Cleaning up shaped rebate

[bsr]

Hi

I had a go at making a kitchen towel holder from left over wood. I shaped the rebate with a Forster but and then attempted to tidy up with a chisel. I don't think Paul Sellers has anything to worry about at the moment lol!

I was surprised by the size and depth of the lip and centre point. Is that part for the course or have I got a poor design of bit?

How would you tidy up? If I use a chisel it'll be hard to keep the curves. I was thinking of buying a top bearing flush cut router bit and seeing if that was quicker. This oak is much harder to chisel than softwood.

For the future is making a router template and pattern bit the only way to go, or is there a better method with hand tools?

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The centre point extending downwards is, I'm afraid, par for the course with Forstner bits, and generaally even more so with lower cost tools which generally have more prominent and somewhat blunter centre points (I assume from the photo that you aren't using a Fisch or Famag bit). Without it the bit will tend to wander off line at the start of the cut, however the result is that you can always see the "dimple". If you are drilling a recess to take a piece of hardware that will occupy the entire hole this isn't an issue, but if you want a true flat bottom recess the way to go is to make up a template from 18mm MDF or plywood (using the Forstner bit and a jig saw) and then rout out the recess using a top bearing cutter like this one in a plunge router:

That is all of a fiver on Amazon, and they won't last long, but they are good enough to do a few jobs. The maximum depth of cut on these is only 10mm, so the first couple of cuts (no more than 6mm depth each) are made with the template in place and then if any more depth is required the template is removed and the existing opening is used to guide the cutter (always going clockwise on the inside of a shape). Now that you are where you are I'd suggest that if you have at least 7 or 8mm depth you get a cutter like this and use it to clean-up the bottom of the recess, but making a new template as well will allow you to clean-up the edges of the recess which do appear to be a bit ragged. Templates can be hot melt glued to the workpiece, or just pinned to it with panel pins - then removed by the use of a chisel to break the two apart

Trying to do that with hand tools will require chisels, gouges and possibly a router plane to boot.

 

[bsr]

Ace thank you. Now I know what a gouge and router plane are. Was thinking there must be some sort of curved chisel but not the sort of thing you see in B&Q any more!

Yes that's the router bit I was thinking of. I thought it was called a pattern bit. Will give it a go. It's only scrap leftover wood anyway, I have some other cutoffs available.

 

[bsr]

By the way, at the edge of the board, in what order would you chisel? Would you chisel into the end grain first and then the face grain? I'm used to door casings where you go face grain first but that seems to risk splits in the end grain.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Not sure what you mean. If you are doing hinge recesses you need to score the outline of the recesses first - across the grain on the face (chisel or knife), with the grain on the face (chisel or marking gauge) the finally along the grain on the edge (matking gauge or chisel) before cutting the face and removing the waste by chiselling in from the edge. Is that what you were referring to?

 

[bsr]

Yep, that's what I thought. Looking at my picture. Where the rebate comes to the edge of the board. I took out the bulk with the Forstner. Then I scored along the grain on the face and the end grain with the chisel. Then I started to chisel from the Forstner hole towards the edge of the board. But at the edge of the board, you can see in some places the board has splintered and the bottom of the cut is too deep.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

TBH a job like that is far easier to do with a router, a template and the right bit than it is to do it by hand