Trimming tenon shoulders in dense walnut

[YorkshireMartin]

Hi all.

I have some walnut that I'm working on at the moment. I'm paring the shoulders, or trying to, with a very slight undercut. The wood seems very dense but it's not knotted.

Walnut isn't supposed to be that much harder than oak, yet I can barely touch this stuff with my chisels whereas I had no issues at all with oak. They are simple bevel edge chisels, sharpened to the point where they pass the paper edge test. 25 degree bevel vs. I suppose a 20 for a paring chisel, which I dont own, yet.

My shoulder plane is too large for this particular job, so I'm considering using a fine flat rasp to remove the material on the shoulders, possibly finishing with a file. Can anyone see any problems with this? I realise black walnut has a tendency to tear out, but with this in mind, am I onto a viable option?

Alternatively, I could use a mallet with the chisels, but I just feel the grain is so dense that I run the risk of a mistake.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to get the shoulders trimmed to my knife line.

Many thanks.

 

[ED65]

Whatever tool works is kinda how I see it. Rasps and/or files aren't common for this job but not unheard of by any means, if they'll do the job you need go for it.

About the chisels not, er, cutting it, are you working downwards or across the tenon? Or does it not work well either way? Regardless of the answer here I think the usual suggestion from a chisel head would be that they need to be keener. This does seem especially likely if honed to 25° which gives noticeably better cutting than the more usual 30°.

 

[D_W]

Something sounds out of kilter here. How big of a bite and how thick are you attempting to take with your chisels? Though it wouldn't be nice, you should be able to pare something twice as hard as walnut without issue as long as you keep the paring cut in keeping with the wood type (e.g., if you are paring something like cherry, you could probably take 1/8th bits above a marking line with a 16th of material without much issue, but such a thing would be hard on a chisel if the material was cocobolo.

Rasps are really hard on wood if they aren't working toward the exposed end of endgrain, I think you'll have a whole lot of chipout.

FWIW, for all of the small sticking work I've done (cabinet face frames, etc), I've always used a bench chisel with a mallet. The only factor you have to be concerned with is if you cut the shoulder with a saw and leave too much material on the waste side, the chisel and wedge the marked line back further, so you may need to mallet off the waste in two shifts, one close to the line and one in the line. I much prefer it to paring, as paring is hard on the corners of paring chisels, and if you are working fast, somewhat hard on elbows.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Sometimes, it helps to use a smaller chisel to pare away the bulk, leaving just a bare 1/32" above the line to finish with a wider chisel. The smaller chisels need less push, but it's harder to get a really neat finish.

A couple of techniques that you may already know, but I'll mention them just in case. First, horizontal paring. Grip the job in the vice, with about 3" standing proud to the pare line. Using your off hand, brace the back of the fingers against the job, place the chisel flat-side down on top of the index finger, and grip the top of the chisel with the thumb. The off-hand now has control of where the chisel cuts. Place the feet well apart, one leg forward, and one behind rather as you're taking a walking step. Grip the handle of the chisel with the dominant hand (which controls the angle of inclination of the chisel), stiffen the dominant arm, and push as hard as is needed with the back leg, the fore leg acting as a brake. Thus, the whole body weight drives the cut. For a tenon shoulder, you can either work with the tenon upright and facing you, or work with the tenon upright and facing the end of the bench, in which case you're going along the shoulder, but don't cut right across (the back edge will splinter out if you do), cut about 3/4 across and turn the job 180 degrees to finish off. Take small shavings rather than big bites, the last shaving being with the chisel edge in the shoulder knife-line.

