Title: Bg-P-Wodwrkng-art
Subject: "Beginning Period Woodworking" by Master Tamlene ap Guidgen, O.L.
Author: Edited by Mark S. Harris
Last saved by: Mark S. Harris
Keywords: woodworking, medieval, begin, start, overview

Bg-P-Wodwrkng-art - 11/3/02

"Beginning Period Woodworking" by Master Tamlene ap Guidgen, O.L.

NOTE: See also the files: woodworking-msg, wood-msg, merch-woods-msg, wood-bending-msg, wood-finishes-msg, tools-msg, tools-bib.

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NOTICE -

This article was submitted to me by the author for inclusion in this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium. 

These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the author.

While the author will likely give permission for this work to be reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first or check for any permissions granted at the end of this file.

Thank you,
Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous
stefan at florilegium.org
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Beginning Period Woodworking
By Master Tamlene ap Guidgen, O.L.
A Bit of Philosophy
Craftsmanship  can be defined in a lot of ways.  A  fairly  common usage  includes  the  statement  “do your best  work  in  all  tasks”.  Something  that  is  often  misunderstood in  this  statement  is  the difference between doing your best and perfectionism. 
Doing  your  best means that you must reach a  compromise  between your absolute best work (which takes a very long time), and work which is of good quality but still allows you to get something done.  Almost everyone  errs on the side of trying too hard to do perfect work,  and thus getting very little done.
Perfectionism includes the work which commonly graces the covers of magazines like Fine Woodworking. Work like this is something to aspire to,  and be inspired by.  It takes a huge amount of experience  to  do work of Fine Woodworking caliber. 
It is very important to include the amount of work you get done in any  estimate of how close you are to “working at your best”.  If  you only  do  one piece each year, your abilities will  not  improve  very much.  Twenty  shoddy  pieces each year will  also  not  improve  your abilities  much.  Neither  case is “working at your  best”.  You  must strike  a  balance,  and realize that  medium  quality  work  actually represents your best work in the long run. 
Do  not be a slave to your ruler.  Measuring things as a  specific number  of  inches is a fairly modern concept,  and can  take  over  a project  unnecessarily.  What  usually matters  more  than  inches  is proportion.  Sometimes  there is important  dimensionality,  but  what counts is that something fits, not that it is so many inches.  I often measure  in  hand spans.  If  you want  accuracy,   you  can  mark  the dimension  carefully on a piece of scrap.  For proportion,  a pair  of dividers  works well to pace off the work.  Rulers are useful  things, but please keep an open mind and avoid being compulsive about them.
Power tools are very oversold.  Also oversold is sand paper.  Both are  extremely  useful in their place, but in a  home  workshop  their place is limited. 
Hand tools are generally faster, have fewer health hazards and are much more pleasant to work with than power tools. In order to know the truth  of what I am saying,  you must be willing to work with  a  hand tool  long enough to gain some proficiency with it.   Only after  some mistakes and slow work will you begin to see the efficiencies inherent in a given hand tool.
Power tools can speed up repetitive work.  Very little of what  is done at home is repetitive enough to justify the time spent setting up a  power  tool and cleaning up the amazing mess  afterward.  Also  not justified  is  the  noise  and dust, and the  sheer  amount  of  space occupied by power tools. I own many, and speak from experience. I only use a few.
There  is another aspect of hand tools which is really nice.  Hand tools  give  you  the option of spending money  to  acquire  them,  or spending time to make them.  Most any hand tool can be made for almost no  monetary expense.  If you don’t believe me,  come to  Unser  Hafen Blacksmithing Guild some time. We’ll make you some tools.
Some tasks are repetitive enough that power tools make sense.  Rip sawing  (reducing the width of a long board) is really a lot  of  work and not terribly entertaining.  Rip sawing is very sensibly done  with power tools in these days of no apprentices.  Surface planing of rough lumber is also sensibly done with power equipment.
Surface smoothing for finishing is not a good use for sand  paper.
