this is where it comes into play. That shallow rabbet I cut with the skewed block plane, allows me to register the tail board precisely and easily on the pin board. If you didn’t use the 140-trick, you would have fuss and fiddle with the alignment of the tail board. I’ve done it both ways, and this trick is really slick. It saves a lot to time and helps the tail board stay put while marking out the pins.

Place a firm amount of pressure on the tail board, as it spans from the pin board and bench plane. Make sure your marking knife stays flat against the sides of the tails. I like several light passes over one heavy one. Several light passes tend not to follow the grain as much as heavy passes.

Cutting the Pins
The first advantage of cutting tails first, is that you only have to worry about the perpendicular cut across the end of the tail board. The angle cut of the tail can be off, without causing any problems. These means you only have straight vertical cuts on your pins.

If you cut pins first. The angle of your pins are transferred to your tail boards. Those angle cuts on the tails have to be dean on, as well you have to make sure your cut across the end of the board dead on (all at the same time). So you have 2 cuts, on the tail board, that have to dead on instead of one. I think the angle cuts on the tails are hardest to master for most people. So way make your life difficult when starting out. Once you think you have mastered the saw, try pins first. I will someday.

What has to be precise for these pin cuts, is splitting that knife line. If you leave too much of the line, you will spend a lot time with the chisel. If you take too much, your joint will be loose. I think learning to split that knife line is easier than learning to cut on two lines and at an angle.

The fret saw was used to cut out the waste between the pins.

I did pretty well on splitting my knife lines, but I did have to do a little clean up with the chisel to get the joint together. One thing I will say about using chisels at this time, keep them sharp. I find a sharp chisel will sit “still” on the wood while you chop. As a chisel dulls it tends to “slip” and not stay in place. When making those last 1 or 2 chops up the gauge line, this can be a big deal. I’ve had my chisel slip into the gauge one chop too soon, and mess up my base line. Keeping my chisels sharp seems to help prevent that.

The Fit
I still have some work to do to improve my skills but over all the joints came out pretty well.

I also need to get a camera that does good close ups. This is the best I can do at the time. There are a few small gaps you can’t really see, but they aren’t too bad over all. You can see that the tails are a little short, this was on purpose but maybe a little more than you need. I will plane the sides down flush when it’s all put together. Next time I will try and make this amount a little less. I will have less planing to do as result.

I said I was going to make 4 of these as Christmas gifts. It doesn’t look like all 4 will be done in time for Christmas. Some will be late Christmas gifts. I hope get into the shop this weekend, but it’s been pretty cold here in Seattle. I only have a small space heater, so we will see how the weather treats me. I’m also playing with a method of cutting the tails on my bandsaw. This might help me get the gifts done quicker, with a little less hand sawing for now.

Filed Under: Projects, Techniques

Silverware Tray – Laying out the Dovetails

November 15, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker 2 Comments

I finally was able to start on the Silverware Trays this weekend. The last few weekends have been busy with other activities. This last weekend was our 11th wedding anniversary and we spent a fun weekend in Leavenworth, Wa. It’s a fun little Bavarian themed town, not too far from Seattle. There was this nice little wood merchant there. Some of the stuff looked handmade, but they didn’t allow us to take any pictures. So, I don’t have anything to share. It was still fun to just browse around in the store.
This first post in the Silverware Tray series will go through how I layout my dovetails. I try to follow Rob Cosman’s style of cutting dovetails. If you are just starting out learning to cut dovetails, I highly recommend Rob’s DVDs and book. He goes into great detail, and really inspires you that you can learn this skill.
Like any skill, if you don’t practice it often the quality of your work will vary. It’s been a little while since I cut some dovetails and I’m also still learning. This first corner I worked on, come out ok but I really messed up on one of the pins. You will have to wait to see the final result, until I post the last in this dovetail series.

