REVIEW Rough to Ready with Rob Cosman DVD

[Alf]

I imagine most of us, when Rob Cosman is mentioned, immediately think of dovetails, but his range of DVDs is growing every year to include other techniques. Amongst them is this 45 minute video showing the use of hand tools to take a rough sawn board and turn it into a straight, square piece of usable timber. The whole thing is shot, most professionally, in RC’s workshop with a token power tool fan to ask the “what are you doing now, Rob?” questions. If you’re familiar with the dovetailing DVDs, this one is a different guy who doesn’t intrude quite so much, but more of that anon.

The content goes from hand sawing the length of board to be prepared, to sharpening the scrub plane blade, using scrub, jointer and smoother to prepare the faces, edges and shoot the ends, with some additional tips on using DC’s Ruler Trick, panels gauges etc. Interestingly RC uses a scrub where I think some of us would use a jack plane, and also favours a square edge for jointing. But I’ll try not to hold that against him…

For the tool-conscious, you should be warned that you’ll likely end up wanting the following goodies by the end: panel saw, scrub, #8 jointer, #4 ½ smoother, #9 mitre plane, Tite-Mark gauge, panel gauge, winding sticks and a flat bench top. And that’s if you can resist the panning shot across the tool cabinet contents at the beginning... It’s not a hard sell by any means, certainly it didn‘t make me squirm as much as the dovetail demos have done in the past, but there’s enough eye candy around to do the damage. You have been warned.

There aren’t many close-ups in this presentation, but the gist is clear enough without them. Most of the action is shot from the back side of the bench, with overhead shots for additional clarity where required. RC starts off well with plenty of explanation of what he’s doing, but as his concentration is more caught up in the work, the extra clarification drops off rather I felt. Unfortunately the sidekick is as mesmerised by watching this transformation of tree into timber as the viewer, so he doesn’t ask as many questions as might be helpful. Also to my regret, RC’s information on the shooting board is non-existent (he just uses it) so I’m still looking for the shooting board holy grail for the novice. Once again a short (2 ft or so) length of easy-to-use wood (mahogany in this case) is used for the demonstration, which is perfectly understandable, but how disheartening when the viewer comes to put what they‘ve learnt into practice on real-world wood with knots and twists, and longer than they can comfortably reach without moving their feet. But as I say, understandable. On the whole I feel this lacks just a little too much detail to be a cure-all “how to do it”, but as an over-view to compliment articles/books etc, and simply as an introduction to the speed and methods a seasoned hand tool user employs, it’s very good indeed. RC’s such an enthusiast, you can’t really fail to be inspired. I think it’d help flatten out the neophyte plane-user’s learning curve quite a bit, while still not being the answer to the complete hand plane novice’s prayers. In other words, don’t expect to be told the parts of a plane or how to set it up and so forth; you need to at least be able to use one already! Funnily enough, I think this and DC’s two planing DVDs compliment each other rather well. Not only do they cover very different approaches, but DC provides a lot of detail that’s lacking while RC injects a little pace and makes me, at least, feel it‘s slightly more attainable.

Rough to Ready with Rob Cosman DVD 47mins £19.45.

Many thanks to Philly for providing the DVD to review.

[gidon]

Thanks Alf for the review.
I can't help feel that £20 for a 45 minute demonstration of just one woodworking technique is rather pricey. If you compare the effort required to write a 200 page book versus standing in front of a camera for 45 mins or so - how can an equivalent book be the same price? Not to the mention the comparatively small cost of knocking off a DVD compared to printing a book!
This is a general comment - not directed at your review by the way!
Cheers
Gidon
(Just bitter that I don't have the necessary skills or reputation to get on this DVD techniques bandwagon!)

[Philly]

Hi Gidon
Understand where you're coming from but if a picture tells a 1000 words what do you think you can learn from watching an expert at work. Next best thing to one-on-one training
Cheers
Philly
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The PhillyBlog!

[Alf]

Mmm, I know what you mean, Gidon, but to be fair, I doubt if anyone can make a reasonable video in 45 minutes of standing in front of the camera... Plus it's a niche market, so just how many copies can they expect to sell? And naturally the fewer you make, the higher the costs for each one. But yep, it'd be nice if they were a leetle bit cheaper, I must agree. Then maybe I wouldn't have to blag one off Philly.

Cheers, Alf

[Woodythepecker]

Alf, a very good review.

Nothing at all to do with the review, but i must say that i agree with gidon £19.45 is a rather high price to pay for a 45 minute DVD, especially when you think that for another £5 (£24.99 at Woolies) you can get the DVD player to watch it on.

Shame really because i much prefer seeing how to do it, rather then read about it.

Many thanks for the review.

Woody

[Derek Cohen (Perth, Oz)]

Hi Alf

It is a little known fact that Rob based his video on my review of the LV Scrub Plane

You raise pertinent criticisms, such as the use of a relatively easy-to-use timber, the absence of pitfalls (e.g. nil knots and only the mildest twist), and the machine-head interviewer (with little experience in hand tooling) who watched in silent awe. Perhaps Rob will bring out a second video, "Advanced Scrubbing".

I say the above a little tongue-in-cheek since I thought the video a good basic introduction to the use of a scrub plane and designed for those who had minimal knowledge in this regard.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Alf]

[Pete W]

Nice one, Alf. I'd been pondering the purchase of this one for a while.

It's kind of academic for me (since I've just ordered the four-dvd set!) but apropos of some of your points, does anyone know if this one follows on from the handplane dvd? Just wondering if the latter covers some of the ground missing from the former?

If no-one knows already, I'll post a follow-up when mine arrives

[Waka]

Alf

Very good review, I watched it at the beginning of the week cos the project I am working on has been done predominantly with handtools from rough sawn timber. I have to say BC makes it look a lot easier than it is on the DVD.

Keep the reviews coming.
_________________
Waka

The woodkateer who's plane mad.

[Alf]

[Philly]

Pete
There is a difference between the vids-the hand plane one is from his "dovetails" period. The R to R one is much better quality and has a more easy-going feel. It is also a hands on video as opposed to "this is a block plane, it is used for...".
You will enjoy them all though, I'm sure.
Cheers
Philly
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The PhillyBlog!

[Pete W]

[gidon]

[dedee]

[Pete W]