Most  surfaces  are  much  better attacked with a  hand  plane  and  a scraper.  To make a coarsely smoothed surface very smooth takes a  lot of time with sand paper (power or hand sanding). A plane and a scraper do the job quite quickly.  As a surface gets more curved,  or smaller, planes and scrapers make less sense and sandpaper makes more.
Hand  tools  make you work up more of a sweat  than  power  tools. Would you really rather go to a health club than do wood working?
Introductory Woodworking
If you sweep the floor clean before you start, and throughout your work, it is much easier to find pieces of wood which accidentally chip out  that  were not supposed to be removed.  The piece can  easily  be glued  back with either yellow wood glue or cyanoacrylate  glue,  with none the wiser.
1.	Marking accurately and squarely
Making wooden joints often involves careful marking of your  piece of wood. If your marks are not in the right place, you have no hope of sawing or chiseling accurately.
You  rarely need to mark a specific distance on  a  board—rather, you  may  need  to mark an identical distance (however  long)  on  two boards. The tool used for this task is a marking gauge. It consists of a  sharp  point attached to a stick.  The stick is in turn held  by  a block of wood (fence).  The mark is made by putting the fence  against the  edge  of the board to be marked and scoring the  surface  of  the board  with the sharp point.  The distance between the fence  and  the sharp point is adjusted by a clamp which holds the stick to the fence. 
Another  type of mark you need to make is a mark perpendicular  to one edge of a piece of wood.  To do this,  you need an accurate square (you also need a nice straight edge on the wood,  discussed later).  You can buy a good square, or make a cheap one accurate by adjusting it. A good test for  a  square (and also for your marking ability) is to draw  a  line around  the  entire circumference of a board perhaps   three  or  four inches square. Does your line meet the starting place exactly?
How you make a mark can also affect accuracy. A pencil line,  even a fine one,  has a lot more error in its width than most wooden joints will tolerate.  There are two ways around this error.  One is to use a knife edge to scribe a very fine line, and then work carefully to this line.  The other way is to use a pencil line,  and then fit two pieces to  each other (and promptly mark them unambiguously as  belonging  to each other).  Either way works well, although if you use a pencil,  it should be a fine one.
2.	Cutting to a line
First,  start with sharp tools. You cannot cut accurately (hand or power) with dull blades. See the appendix.
Whether you are cutting with hand or power tools,  watch the  wood and the mark,  not the blade. Making an accurate cut requires practice and attention. A saw cut needs to start straight. You cannot force the saw direction without ruining your accuracy.  Cutting straight is easy when you start straight.
You  can avoid cutting past your stop line if you realize that  it is  not necessary to cut all the way to it.  You only need to  cut  to within one saw kerf of the stop line.  When all sawing is done,  clean up the tiny bit remaining in the corner with a chisel.
Starting  a  cut  with a hand saw is sometimes a  bit  tricky.  At first,  the saw will sometimes jump and shudder everywhere  except  at your  mark.  This is typically caused by either using too coarse of  a saw  for  the  hardness  of the wood,  using the  wrong  type  of  saw (crosscut vs. rip) or putting pressure on the saw. Even after a cut is started,  you will get the most accurate cut if you let  gravity  feed the saw.  If you should end up having started the cut slightly in  the wrong place, instead of trying to force the saw to your will,  lay the saw  down  almost  flush  with the surface  and  gently  broaden  your starting cut until you can saw in the correct place.
3.	Planing a straight edge
You  can  plane a much better straight edge by hand  than  with  a power  jointer or router.  To do this,  you need the longest  (sharp!) hand plane you can find.  I use a No. 8 jointer plane,  which is about 24 inches long.  You must have some arrangement for holding the  board to be planed without requiring any attention from you.  Your cuts will not  be  true if you have to hold the board with your elbow  and  knee while you plane.  At the start of a cut, push down on the front of the plane only.  At the end of the cut, push down on the back of the plane only  (at  the  handle).  Think of your action as trying  to  plane  a concave edge,  and you will end up with a straight edge.  Eyeball  the edge when you are done—it should be absolutely straight after only  a little practice.