Prepping the stock
One of the most important things you can do to help you get quality dovetails, is to start out with well prepared stock. The first thing I did was cut all my pieces to size. I then used some hand planes to prepare what will be the inside of the tray. Once the tray is assembled, it will be very difficult to prepare this surface, if not done before hand. Next to get a box that will fit together properly, the pieces need to be the exact same size. I prepared the ends of one piece using a shooting board. Also making sure the ends were square. Then I took the mating piece and did the same. Then I laid them on top of each other, and determined which was longer (not by much). I then just used the shooting board, to remove what was need to make them the same size to each other. I did this for the sides and ends.

Using the marking gauge
I use a Tite-Mark marking gauge. I like the micro adjust it has, and it can be adjusted using one hand. I set my marking gauge to just slightly under the thickness of the boards. Although in the end, I think I went just a little too far. Next time, I’ll back that off just a little. The long sides of my tray will be my tailboards. The tailboards need to be marked on all 4 side. The pin boards only need to be marked on the 2 face surfaces.

The 140-Trick
One of the tips Rob gives to help achieve better dovetail, is the “140-Trick”. I think he said he learned this trick for Alan Peters. The 140 refers to using the Stanley 140 Skewed Block plane. This block plane has a skewed plane blade and guide fence. The skewed blade allows you to plane across the grain, with minimal tearout. The 140 will be used on the tailboards. What you do is set the width of cut for the plane, to the exact width of your gauge line. On the inside face of your tailboard, you take a few passes with the block plane. This creates a small lip that will make the transferring the tails to the pin board much easier. I’ll try and explain this further when I get to that stage. Believe me, it makes transferring the tails so much easier.

Tails or Pins first
There are many opinions on whether to cut pins or tails first. There really is not right or wrong answer. Rob gives a good explanation on why he does tails first. Because Rob was the first person I learned from, I do tails first. I’ve seen other people like Frank Klausz do pins first. I would be the last person in the world to say pins first is wrong. I plan to try pins first someday, but for now I’m sticking with tails first until I think I have this method down.

Using dividers to layout your tails
Here’s another area where there are a lot of opinions, and no right or wrong way. Some people don’t layout their dovetails at all. They just eyeball it. Again, Frank Klausz is an excellent example of this approach. Some people like the “randomness” of this approach. It’s something that can’t be reproduced by a machine, so you know they were cut by hand. I like a little “order” to mine, so Rob’s approach really works for me.
Rob uses 2 dividers to layout his dovetail. Again, I think he picked this up from Alan Peters too. One divider is used to set the width of the half pins on the outside of the tailboards.

As you can see I’ve already gone ahead and did all of the layout, so that you can see what I’m talking about. You use the dividers to make a small mark in the end of the board. You then use this mark to line up your layout gauge.

The second set of dividers is set to the width of 1 tail and 1 pin. Showing how you come up with this measurement is a little difficult in pictures. If you get Rob’s DVD, he shows you how to do it in about 5 minutes. It’s very slick.

You use the divider to “walk off” the tails, starting on each half pin you laid out with the first dividers. Once you have these 2 dividers set, you can use them to layout the rest of your boards quickly.
After you have these little marks on your tailboard, you just use any dovetail layout gauge to draw in your lines. For these tails, I used a 1:8 gauge. I like the look of that slope at this time. I don’t put a lot credence in the logic of using one slope for hardwood and another for softwood. I’m still experimenting, but there have been plenty of people who say it really doesn’t matter. Just pick something that looks good to you.

3-Minute Dovetails
Just for fun, here are some links of Frank Klausz and Rob Cosman doing their 3 and 3.5 minute dovetails. Me I think I’m closing in on the 3 hour dovetail ☺.

Frank Klausz
Rob Cosman

Filed Under: Projects, Techniques

Hands down the best Table Saw DVD I’ve seen

October 23, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker Leave a Comment

Please check out my review on lumberjocks.com, of Hendrik Varju’s new DVD Revelations on Table Saw Set-up & Safety.

Filed Under: Reviews, Techniques

Bandsaw Weekend

October 5, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker 1 Comment

I did a quick tire change on the bandsaw this weekend and tested out the new bandsaw blade I ordered. The tire change went fast without any problems. It was then onto testing this new killer blade.