The second is with the chisel vertical, and the job flat on the bench. Place the off hand small finger down on the job behind the knife-line, place the flat face of the chisel against the top of the second, third and small fingers, place the index finger on the top face of the chisel, and grip the flat face with the thumb. The chisel is now gripped and guided by the off-hand (note - don't slide the chisel blade through the fingers, the index finger and thumb grip the blade and go with it. Grip the chisel's handle with the dominant hand, and leaning over the job (which can be clamped down, or held down with an elbow or similar) use the body-weight to drive the chisel down, dominant arm stiff. The power of the cut comes as much from the stomach muscles as anywhere else. You can also use a shoulder against the chisel handle, but it's not quite so easy to see chisel direction that way. As with horizontal paring, several thin shavings are better than one big bite, and taking out the bulk with a narrower chisel before a final clean-up shave with a wider one can help.

Sorry if that's teaching anybody to suck eggs.

 

[custard]

Hi all.

I have some walnut that I'm working on at the moment. I'm paring the shoulders, or trying to, with a very slight undercut. The wood seems very dense but it's not knotted.

Walnut isn't supposed to be that much harder than oak, yet I can barely touch this stuff with my chisels whereas I had no issues at all with oak. They are simple bevel edge chisels, sharpened to the point where they pass the paper edge test. 25 degree bevel vs. I suppose a 20 for a paring chisel, which I dont own, yet.

My shoulder plane is too large for this particular job, so I'm considering using a fine flat rasp to remove the material on the shoulders, possibly finishing with a file. Can anyone see any problems with this? I realise black walnut has a tendency to tear out, but with this in mind, am I onto a viable option?

Alternatively, I could use a mallet with the chisels, but I just feel the grain is so dense that I run the risk of a mistake.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to get the shoulders trimmed to my knife line.

Many thanks.

There's something wrong here. I spend a good part of my working day paring Walnut shoulders, both American Black and English, using chisels and a shoulder plane. Walnut is a real treat to work, way easier than Oak. I strongly suspect your tools need some attention.

In terms of technique there isn't a clear winner between a shoulder plane and chiseling. In my view you can take a finer and more controlled paring with a shoulder plane, but I know really excellent craftsmen who favour a chisel. If you're chiseling and using a mallet the big issue is that the chisel gets pushed backwards into the shoulder by the force of the blow, so you need to finish on a fairly fine shaving of far less than 0.5mm, and the critical thing is it must be an even thickness of final chisel paring all around the shoulder to keep the shoulder line level and consistent. Also, for fine furniture work you'll be unlikely to nail it on the first attempt unless you've got plenty of experience (if you're talking about angled shoulders for chairs you won't nail it on the first attempt even if you're Alan Peters) and you'll probably have to then scribe. That's okay, think of it as an opportunity to finesse your glue lines down to invisibility. Check your work with a small combination square, it's surprising how often little bumps appear that prevent shoulders closing up perfectly. A touch of undercutting is alright, but don't go overboard on this as it weakens the joint.

Good luck!

 

[Graham Orm]

Is the back of your chisel flattened?

 

[YorkshireMartin]

A lot of very good information here, thank you everyone.

To clear up a few things. The chisel backs are flattened assuming my diamond stones are. The backs are also polished. They are razor sharp as far as I know. They cut paper edge on without any effort or tension on the paper, which I gather is the universal test for workable sharpness. But, as I mentioned in another of my posts, they don't hold an edge all that well. I find myself having to sharpen quite often, with this walnut, it's as often as each shoulder attempt. The edge is chipping. Then again this might be normal?

The technique I was using was to take an extremely fine shaving of about 0.25mm with around 1/3 or less of a 20mm chisel. The shavings are pretty much uniform. Approx 5mm a piece.

I've tried both techniques mentioned by Cheshirechappie which I learned by watching youtube and hopefully applying a bit of common sense too.

It's not so much that I can't cut it at all. It's just that it requires an enormous effort in comparison to the oak I previously worked on, which surprised me. As custard said, walnut is meant to be similar to work to oak.

From all thats been said, it's still not obvious to me where I'm going wrong. I know it sounds like something is wrong somewhere, but I just can't get it.

Could it literally be that I'm in a close grained area and the pressure required is surprising me?