If  it is important to have the edge exactly at 90 degrees to  the face,  lay the board on it’s face, spaced about 1/8”  above the bench.  Now lay the plane on it’s side, and plane the edge. If you do a lot of this,  you  should  build a fixture for it so that you  don’t  wear  a groove in your workbench.
4.	Gluing up boards
Spend a lot of time before you apply glue arranging your boards so that  matching edges end up  next to each other.  Mark adjacent  edges (and front/back) so you can find the arrangement again.  If you choose and arrange your boards carefully,  most people will not realize  that your nice wide board is glued up from smaller ones.
To glue two edges together with no gaps, the edges both need to be absolutely  straight,  and at complimentary angles to each other.  The edges  do not need to be at 90 degrees to their faces.  To  joint  two boards to match, lay the boards next to each other on the bench in the preferred  final orientation.  Now pick them up,  and fold them as  if there is a hinge joining them. Clamp them in your vise this way;  back to back or front to front. Now joint the edge. If your planing results in  a  nice straight edge which is a bit off of 90 degrees,  you  will still  have a flat panel when gluing is done since the errors  in  the two boards will cancel each other.
If you are forced to close gaps between boards with a lot of clamp pressure, something is wrong. If you have done your edging right,  you should  be able to apply glue to the edges,  push and wring the  edges together and get them to stick to each other with no clamps,  just the surface tension of the glue. Try it some time, it is a lot of fun.
Don’t  use an excessive amount of glue.  Some books  and  articles will  admonish you to “get the right amount of squeeze out”  when  you clamp.  The right amount of squeeze out is none.  You do need to  make sure glue coats the entire edge (both pieces!), so in practice you get some squeeze out.  The ideal would be to have glue just come up to the edge  and no farther.  When you apply glue,  make sure it covers  each edge completely, in as even and thin a layer as you can.
I usually space my clamps between one and two feet apart for  edge gluing ¾”  thick stock.  It is nice to have more clamps than you think you need in case a problem comes up when you are clamping.  Alternate  the clamps  top  and bottom to keep the surface flat.  With one  inch  and thicker stock,  you can get away with a lot in terms of clamp  spacing and  uneven  pressure between clamps if your edges mate  nicely.  When edge  gluing ½”  and smaller,  you must be very careful to get  even clamping pressure.  Tighten the clamps little by little,  so that they all reach final pressure together. As you tighten,  check the face for flatness, to make sure you are not introducing a cup into the panel.
Take great care in making the faces of your boards all lie in  the same  plane.  This can save you a tremendous amount of work later.  If you tighten your clamps little by little,  it is much easier to adjust the edges. If you adjust the edges with the clamps too tight, you will introduce a bend in the board.  If you have a hard time with this,  or have a panel which must end up with a really flush surface,  invest in a doweling jig, and put dowels in to align the edges.
5.	Planing end grain 
A block plane is specially designed to be able to plane end grain.
If your plane is very sharp,  and you take a nice thin cut,  end grain is  fairly  easy to plane.  Be careful at the far end  of  the  board, however,  as it is easy to tear a huge chunk off of the edge.  You can either plane both ends against the middle,  or else clamp the board to be planed firmly up next to a piece of scrap to support the far  edge.  Sanded end grain looks nothing like planed end grain.
6.	Avoiding cross grain construction
When  two pieces of wood are attached rigidly to each  other,  and the  grain on one piece is perpendicular to the grain on the other,  a split  will  inevitably develop with time.  Wood expands  a  lot  more perpendicular to the grain than parallel to the grain. 
A lot of period chests are made with cross grain construction, and have the splits to prove it. A lot of known world workmanship also has cross grain construction,  and will either split or come apart at  the cross  grain  joints in time.  A common chest design  in  the  current middle ages has grain running horizontally front and back,  with grain running vertically on the end pieces (which extend below the bottom of the chest as legs). 
There  are  three  reasons for building chests  with  cross  grain construction—ignorance,  “its period”,  and expediency.  I feel  that only the first reason is valid. The second reason is not  valid—there are  many period examples of chests with no cross grain  construction, including  properly  constructed cases and also frame and  panel.  The third  reason  is  quite  questionable in my  mind.  If  you  are  not interested  in your work lasting,  then you must have quite  different motives from my own.