Resaw King bandsaw blade
The bandsaw blades I’ve been using lately have been Wood Slicer blades. I’ve been really happy with these blades. They cut pretty fast and pretty smooth. I knew even with the “nice” cut I was getting, there was going to be a lot of work cleaning up the cut surface. Recently I was listening to Wood Talk Online, and Mark was talking about a new blade he was testing. It was the Resaw King from Laguna Tools. He commented on the smoothness and quality of cut he got with this blade. He also said it was pretty expensive and he was right. I thought if the blade worked as well as advertised, it could save me a lot of time during the surface clean up.

There are some nice videos on Laguna’s web site, you might wont the check them out if you are considering one these blades.

The first thing you will notice about this blade, it’s not the standard hocked toothed blade you are used to seeing. It really looks like a “table saw” blade, but stretched out into a bandsaw blade.

A positive thing about this blade is that it can be sent back to be resharpened. It helped me justify the initial cash outlay, which for me was about $180. My bandsaw can support up to a ¾” blade, so I got a 105” – ¾” Resaw King.

While on Laguna’s site, I watched some of their other videos. In the section on their bandsaws, one of the demonstrations was on setting your fence for blade drift. It was brilliant and the simplest procedure I had ever seen. I had to see if it really worked.

Setting your fence for blade drift
First, find a nice piece of stock a couple inches thick. Make sure the edge that will ride against the fence is flat and square. Make your first cut about a 1″ in from the outside edge. The cut should be a couple inches deep. Turn off the bandsaw. Observe the blade position in the cut.

In my case the blade was resting up against the right side of the cut, as you looked at from the cut side. The goal is to get the blade in the center of the saw curf. I opened the fence up slightly and did another test cut.

I was a little conservative on my first adjustment. Another slight tweak, and I got it on my second try.
This really is the simplest and quickest method I’ve ever used. Now, the real test was going to be how it cuts.

Testing the blade
Here’s an example of a resaw cut I did last weekend using my Wood Slicer blade. It’s what I’m used to getting on my bandsaw and until now I thought it was a pretty nice cut.

Here’s an example of the quality of cut I get with the Resaw King blade.

You can just make out some very light “ribs” left by the blade. It is the cleanest and smoothest cut I have ever seen on a bandsaw. Laguna says they are trying to achieve table saw quality cuts on their bandsaws. I think I’m about 95% there with my bandsaw. I suspect you can get that quality of cut, on one of their saws with this blade. I on the other hand have a Grizzly 14” bandsaw, which is working fine for me now. Although, I look forward to the day I can move up to a higher quality and larger bandsaw.

I was so impressed with the quality of cut, I recut the laminates for the apron. The surfaces were so smooth, I decide to try the glue up without even cleaning up the cut surfaces. The apron is curing in the form and will be ready for a closer look tomorrow, or this next weekend.

Filed Under: Techniques, Tools

How’s your grip?

August 8, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker Leave a Comment

It’s interesting how your grip can dramatically change how something reacts or performs. If I squeeze my wife’s hand too hard, I’m liable to get punched! If I grip my golf club too hard, I will hook or slice the ball. There are many other examples like this. So why didn’t I use this knowledge on my hand tools? I think it’s because I started out using power tools. When using power tools you seem to need to hold on for dear life, especially handheld routers!

When I first started to get interested in hand tools, I was watching some of Rob Cosman’s DVDs. Rob talked about the importance of a “light” touch/grip when using the dovetail saw. He likened it to the amount of pressure you would use when holding a baby’s hand. I was also watching some DVDs by David Charlesworth, and he favoured a light/delicate touch when you hold your chisels. It all started to sink in, eventually.

