Very informative video - thanks a lot. I am trying to follow your design of the sled. I have a few questions about the router and the router sled. 1. You mentioned you would do it longer. What is the size of the sled that you want to build? I am thinking about 12x36 and hope it's not too long 2. I have a Makita router for 1/2 bits. What length of the router bit do you recommend? 3. To add rigidity to a sled, I am thinking about using 1/2'' polycarbonate. Is it too thick? (I suppose you are using 3/8")
As for length, short as possible is best, so if you anticipate 12" timbers the you'll need 28" and still need to be careful you dont pull or push it too far, but 12" timbers arent super common. If its too long then you start pulling one end into your own body as you traverse back and forth.
The longer the router bit, the more space there is for you to look down through the router at what you're doing, but also more space to shine light down into the work space.
Thank Brent, well presented. Per our other recent conversation of ink line rather than chaulk, and much thinner templating materials (unless used for routers too) are the only real significant additions/changes I would suggest to your system. You have really dialed in Asian Line rule and its basic modalties. I was thinking, if you ever conducted a workshop up in your area (?) do give me a shout out before planning as I would love to facilitate one with you up there and get a chance to meet in person...!!!
Thank you Jay! Means a lot to have a stamp of approval from you! I have some more procedural ideas in the back of my brain that are still fermenting back there I will explore when I find the proverbial time, but my next steps will be to move into curved and non-squared components such as discussed in the video from Maine you mentioned before. I need to study that some more though my first 15 minutes or so with it showed how much my thinking aligned with what was being presented. Very confidence inspiring. Thank you again, I will certainly connect with you when it comes time to share this with other folks in a classroom environment. Would be great to have your guidance.
@@DovetailTimberworks Hi Brent...Sorry I missed this response... I think if you took a traditional class on stereotomy from someone like fellow Cannadian Patrick Moore, you would round out your deeper understanding of layout and the many different forms of "line rule." "Scribe Rule"...Stereotomy..."L'Art Du trait" are wonderful skill sets to understand, but unlike the Asian line rule modalties they are all MASSIVELY labor intensive with having to handle the timber materials many, many times. Learning both methods will give you an insight that someone like you can really do things with. I more than appreciate (historically) both systems but find that the modern applications to Asian line rule methods much more applicable, practical and helpful to those just learning and/or wishing to move into live edge and none standard geometry...Blessings, j
Man, it feels good to get it out! I'm pretty much at the limit of my knowledge base for Japanese layout but I do hope to continue to study and learn. Thanks for your patience.
Thank you for getting the video to us. I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together. Unfortunately I think I needed this to be explained to me like I was 5, slow and easy. I will be watching this over several times to try and grasp all the information that was given.
The first part was (embarrassingly enough) 4 years ago or so and starts with a summary of different layout techniques which you can skip till I talk about line rule, half way through the video. Part 2 offers a review plus some new stuff. If you start back at those videos, this one is a lot easier to understand. Let me know if I can help though.
Awesome contribution and well worth the wait. This series synthesizes so many disparate fragments of knowledge regarding line-rule layout that have hitherto been scattered all over the internet into one cohesive framework, and presents them in a much more accessible way. Many thanks, and well done.
I'd been saving the first installment of this series in my watchlist for years as I worked my way through other more basic resources elsewhere, knowing one day I'd inevitably need this kind of instruction to tackle imperfect timbers. I just watched the whole trilogy in one sitting. As others have mentioned, there are only a few other resources out there that actually show how line rule is done with explanation around the theory, so what you have done by providing these video explanations/demonstrations is of immense value to the TF community. You have a great combination of presentation/personality style, woodworking/timberframing skills, and video editing. I know it takes a long time to shoot and edit videos like these, and you are right to focus on quality rather than quantity, but you are really good at it and so if it helps to have another person cheering you on to do more - here I am, please more!! :) Maybe shooting more targeted, shorter videos would be more manageable with your workflow - in depth on the the routing jig for line rule; chain mortising for line rule; transferring TF plans in nominal dimensions to non-nominal, line-rule situations, etc. Anyway, it's all to say, thanks for making the huge effort to produce such incredibly helpful videos like this series...I will return to them time and time again in the years to come!!