7.	Sharpening
If  you  want to risk your tools, you can try using a  high  speed motorized grinder. Several things can improve the risk: 
•	slow the grinder down to 1725 rpm
•	get “cool” type grinding wheels
•	back  the  blade  you  are sharpening  with  a  larger  piece  of   metal (a heat sink). Before grinding, dip the assembly    in water.  The water wicks up between the two pieces  of  metal ensuring good thermal contact.
A much better choice is a hand powered grinder—not because of any hand tool mystique,  but because it is extremely difficult to overheat your tools with a hand grinder.
Either of the above methods should give you a hollow ground  edge.
Use  either a small square or a sharpening jig to check your edge accuracy 
Before you can sharpen the edge you rough shaped,  you must polish the back of the blade. You need to gradually move to finer and finer abrasives in the polishing process. I follow any rough grinding with a fine Carborundum stone  (“India” stone),  followed  by a Washita stone. If the tool is  a  particularly nice one I end up on a “Soft Arkansas”  stone.  There are at least two finer  grades  than  “Soft Arkansas”,  but I have not  found  them  to noticeably improve matters in general woodworking.
The back should be very flat and shiny when you are done. Only when the back  is polished does it make sense to fine sharpen the edge  of  the blade. You only need to get the tip of the hollow ground edge sharp. Now you can proceed to sharpen the hollow ground side.
When you sharpen a blade, hold it very near the edge, and move the blade in small circles. You will have much better control of the blade angle.
8.	Sanding
A lot of the time,  sanding makes some sense.  Surfaces which have grain  pointing different directions (such as curves) can be  insanely difficult to work with edged tools. 
Flat surfaces are very efficient to smooth with a plane after  you have some practice in its use.  If you have never used a plane,  get a small  block plane,  read about how to use it and use it for a bit  on every project you make.  Using a plane without any experience and  not using sandpaper at all will slow you down a lot.  Get some woodworking done while you gain planing experience gradually.
Sanding  is  most  effective if you start  with  a  coarse  enough abrasive. Your abrasive must be almost as coarse as the irregularities in the surface.  Typically,  start with 80 grit paper (60 grit if  you are  trying  to remove a bunch of wood).  80 grit paper  is  good  for removing typical power tool marks,  like a machine planed surface.  If you want your surface to stay flat, wrap the sand paper around a  flat block rather than holding the paper in your hand. Sand all areas which need it with #80 before changing grit size.
The  largest jump in grit size you should make is about 1.5  times as fine.  If you started with #80, your next choice should be no finer than #120,  followed with no finer than #180, etc.  If you take larger steps,  it will make your sanding take a lot longer. At each grade you use,  be  sure to sand all of the areas you sanded with  the  previous grit.  Work in high contrast lighting,  like direct sunlight,  so that you  can see the scratches in your work from the previous  grit.  Take them all out before going to a finer grade. If scratches show up after you  start  on  a  new grit and don’t sand  out  quickly,  you  should consider going back to a bit coarser grit for a while.
For  everyday  projects,  you can stop at #150 or #220.  There  is little  point  in using any finer grits on items you  plan  on  taking camping  with  you.  For surfaces you want smoother that are  made  of harder woods, it can make sense to go all the way up to #600.
9.	Finishing
I  don’t  know a lot about finishing, so I use a  couple  of  easy methods, oil finish and varnish.
Oil finish brings out a lot of inherent color in the wood,  and is available in ‘natural’ and various stains. A couple of good brands are Watco and Deft. Read the directions! I do not recommend linseed oil or dried linseed oil, as they take  a lot longer to dry. 
Oil  finishes  can be enhanced by applying a wax  after  they  are quite dry.  You need a wax intended for the purpose that is compatible with  an  oil finish.  Watco makes a wax specially made to  work  with their oil. I haven’t done much of this, but it can be very pretty.
Varnish  provides  much  more protection to  the  wood  than  oil.
Varnish soaks into the wood and hardens,  making the wood surface much more  tolerant  of  abuse.  Most  varnishes  also  provide  much  more protection against water than an oil finish. If your wood will spend a lot of time in sunlight, get a polyurethane varnish for outdoor use.