I use a 15ppi dovetail saw, and many would call this a course saw. The key to using this saw, as Rob points out, is to have a light grip and to take some of the weight off the saw. Whenever I’m having an issue starting my cut, I stop and analyze my grip. If you have a tight grip on the saw, it’s almost impossible to lift up to take some of the weight off the cut. In those cases where my cuts aren’t starting smoothly, it’s because my grip has tightened up. I loosen my grip and presto the cut starts like a dream.

I’ve even taken this concept to how I hold my hand planes. For planes that have totes, I use an almost open grip. For the most part you are pushing a plane and really don’t need to grip it. I used to have a tendency of having a death-grip on my planes, and my hands would get tired. I wasn’t afraid of dropping the plane, I just associated a strong grip with power. Now I know, a light grip on hand tools means control. Analyze your grip and see how much control you get, if you loosen up a bit.

Filed Under: Techniques

Day 4 and 5 – Handsawing class with Christopher Schwarz

July 31, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker Leave a Comment

My last post really went into a lot of detail on what cuts I used on which joints, to demonstrate where the different classes cuts can be used. I won’t bore you with that kind of detail in this post. Instead I just give a general overview of what we did for our final project in the class.

Out final project was a Shaker Silverware Tray. It’s a “simple” and clean design, as you would expect from the Shakers. Clean and simple can be hard to pull off. Everything has to be just right, from the design to the execution. Otherwise it will look like someone just through it together. This tray is simple in design, but the proportions and slight curve in the handle give a pleasing look. Whenever I walk by it, I just want to pick it up and look at it and feel the shape. I try not to let my wife catch me fondling my projects .

As you might have guessed, this tray was made with using only hand tools. Well, only after the lumber was given to us. The wood was prepared beforehand by the school. There wasn’t time in the class for us to prep the wood ourselves using only hand tools. This was a handsawing and cutting class, not a rough to ready hand planing class.

Before this class I think I might have cut 10 practice sets of dovetails. The first sets weren’t the prettiest, but I kept trying. I can say it does get easier with practice. The more time you spend with saw in hand the better you will get. During the first part of the week we did have a lot practice sawing, which helped prepare for the hand-cut dovetails.

Let me also put in a plug for Rob Cosman here. Before I took this class, I watched a couple DVDs by Rob Cosman on hand-cutting dovetails. Rob has some very nice DVDs covering a few topics on hand tools. They are very informative and walk you through all of the steps in cutting dovetails. The DVDs are so good I can watch them over and over again. I can’t say that about a lot of woodworking DVDs. Rob has even come out with a shop manual you can take with into your shop. It covers cutting dovetails step-by-step. Also, Chris mentioned that he took a class from Rob, years ago when he (Chris) was starting out in woodworking. Rob will give you the confidence that you can do this, and it’s within everyone’s reach.

The curved end pieces were marked out from a template Chris had. I then used a chisel to chop away the excess wood. You could use a coping saw or some other method here, but a chisel does quick work of it too. I refined the curve with a rasp and then a spokeshave. I haven’t used a spokeshave that much, but I was really impressed with the clean smooth surface I got with. As with most hand planes, no sanding was needed after I was done.

The holes for the handles were made using a brace and bit. We drilled overlapping holes, with the brace and bit. The cherry we used was only 1/2″ think and a little brittle. One of my ends did crack, because I didn’t have it well supported. A little cyanoacrylate glue, fixed it right up. You can’t hardly see the crack.

After few pass with a Smoothing plane, I applied a few coast of Tung Oil. The dovetails came out pretty well. It’s hard to see in the pictures, but there a few small gaps. I’m making process but also realize that these are suppose to look handcut and not machine cut. I’m not saying they have to imperfect or gappy to be hand-cut, but that absolute perfection is not needed. I know I will get better overtime and my cuts will get tighter. Until then I’m not going to beat myself up over it.

Filed Under: Education, Projects, Techniques

Day 1 – Handsawing class with Christopher Schwarz

July 25, 2008 By TheInquisitiveWoodworker Leave a Comment

It was my intention to post updates each evening, but that just didn’t happen. Several of the evenings were spent doing other activities. The first night Chris went out to dinner with a group of us. The second night I was just too tired. The night Gary Rogowski had a Bar-B-Q potluck at the shop. The fourth night we went on a field trip to Mike Wenzloff’s shop, which I already wrote about. So, I will try and recap what went on during the week I was there.