Oh man, thank you very much. I set out expecting this little series would not get very many views (my expectations have been met 🤣) but hoping that those who did take the time to soak it up would gain something from it and be more confident while they take on what would be otherwise be very intimidating. If I can help folks get more personal reward from a big job like a timberframe, then I will be happy. Comments like this mean a lot to me, thank you.
@@DovetailTimberworks Awesome. Would be great to see an overview of the individual timber checklist that you have developed some time. Also, would be interesting to hear more about the factors that lead to a decision to use snap lines that are centered vs snap lines that are closer to an edge in an out of square timber. One issue I have struggled with in my mind is that the center line approach seems like it could lead to a series of timbers along the side of a structure, for instance, that have varying degrees of being "out of line" in terms of their outside (and inside) faces (ie, some are more proud than others just due to subtle difference in the final timber dimensions). Same thing could happen across floor joists. That makes sense as we are not relying on the same reference face for each of those timbers, but rather the center lines/planes. However, with that example of an outside surface of a structure not being uniform, my questions circle around how to join that surface to another plane, like a sloping roof surface. Not sure if I am making sense there, just trying to think through the ins and outs. Again, amazingly helpful content, just watched the series again and got a ton more out of it this time. Thanks again!
This series of videos is worth watching over and over again. Thank you so much for the excellent tips, great editing, and detailed explanations. It’s been worth the wait 🙂
I bought a Magnetic LED Tool Light 10 years ago and replaced the batters that had bright lights to use them every day I wish i had bought more of them when i had a chance all they had left was 4 cases of them
A couple more questions: -Do you test fit the joints as you go along, so you know they will fit on raising day, or do you just trust that the mortice/tenon checker will be enough to know they will go together? -How tight do you want the joints to be, should you be able to push them together by hand, or should they only go together with some persuasion from a mallet? Thanks
@@slow_build I never test fit, just rely on accuracy in layout. The only exception is braces and splines because they're small and easy to handle in the shop.
hey there, great videos so far. i am in the process of cutting joinery for my first project and was going to use your method. my question is what if your 8x8 post is being reduced to a perfect size of 7 1/2 from the outside (corner post)? is this a scenerio where you would put your chalk lines 1 1/2" from the faces rather than center? i feel like i understand most of these concepts im just unsure of how to get the outside faces of the intersecting post/beam/braces to be flush so siding will lay relatively flat. Thanks!
@@aaronwiebe5798 In this case I would probably measure 7.5 inches from the outside to get my perfect timber, and the housing depths may not be a real 0.5" depth, but that doesnt matter. This would put your outer faces on the right plane.
This short series is an excellent resource. I have one question - are the housings absolutely necessary, or are you able to just flatten the face at the joint position to be coplanar with your snapped plane?
@@aiden-hjj Yes, you could do this if the housing was not required to also provide a bearing surface. It could get a little complicated because the plane at that point on the timber surface could be a different plane than the surface at other points along the same timber and you'd have to keep track of all that when manufacturing the other mating components.
@@DovetailTimberworks - are you open to a quick consultation call? I'll pay obviously - I just want some tips on melding your approach with the joints in the Tedd Benson book and some review of my design before I start cutting.
So I had some trouble today. I have a couple of beams where I marked the ends, snapped lines, drew my squaring line and everything looked good, so I went ahead and marked everything out. Later when I was cutting a mortise in the middle of the beams I found that the rails that I had setup on the snapped lines to check the mortise for square didn't agree with my level lines on the end of the beam. I have no idea what went wrong, I thought I was being very careful. I can only guess that maybe I didn't snap the lines carefully enough and they were slightly off (maybe 1mm or so) on each side in the middle of the beam. Have you ever had any problems with your snapped lines not agreeing with your level lines at the ends? Perhaps I just need more practice. I think to avoid this in the future, I could add a step after snapping the lines and before marking out the joints, where the rails are set up on the snapped lines in the middle of the beam and checked for level.