The  difficulty  in  using  varnish lies  in  not  getting  little hardened  drips of varnish at the bottom edge of your  piece.  Varnish also  takes the patience to apply several coats.  I use Last and  Last brand  primarily because we have some left over from when we  did  our wood floors. Read the directions!
It  is  very  important  to  read  the  directions  on   finishes.
ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT is the fire danger which finish saturated rags or paper towels represent. As the finish dries, a small amount of heat is generated.  If the heat is confined,  like in a wadded up towel in the trash  can,  the  material can spontaneously combust  hours  later.  I throw my finish rags in the wood stove. 
I prefer a satin finish to a gloss finish. Try both,  and see what you like.

Cutting dovetails

Dovetail joints are really fine things. They are both esthetically pleasing  and  amazingly strong at the same time.  Mortise  and  tenon joints are strong,  not much easier than dovetails,  and when you  are done, no one can see all of your work! 
Dovetail  joints have a bit of terminology associated  with  them. One  side of the joint is called the tail,  because the fan  shape  is reminiscent  of a spread dove’s tail.  The other side of the joint  is called  the  pin  (why I have no idea).  Be careful  as  some  authors reverse this.

1.	Stock preparation
Leave  your stock long while you prepare one edge.  Taking all  of the  pieces  out  of one board is a smart idea,  as  they  will  match better.  Make one edge of your board absolutely straight with  a  long plane.  This  edge will end up as the reference edge  from  which  all measurements and alignments are made. Leave the other edge rough so that the difference  is obvious.
Using  an  accurate  square,  draw  lines  perpendicular  to  your reference  edge  to mark out the lengths of wood you  will  be  using.  Remember  that  your saw cut has width, and keep the saw in  the  same place in relation to your line. Either cut on one side of the line, or down the middle of the line, but do the same thing the entire length of the board.
Do not cut your stock to final size. Allow yourself some room. The pins and tails of your joints (on each end of the board) should be perhaps 1/32”  extra long,  so that when the joint is assembled a bit extra sticks out.  This  allows you  to  end up with a flush surface (by planing away the excess),  rather than a sunken  one.  You should also expect to do some finish planing on the other edges, those not  involved in a joint.  
The  edges  of  your boards should be cut  square  and  even.  Any wavering in the edge, especially in the end grain, must be allowed for when  you  mark your stock so that you don’t end up  with  a  recessed tail.  If  the  end  grain is not square to the  edge  you  may have such misalignment that  it  will  be impossible to assemble all four corners at once. 
Check   your  pieces  after  you  cut  them  with  a  square   and straightedge. If the end grain is not square to the reference edge, or if your cut wavers, it is usually a lot easier to plane the end smooth and square now.  You should also compare sizes on pieces which need to match each other. I often plane two pieces at once in the vise so that they are exactly the same size. If they are not the same size, your box will be trapezoidal instead of rectangular.
Mark the orientation of your boards if it is important (mainly for appearance).  You  will have a hard time figuring it out later.
2.	Marking 
Set  your marking gauge just a bit more than the thickness of  the boards  you are using (1/32”  or so).  Lightly score the boards to  be dovetailed  together,  along the edges to be joined.  I usually  score face,  back,  and  edges for each board in  each  joint.  These  marks indicate  the edges of the pins and tails. The marks also show where the inside edge of the board forming the other half of the joint lies.  If your marks do not end up straight lines, your finished assembly will show gaps along this edge.
3.	Cutting tails
You must have very good lighting to cut dovetails.  You must  have light down on your bench for marking and measuring. You must also have light from the side (or below) so that you can see while sawing. Get a lamp which you can place where you need it and you will save lots of  frustration and squinting.
There  are a lot of sequences which work in cutting  dovetails.  I like to cut the tails first, but it also works to cut the pins first. 
Begin by deciding how many dovetails you are going  to put in an edge,  where they will go, and how big they should be.  Some of the considerations follow:
If you space your dovetails unevenly (as I almost always do),  put them near the high stress points. In a box, the stress is mostly along the top and bottom, especially the top edge.
