Preparing for WIA
A few months ago I somehow got conned into participating in the Hand Tool Olympics at WIA, and whats more I’m part of a blogger team; I’m sorry Ian and Steven. Seeing as most of my hand tool woodworking involves Japanese saws I’m kind of the team handicap. (did I mention I’m sorry guys?)
Well, about the only thing I have a chance at is, edge jointing a board and ripping. So I embarked on an adventure to figure out this western sawing thing.
First things first… it looks like western woodworkers use something called a saw bench. Who better to teach me, than the master off all things western knuckle dragging “the Schwarz“? Utilizing this article and online access to this video i knocked it together in a few hours off and on.
I dont really have the western saws to build it like the master… so much to Wilber Pan’s chagrin I built it using my Japanese saws.
“The way I look at it, it’s doubly ironic since a western saw bench will be of little use with a Japanese saw.
On the other hand, Nik does not need to apologize for using the best kind of saw there is.” – Wilbur Pan
Even with all that, it went together great; and as usual Christopher Schwarz‘s classes and articles are amazing: educational and entertaining.
Now I just need to figure out how to use this thing.
Hmm…. that doesn’t seem to work very well. Maybe Wilbur was right?
That seems to work better, but I really have no clue what I’m doing! Sorry guys! Our WIA team in screwed! But at least I’ve used a saw bench and a western saw once, and that nice Disston D-8 Rip saw I have isn’t just hanging on the wall.
Anyway… Supper excited about WIA later this week. Can’t wait to hang out with the online woodworking community and enjoy some great classes! Hope to see you there!
OK, you have done an infinitely greater amount of training than I have.. .so you guys are shoe ins…
My training method? Beer and football on TV…
Oh yea my training…. cutting one 2x6x23″ of white pine…. before deciding that I sucked and went a drank a beer. :-p
Maybe we should have had you crosscut instead of rip, because its a shorter distance, but mixing up the rip & edge joint between two different people didn’t make much sense either! You should go over to Shannon’s HTS booth before the competition and see if he’ll give you a few pointers – and maybe even let you have a warm-up run!
Hopefully I can help lift our team score, as I did pretty well with the tenon last year and not too bad with the crosscut.
GOOD IDEA!!!! I’m sure he’ll have some toys to play with.
I know you’re just trying to mess with us and that you’re actually a pro at handsawing. I’m not falling for it.
Yes indeed I will have my sawbench and an assortment of hand saws for ripping and crosscutting. You can practice any or all of the six events. Your are taking the biggest step and actually competing. Who care how you do, it is a blast regardless.
Ok so I just went out and ripped the stretcher by hand with the western saw…. wow that is a different set of muscles than with a pull saw!