Thanks for the question, and that's indeed a bummer. I don't think that's happened to me, but I have a couple of thoughts. Are the sides you are clamping your rails too really rounded or, humped or something like that? It's hard to describe in text, but if the rails are leaning inwards or outwards then the edge of one or both can end up higher or lower / lifted up a bit which will mean the edges you set your level on are not quite on the same plane. For what you are doing though, you can re level the timber according to your original master level line, and then just set your rails such that a level across them reads level, regardless of where they are relative to their chalk lines. That gives you a reference plane you can use to ensure your mortise walls are 90deg to that working plane.
Hi, great video, thanks. A couple of questions: 1. When you say "I'll find centre on the ends" at 5:55, how do you determine the centre? Do you just choose a face and measure a midpoint along the edge which meets the end? I guess this will mean that the subsequent chalk line on the opposite face will not be in the centre of that face (if the timber is not perfectly square), right? Just wanted to check my understanding. 2. How do you cut the ends square? If you use the circular saw, it's going to cut perpendicular to the face, which may not give a cut square to the chalk lines. Do you use a handsaw for the end cut?
So yes, you're absolutely correct, if your timber is a parallelogram in cross section and you have the top level, a plumb line will not meet the other face in the centre. If that's a problem for whatever you have going on on the other side, you could consider using another face or if it didn't mess you up in some other way, shimming the timber to make the edge plumb (instead of the centre of the timber level) so it did come down in the centre of the other side. This has repercussions elsewhere so would be a real case by case scenario as to what to do.
Cutting the ends square is usually done with a circular saw, staying away from the line if needed, and hand planing the end grain to meet perfectly on your drawn lines. Use the side of the tenon checker with some pencil on it to make sure its straight across. If you really have your mojo on with the handsaw, then that's an excellent way to cut to the line with less cleanup required.
Great content, thank you. Extremely curious where you got that the dollie to the timbers around, do you have a brand or something to search for? Thank you
I loved Baltic birch, but cost and availability over the last few years have been an issue. Lately I’ve been saving scraps of Avantech subfloor. Great for jigs and templates!
I've done that too, but it seems you always need to shim the wrong side to make it work. I like to have it oriented so I'm using a pushing chain at the bottom of the mortise which leaves me only one way to orient it and if that doesn't work out for shimming I have to just back away.
@@DovetailTimberworks Hi, can I ask what do you mean by a "pushing chain"? Also, if you shim the mortiser, how do you do it? Is it as simple as measuring from the chalk line to the tope edge of the timber on each side and then placing a shim under the base of the mortiser on the lower side of the timber where the shim is a thickness equal to the difference between the 2 measurements? Thanks
@@slow_build When you are running the chain mortiser, one side of the chain is moving down into the wood (away from you, ie a pushing chain), where the other side is a pulling chain. Pushing is quite clean where pulling causes blow out.
Very informative video - thanks a lot.
I am trying to follow your design of the sled. I have a few questions about the router and the router sled.
1. You mentioned you would do it longer. What is the size of the sled that you want to build? I am thinking about 12x36 and hope it's not too long
2. I have a Makita router for 1/2 bits. What length of the router bit do you recommend?
3. To add rigidity to a sled, I am thinking about using 1/2'' polycarbonate. Is it too thick? (I suppose you are using 3/8")
Great questions! I would use the thinnest polycarbonate you can get away with as it takes up router bit length. I believe mine is nomjnal 1/4" thick.
As for length, short as possible is best, so if you anticipate 12" timbers the you'll need 28" and still need to be careful you dont pull or push it too far, but 12" timbers arent super common. If its too long then you start pulling one end into your own body as you traverse back and forth.
The longer the router bit, the more space there is for you to look down through the router at what you're doing, but also more space to shine light down into the work space.