Evenly spaced dovetails,  especially with pins and tails the  same size, is what you get out of a dovetail template. Why try to imitate a router?  This is kind of a modern argument,  one that didn’t occur  to people in the middle ages.
At the edges of your joint, there will typically be either half of a tail or pin.  Half of a pin is stronger than half of a tail,  and  a better choice.
I usually mark the centers of the tails first, once I have decided on a layout.  In marking the tails,  please note that accuracy is  not critical. The pins will be sized to fit the tails by marking them from the finished tails. Whatever angles, size and spacing your tails end up with, your pins will be cut to match.
If your tails have identical spacing on two or more corners, it is a lot easier to mark the locations on a piece of scrap and transfer the marks from the scrap to both corners. This greatly reduces mistakes and speeds up the work.
Use a pencil to mark the tails.  With  ring-porous woods like oak, it  is  easy  for a knife mark to get lost in the grain.  Also  it  is difficult  to  draw a straight line not quite in line with  the  grain using a knife blade. The grain pulls the knife off of the line you are trying to draw.
Draw  the  tails using a bevel gauge. I set mine to  an  angle  of about 1:6 (1 over and 6 up).  People seem to use a variety of angles,  including 1:8 and 80 degrees. Draw the tails between the scribed line and the end of the board.  Now go along the edge and X out all of the pieces which are to be  removed (in pencil).  Look carefully at what you have drawn.  Did  you  really cross out the scrap, not the good parts? Are you tails drawn right, or are they reversed? Look carefully, this is easy to mess up! 
Using  a small square,  extend the lines you have  drawn  straight down the end grain across the thickness of the board, marking each side of the tail.
Put the piece of wood in a vise,  edge up.  Start sawing along the mark in the  end grain until you have a shallow groove.  Now rotate the saw so it is pointing straight up and down and make a shallow groove along the face of the board. Now angle the saw  more and more, joining the two saw marks you have made along the diagonal. Be  careful  not to cut beyond  the scribed line on the face of the board.  By  working back  and  forth along these grooves, you can guarantee that  the  cut will  be  in  the right place when it comes out the far  side  of  the board.  This  is  a good thing to practice a lot on  scraps  of  wood, either making square or angled cutoffs. Remember not to force the saw.
Saw  carefully  along  the pencil lines,  on  whichever  side  you choose,  not quite up to the scribe line.  Once the cut is deep enough that  the saw is self guiding,  bring the saw horizontal and saw  down almost  to  the  scribe line.  Check both sides of the  board  as  you approach  the scribe line so that you don’t unknowingly saw  past  the line on one side of the board.
Since you are going to use the tails to mark the lines  for cutting  the  pins,  the size of each tail is not critical.  This  is, however, an excellent chance to practice your sawing to a line.
Now  you  need  to remove the waste from between  your  saw  cuts.
Before you start, once again examine your X’s marking the waste pieces to be removed. Are you sure they are in the right place?
You can use either a fine turning saw or a chisel for rough  stock removal. I use a mortising chisel.
The  type  of  chisel  you use for  rough  stock  removal  is  not critical,  as  long  as it is narrow enough so it  doesn’t  score  the inside  edges of the tails. Your chisel must also be tough enough  to deal  with rough stock removal.  Many bevel edge chisels will chip  if you use them for chopping. 
Each time you start work in a new spot,  ask yourself if that spot is  really waste material.  Every time you pick up the board  you  are chiseling on, you  must clean the area underneath it. A small chunk of wood can make a nasty dent in the surface.
First remove most, but not all of the waste. Leave a bit of waste, maybe 1/16”  in front of the scribe line.  Chisel down onto a piece of scrap on your workbench so that you don’t cut into your bench. Chop down, and then chip out the part you have cut through (from the end grain). Proceed like this at least  halfway  through the wood,  and then turn the  board  over  and finish the cut from the other side. 
