Ploughless Ploughing Grooves

This blog post is of course free, but you might want to watch the video we made and join your fellow enthusiasts. Here is the link. If a picture does paint a thousand words, then a video could do more. Enjoy the following:

So you don't own a tablesaw or a so-called power router. If you're like me, you don't want these space hogging screaming banshees anyway. Thriving without them truly improves your self high-demand life. The small cluster above would take me a couple of hours of machine-free woodworking, I get the ideal exercise to renew and maintain my whole body and mind and my happiness is quite complete. No need to make a bunch of jigs, buy in an array of support supplies or rely on dust and chip extraction, wear dust masks, eye and ear protection for any of it and I could listen to a podcast or music as well.

I know not everyone owns a plough plane and when you need a short length of groove or channel in wood you might not want the cost and trouble of buying one in. I've made this ploughless groove often enough through the years because not all grooves go all the way through for different reasons. Generally, plough planing grooves rely on the groove going all the way through. Take your time and follow the steps, and it will work for you too. Here is the video but hope you'll stiil read through this post. Enjoy!

Step One:

It's best to set the mortise gauge to the width you want and to mark the parallel lines in the place you need them. This process parts the surface fibres, which is just a good and practical strategy.

Step Two:

With a sharp, pointed knife, carefully define the walls of the groove slightly deeper by pulling the knife point into the gauge lines to cut deeper into the fibres. Watch for grain change in direction and counter any straying grain intent on taking you off course. Sometimes you simply need to change direction 180º and go the opposite way. Sometimes you simply lower the angle so the blade rather than the point severs the fibres.

Step Three:

I suggest you do this, though I often do not; Superglue a strip of wood right on the gauge line so that saw cuts are with thin the groove area. Three tabs of glue dots sped up with accelerator secures the strip firmly enough to work to with the saw strip in two seconds. . .

Step Four:

With a mid-sized tenon saw (12" or so), start at the point furthest away from you and saw with short strokes, using the point of the saw inside your gauge line, and moving backwards until all of the teeth engage. With subsequent strokes, lowering the saw as you go, saw down as far as your intended groove depth.

Step Five:

With both walls sawn down to depth, use an appropriate sized chisel to develop stop cuts as you might say a mortise. Work bevel down and backwards. This will part the fibres by short split-cuts that can then be removed with jab-cuts to remove the bulk of the waste

Step Six:

A simple hand plane router can be made from any odd scrap of wood and a suitably sized chisel. In my case, the groove is 1/4" and I installed a 3/16" chisel through a tight-walled hole by tapping it into place. With the first strokes in the groove it will usually feel a little jarring, but the jaggedness can be countered by tilting forward to reduce depth of cut. Subsequent cuts at a lower angle remove material smoothly.

The result is good, and especially in close-grained beech.

Tools used:

Mortise or marking gauge

Knife. I use a Stanley 0-10-598 folding pocket knife

A 1/4" and 3/16" bevel-edged chisel

Chisel hammer or mallet

Tenon saw