Thank Brent, well presented. Per our other recent conversation of ink line rather than chaulk, and much thinner templating materials (unless used for routers too) are the only real significant additions/changes I would suggest to your system. You have really dialed in Asian Line rule and its basic modalties. I was thinking, if you ever conducted a workshop up in your area (?) do give me a shout out before planning as I would love to facilitate one with you up there and get a chance to meet in person...!!!
Thank you Jay! Means a lot to have a stamp of approval from you! I have some more procedural ideas in the back of my brain that are still fermenting back there I will explore when I find the proverbial time, but my next steps will be to move into curved and non-squared components such as discussed in the video from Maine you mentioned before. I need to study that some more though my first 15 minutes or so with it showed how much my thinking aligned with what was being presented. Very confidence inspiring. Thank you again, I will certainly connect with you when it comes time to share this with other folks in a classroom environment. Would be great to have your guidance.
@@DovetailTimberworks Hi Brent...Sorry I missed this response...
I think if you took a traditional class on stereotomy from someone like fellow Cannadian Patrick Moore, you would round out your deeper understanding of layout and the many different forms of "line rule."
"Scribe Rule"...Stereotomy..."L'Art Du trait" are wonderful skill sets to understand, but unlike the Asian line rule modalties they are all MASSIVELY labor intensive with having to handle the timber materials many, many times.
Learning both methods will give you an insight that someone like you can really do things with. I more than appreciate (historically) both systems but find that the modern applications to Asian line rule methods much more applicable, practical and helpful to those just learning and/or wishing to move into live edge and none standard geometry...Blessings, j
Rarely do I find a video that I need to watch more than once to understand. Great detailed info. Thank you.
Thanks Andrew! Feel free to ask any question you may have remaining.
Happy to finally see part 3! Would love to see you go more into detail about the Japanese layout methods
Man, it feels good to get it out!
I'm pretty much at the limit of my knowledge base for Japanese layout but I do hope to continue to study and learn. Thanks for your patience.
Thank you for getting the video to us. I really appreciate you taking the time to put this together. Unfortunately I think I needed this to be explained to me like I was 5, slow and easy. I will be watching this over several times to try and grasp all the information that was given.
The first part was (embarrassingly enough) 4 years ago or so and starts with a summary of different layout techniques which you can skip till I talk about line rule, half way through the video. Part 2 offers a review plus some new stuff. If you start back at those videos, this one is a lot easier to understand. Let me know if I can help though.
Awesome contribution and well worth the wait. This series synthesizes so many disparate fragments of knowledge regarding line-rule layout that have hitherto been scattered all over the internet into one cohesive framework, and presents them in a much more accessible way. Many thanks, and well done.
Makes me happy to hear this thank you! It was a lot of work and knowing it helped folks out means a lot, thank you for the note!
Excellent series. Thank you.
@@garyballiet8340 Thank you, hope it helped.
Great teaching video,,i keep watching again and learn more every time ... thanks
@@davidszentimrey3339 Thanks Dave, see you before too long!
I'd been saving the first installment of this series in my watchlist for years as I worked my way through other more basic resources elsewhere, knowing one day I'd inevitably need this kind of instruction to tackle imperfect timbers. I just watched the whole trilogy in one sitting. As others have mentioned, there are only a few other resources out there that actually show how line rule is done with explanation around the theory, so what you have done by providing these video explanations/demonstrations is of immense value to the TF community. You have a great combination of presentation/personality style, woodworking/timberframing skills, and video editing. I know it takes a long time to shoot and edit videos like these, and you are right to focus on quality rather than quantity, but you are really good at it and so if it helps to have another person cheering you on to do more - here I am, please more!! :) Maybe shooting more targeted, shorter videos would be more manageable with your workflow - in depth on the the routing jig for line rule; chain mortising for line rule; transferring TF plans in nominal dimensions to non-nominal, line-rule situations, etc. Anyway, it's all to say, thanks for making the huge effort to produce such incredibly helpful videos like this series...I will return to them time and time again in the years to come!!