Once again I appreciate the time you are all taking to assist me.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

I forgot to ask. D_W said he had used a mallet for face frames.

Are mallets OK to use? If I use one, i can get through the wood. I just thought you were supposed to use hand pressure though.

I think I might invest in a good paring chisel set at 20 degrees and see how i get on. I'm in this for the long haul so at the moment I'll do pretty much anything to find out where my weaknesses are.

 

[D_W]

I forgot to ask. D_W said he had used a mallet for face frames.

Are mallets OK to use? If I use one, i can get through the wood. I just thought you were supposed to use hand pressure though.

I think I might invest in a good paring chisel set at 20 degrees and see how i get on. I'm in this for the long haul so at the moment I'll do pretty much anything to find out where my weaknesses are.

I'm assuming you're talking about trimming the shoulder to a relatively deep knifed line, right?

If using a mallet to do it, you just need to make sure you don't have so much waste past the line that the chisel will wedge the marked line downward. If you have left a lot of waste due to poor sawing, then you will need to remove the waste in a couple of cuts instead of one. At least to be on the careful side of things you will.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

D_W sorry buddy.

I missed something out of my post. I'm trying to work to fine furniture standards and I wasn't sure how accurate face frames needed to be relative to fine furniture. hence my question. I wasn't suggesting using a mallet was invalid, if you see what I mean.

The knife line is relatively deep yes but to be safe, as I'm awful at sawing apparently, I have been attempting to remove the waste above the line in several thin layers.

 

[Beau]

Paring can require a fair bit of force but the key is to do this with control. Probably teach my grandmother to suck eggs but you want opposing force i.e be pulling the chisel back with one hand while pushing with the other. Also if need be just use a small amount of the chisel blade so maybe a 1/4 of it's width engaged in the wood.

 

[custard]

As custard said, walnut is meant to be similar to work to oak.

Hello Martin, I said Walnut is much easier to work than Oak, easier to work and kinder on your tools, furthermore this holds true for both American Black Walnut and English Walnut. Which is why I'm puzzled that your tools are struggling? Moving from Oak to Walnut is like taking a holiday!

Just a thought, it really is Walnut isn't it? There are some African timbers that are sometimes called Walnut (in the same way Sapele is sometimes called Mahogany), timbers such as Shedua and Leadwood look vaguely like Walnut, but Leadwood in particular is far, far harder than almost any temperate zone timber.

 

[YorkshireMartin]

As custard said, walnut is meant to be similar to work to oak.

Hello Martin, I said Walnut is much easier to work than Oak, easier to work and kinder on your tools, furthermore this holds true for both American Black Walnut and English Walnut. Which is why I'm puzzled that your tools are struggling? Moving from Oak to Walnut is like taking a holiday!

Just a thought, it really is Walnut isn't it? There are some African timbers that are sometimes called Walnut (in the same way Sapele is sometimes called Mahogany), timbers such as Shedua and Leadwood look vaguely like Walnut, but Leadwood in particular is far, far harder than almost any temperate zone timber.

Hi custard, sorry mate yes my wording was off a bit.

The oak in comparison was an absolute breeze. I'm 100% certain this is ABW, its a beautiful and unmistakable wood. My favourite so far, if I can only tame it.

Im trying to think of ways I can photograph the problem with a macro lens, that might shed light on things.

 

[D_W]

D_W sorry buddy.

I missed something out of my post. I'm trying to work to fine furniture standards and I wasn't sure how accurate face frames needed to be relative to fine furniture. hence my question. I wasn't suggesting using a mallet was invalid, if you see what I mean.

The knife line is relatively deep yes but to be safe, as I'm awful at sawing apparently, I have been attempting to remove the waste above the line in several thin layers.

It's fine for furniture, too. Just a matter of experience doing it. We'll call it tapping the waste away instead of malleting it if that sounds better. It should be no less precise.