My wife will attest to this, I’m a planner and I like to know what we are going to do and when. She is much more spontaneous than me, but she puts up with me and I with her J. I’m not obsessive over this, but I just like to know what’s going to happen. So, the first day of any class is always exciting and anxious for me. I generally settle in pretty quick, but those first few hours can be nerve-wracking for me.

The first half of the day was spent in a lecture on the different types of saws and the different “classes” of cuts. This was the longest lecture Chris did, the rest were short talks and demos as we moved from one stage of a project to another. It was a long lecture but it was full of good information. I think I will save the information on saws for another post. He gave us a lot of information, and it could take a few posts to through it all. He covered the different types of saws, tooth configuration, pitch, rake, fleam, ppi/tpi and much more. The cool thing about this lecture was that Mike Wenzloff happened to be in the shop that morning and he hung around and gave his view on the topic of saws.

The other part of the lecture that morning was on the 3 Classes of saw cuts. These classes breakdown into Third-class (Course), Second-class (Medium) and First-class (Fine). I like how this also fits into Chris’s approach to hand tool use. If you haven’t see or read about how we views hand tools, Chris has a great DVD called Course, Medium and Fine. The DVD covers the progression you should take as you move through the preparation of stock. This idea works for hand tools and power tools. It’s not a new concept, Chris frequently references older woodworking books and articles. The same hold true for the concept of the different Classes of saw cuts. This isn’t a new concept, it’s a very European approach to woodworking.

Third-Class saw cut
Third-class saw cuts are used for rough cutting boards to length or width. When using a cross-cut handsaw or a large rip saw, these saws can leave a rough surface and can cause some splintering. You should account for this in your rough sizes. Because a third-class is rough cut, you only use a pencil line to mark you board. No need for marking knife or anything like that.

Second-Class saw cut
Second-class saw cuts need to be accurate but the resulting surface doesn’t need to be perfectly clean. These cut are generally buried inside a joint, where the surface is not seen. These cuts can/will be cleaned up by shooting, using a Router plane, or by some other means. These cuts are used on: the ends of rails or stiles, or for tenon or lap joint cheeks. The cuts are also marked out with a marking knife or marking gauge. The marking knife helps establish the precise location of the cut.

You will also use a chisel to make a small cut on your knife line, to help start your cut. This is generally done on a corner where two knife lines meet. Place your chisel in the knife line and give it small amount of pressure to deepen the knife line. A question you might have, should the bevel of the chisel be towards the waste or away from the waste? The wedging action of the chisel will push the chisel away from the bevel. If the bevel is facing the waste the chisel could get pushed back across your knife line. If the bevel is facing away from the waste, your cut could be a little fat. Many articles say you should put the bevel towards the waste. I tried it both ways while in class, and I prefer the bevel facing away from the waste for this type of cut. When I did it the other way, the chisel kept moving over my knife line. I will continue to play with both styles and see if they behave differently in different woods.

First-Class saw cut
First-class cuts are cuts that will be visible. Examples of these are: the shoulders on lap joints or tenons, and different parts of a dovetail joint. It is possible to get clean perfect cuts from the saw, although it isn’t uncommon to clean these cuts up with a shoulder plane or chisel. These cuts are also marked out with a marking knife or marking gauge.

In the example of cutting the shoulder on a tenon, you will need to use your chisel again deepen and establish the knife line. Using a wide chisel, and for me have the bevel facing away from the waste, lightly tap the chisel to deepen the knife line all the way around the joint. Then secure the piece and pare away a shallow trough, on the waste side of the line. The depth and width of the trough needs to accommodate the width and set of your saw. This will be something you will workout over time, for the saws you use. This trough will help you start your cut right on the knife line. Without this little trough your cut can wonder and can turn into a third-class cut really fast.