Oh man, thank you very much. I set out expecting this little series would not get very many views (my expectations have been met 🤣) but hoping that those who did take the time to soak it up would gain something from it and be more confident while they take on what would be otherwise be very intimidating. If I can help folks get more personal reward from a big job like a timberframe, then I will be happy. Comments like this mean a lot to me, thank you.
@@DovetailTimberworks Awesome. Would be great to see an overview of the individual timber checklist that you have developed some time. Also, would be interesting to hear more about the factors that lead to a decision to use snap lines that are centered vs snap lines that are closer to an edge in an out of square timber. One issue I have struggled with in my mind is that the center line approach seems like it could lead to a series of timbers along the side of a structure, for instance, that have varying degrees of being "out of line" in terms of their outside (and inside) faces (ie, some are more proud than others just due to subtle difference in the final timber dimensions). Same thing could happen across floor joists. That makes sense as we are not relying on the same reference face for each of those timbers, but rather the center lines/planes. However, with that example of an outside surface of a structure not being uniform, my questions circle around how to join that surface to another plane, like a sloping roof surface. Not sure if I am making sense there, just trying to think through the ins and outs. Again, amazingly helpful content, just watched the series again and got a ton more out of it this time. Thanks again!
This series of videos is worth watching over and over again.
Thank you so much for the excellent tips, great editing, and detailed explanations. It’s been worth the wait 🙂
Thank you so much!
What an ingenious way to use the router setup!
Thank you! It's been very helpful.
I bought a Magnetic LED Tool Light 10 years ago and replaced the batters that had bright lights to use them every day I wish i had bought more of them when i had a chance all they had left was 4 cases of them
I expect I'll have to try a few different ones to get one that really works for me. Avoiding annoying shadows will probably be the toughest thing.
Really enjoyed this series, thank you for all the time and effort you put into it, very informative and useful!
Thank you!! I appreciate hearing that!
A couple more questions:
-Do you test fit the joints as you go along, so you know they will fit on raising day, or do you just trust that the mortice/tenon checker will be enough to know they will go together?
-How tight do you want the joints to be, should you be able to push them together by hand, or should they only go together with some persuasion from a mallet?
Thanks
@@slow_build I never test fit, just rely on accuracy in layout. The only exception is braces and splines because they're small and easy to handle in the shop.
@@slow_build You are looking a snug. A good sliding fit is fine. Shouldn't need to use comealongs unless they're just too hard to move due to weight.
hey there, great videos so far. i am in the process of cutting joinery for my first project and was going to use your method. my question is what if your 8x8 post is being reduced to a perfect size of 7 1/2 from the outside (corner post)? is this a scenerio where you would put your chalk lines 1 1/2" from the faces rather than center? i feel like i understand most of these concepts im just unsure of how to get the outside faces of the intersecting post/beam/braces to be flush so siding will lay relatively flat. Thanks!
@@aaronwiebe5798 In this case I would probably measure 7.5 inches from the outside to get my perfect timber, and the housing depths may not be a real 0.5" depth, but that doesnt matter. This would put your outer faces on the right plane.
Thanks for making the time to get part 3 to us!
Your welcome! Are you a timberframer?
@@DovetailTimberworks Aspiring. 😅
Well done, great editing!
Thank you!
This short series is an excellent resource. I have one question - are the housings absolutely necessary, or are you able to just flatten the face at the joint position to be coplanar with your snapped plane?
@@aiden-hjj Yes, you could do this if the housing was not required to also provide a bearing surface. It could get a little complicated because the plane at that point on the timber surface could be a different plane than the surface at other points along the same timber and you'd have to keep track of all that when manufacturing the other mating components.
@@DovetailTimberworks - are you open to a quick consultation call? I'll pay obviously - I just want some tips on melding your approach with the joints in the Tedd Benson book and some review of my design before I start cutting.
So I had some trouble today. I have a couple of beams where I marked the ends, snapped lines, drew my squaring line and everything looked good, so I went ahead and marked everything out. Later when I was cutting a mortise in the middle of the beams I found that the rails that I had setup on the snapped lines to check the mortise for square didn't agree with my level lines on the end of the beam. I have no idea what went wrong, I thought I was being very careful. I can only guess that maybe I didn't snap the lines carefully enough and they were slightly off (maybe 1mm or so) on each side in the middle of the beam.
