Craftsmanship in Wood

Hi Chris,

Regarding Brian's illustration of the sage-kama, while spitting the dummy you said the joint detailing is wrong on several fronts.
I am about to make saw horses from the plans the illustration was taken from. Can you clarify what is wrong with the detailing. Feel free to offer another joint if you feel that one is inappropriate.

Will be happy to show some better connection options for that, just give me a day or two.

Doing a search for 'shitage kama' (sic) I discovered the source of the misinformation: an article by Jay Van Arsdale from American Woodworker Magazine. Okay, I'm up to speed now. There are other details, joinery-wise, in that article that I would tend to suggest might be finessed a bit better.

Yes, that was the article I was planning to use. I look forward to your suggestions.

I'll be looking forward to that as well, thanks Chris.

Apologies again for my sort of not that well planned out manner of questioning. I should have asked about the entire joint rather than just a small aspect and done so before having most of the joint cut, but I've been in a bad way lately and being a little disjointed at the moment seems to be on par.

Anyways, I decided to continue my experiment and just cut the inner wedges and see how things tightened up....figuring that, if need be, I can change it to be two wedges joining in the center.
Moving along here with the legs;

Cutting bridle joints for the feet.....finally figured out that I can drill a hole through the waste and use the bowsaw to knock out most of it

Finally have two feet

After finishing the last foot, it's complete.



I love cherry, the top planed to a beautiful finish right off the #4 plane



Finished detailing the sliding dovetail channels with ebony inserts and trimming the ends to length, plenty of time spent with the chamfer plane as well detailing corners.



End grain carved



This should give a good perspective of how the battens are;







My final debate is whether or not I peg the top bridle joints, or just leave the top free floating. I may try it out for a few days and see if it moves at all in regular use. I like the joinery without pegs, but maybe it's a foolish plan.

Chris Hall wrote:Will be happy to show some better connection options for that, just give me a day or two.

Beautiful work Brian. I've enjoyed watching the process.
Chris, I don't want to appear pushy but will you show us better joints to use for saw horses?

I will. I've been busy however I haven't forgotten....

Brian wrote:My final debate is whether or not I peg the top bridle joints, or just leave the top free floating. I may try it out for a few days and see if it moves at all in regular use. I like the joinery without pegs, but maybe it's a foolish plan.

The way to connect those pieces with joinery, without pegging, is to place a central through-tenon, or pair of tenons, in the middle of the connection, the tenon of which can be wedged on the exit face.

Hmm, like a tapering pin but wedged on the outside?