Have you ever had any problems with your snapped lines not agreeing with your level lines at the ends? Perhaps I just need more practice. I think to avoid this in the future, I could add a step after snapping the lines and before marking out the joints, where the rails are set up on the snapped lines in the middle of the beam and checked for level.
Thanks for the question, and that's indeed a bummer. I don't think that's happened to me, but I have a couple of thoughts.
Are the sides you are clamping your rails too really rounded or, humped or something like that? It's hard to describe in text, but if the rails are leaning inwards or outwards then the edge of one or both can end up higher or lower / lifted up a bit which will mean the edges you set your level on are not quite on the same plane. For what you are doing though, you can re level the timber according to your original master level line, and then just set your rails such that a level across them reads level, regardless of where they are relative to their chalk lines. That gives you a reference plane you can use to ensure your mortise walls are 90deg to that working plane.
@@DovetailTimberworks Thanks, I ended up re-snapping one of the lines and it worked out.
@slow_build OK great, thanks for following up!
I have cut the outside to be more plump than the center line
Hi, great video, thanks. A couple of questions:
1. When you say "I'll find centre on the ends" at 5:55, how do you determine the centre? Do you just choose a face and measure a midpoint along the edge which meets the end? I guess this will mean that the subsequent chalk line on the opposite face will not be in the centre of that face (if the timber is not perfectly square), right? Just wanted to check my understanding.
2. How do you cut the ends square? If you use the circular saw, it's going to cut perpendicular to the face, which may not give a cut square to the chalk lines. Do you use a handsaw for the end cut?
I'll get back to you! Thank you for the questions.
So yes, you're absolutely correct, if your timber is a parallelogram in cross section and you have the top level, a plumb line will not meet the other face in the centre. If that's a problem for whatever you have going on on the other side, you could consider using another face or if it didn't mess you up in some other way, shimming the timber to make the edge plumb (instead of the centre of the timber level) so it did come down in the centre of the other side. This has repercussions elsewhere so would be a real case by case scenario as to what to do.
Cutting the ends square is usually done with a circular saw, staying away from the line if needed, and hand planing the end grain to meet perfectly on your drawn lines. Use the side of the tenon checker with some pencil on it to make sure its straight across. If you really have your mojo on with the handsaw, then that's an excellent way to cut to the line with less cleanup required.
@@DovetailTimberworks Awesome, thanks so much for taking the time to reply.
Great content, thank you. Extremely curious where you got that the dollie to the timbers around, do you have a brand or something to search for? Thank you
Thank you! That cart is very well made by Precise Solutions machine shop. I have an unboxing video too.
@@DovetailTimberworks just found it, thank you, will have to save up for it.
I loved Baltic birch, but cost and availability over the last few years have been an issue. Lately I’ve been saving scraps of Avantech subfloor. Great for jigs and templates!
Crazy expensive! Fortunately templates ought to last a long long time...🤞
Great ideas for using Avantech scraps!!
I have often simed my mortiser
Shimmed
I've done that too, but it seems you always need to shim the wrong side to make it work. I like to have it oriented so I'm using a pushing chain at the bottom of the mortise which leaves me only one way to orient it and if that doesn't work out for shimming I have to just back away.
I'll probably discuss that if I do a chain mortising video
@@DovetailTimberworks Hi, can I ask what do you mean by a "pushing chain"?
Also, if you shim the mortiser, how do you do it? Is it as simple as measuring from the chalk line to the tope edge of the timber on each side and then placing a shim under the base of the mortiser on the lower side of the timber where the shim is a thickness equal to the difference between the 2 measurements? Thanks
@@slow_build When you are running the chain mortiser, one side of the chain is moving down into the wood (away from you, ie a pushing chain), where the other side is a pulling chain. Pushing is quite clean where pulling causes blow out.