Now  move your chisel to the scribed line.  For this cut  you might want to sharpen your mortise chisel or use a  bevel chisel. Tap the chisel gently with a mallet to set it in the  line,  and  then tap a bit harder until  you  are  about  halfway through.  Do  the  same thing from the other side  and  you  are  done removing the waste. 
Your chisel needs to be either exactly perpendicular to the board, or at an angle which will give you more clearance in the middle of the cut,  not less clearance. When the joint is assembled, you will not be able  to tell if you have undercut the middle part of the tail.  Waste left in the middle results in unsightly gaps after assembly.
Take  the time now to trim up the sawn edges of your tails with  a chisel.  The edges don’t need to be perfectly smooth,  but they should be pretty straight. A fine saw or a knife can also be useful. If any of your tails ended up with wavering edges, straighten them up now.
4.	Cutting pins
When you cut the tails,  you were cutting at an angle to the grain in the wood. Cutting the pins is directly along the grain. This can be a problem,  especially if you are using one of the very fine  Japanese pull saws.  To see why,  you need to understand the difference between rip saws and crosscut saws.
When you are cutting across the grain,  the smoothest cut will  be had with a saw whose teeth are shaped like tiny knives.  This type  of saw  will  cleanly sever the wood fibers.  Crosscut  saws  have  teeth shaped like knives. 
When you are cutting with the grain,  a different shaped tooth  is needed. .  If your saw teeth are knife shaped (crosscut),  the saw is going to  follow the wood fibers. To allow the saw to be guided,  a chisel shaped tooth works best.  Saws with chisel shaped teeth are called rip saws. When you cut the pins, you are cutting in the same general direction as the grain, but probably not exactly the same.
Japanese  back saws have teeth which are extremely  knife  shaped.
This makes them very difficult to guide in cutting pins.  (There is  a type of Japanese saw intended for ripping, but it is not very common.) Small  European style back saws have teeth which are sort of a  hybrid between  rip and crosscut.  European style back saws work well  either crosscutting or ripping. If you are unsure of your saw,  try cutting a scrap  of  hardwood  along  a line just  slightly  off  of  the  grain direction and see how well it works.
Finally you can start on the pins. First you need to mark them on the piece of wood you are working on.  The marking is done using the mating piece of wood as a  template.  There  are a lot of ways of doing the  marking.  I  will describe the approach I use, which works well for me.
Clamp  the piece of wood which is getting the pins cut into it  in the vise, pin edge up. Raise the wood a small amount (1/16”) above the bench  surface.  Lay the mating piece of wood on top,  aligning the reference edges. Try to put the bottoms of the tails (end grain) just over the inside edge of the pin board (did you check to make sure you know which is inside and which is outside?). You can  judge the edge location by using a knife blade as a sort of feeler gauge. Alignment is very critical. Now  place  a  large weight on top of the tail piece of wood.  It is critical that  neither piece of wood moves during the marking. Check your alignment again.
Using a very sharp pencil or a sharp knife,  mark the pins   using the holes in the tail piece as a template.  You must be careful to put the  mark  at the very edge of the tail holes,  but you must  also  be careful  not to push the tail board and move it.  A knife  works  well here as you are marking in end grain,  but you must be careful not  to shave off the bottom corners of the tails!
Another thing which you must be very careful about is how you mark the  pins  out on the opposite end of the board you  are  working  on.  There is only one right orientation for the two ends.  You want to end up with a box,  not a zigzag of boards.  Pay close attention to which face is inside vs.  outside and make the inside face the same for both ends of the board.
Once you have marked all of the pins, slide the tail piece of wood away from the pin piece.  Immediately mark both edges to indicate that these two and no others go together,  and also indicate which face  is inside and which face is outside. I often make cut marks with a narrow chisel inside the pins and tails. You can easily make a line, a cross, a star, and a hatch mark (1,  2,  3, 4 cuts). Put the marks where they won’t show in the finished work, but not in the waste. While the  two  boards  are  in  close proximity,  cross out the waste portions of the pin board.  It is much easier to mark the waste correctly if the tails are sitting right next door.
Now  put the tail board out of the way,  and raise the  pin  board high enough in the vise to mark the face and to saw.  Using a  square, extend the lines you drew on the end grain down one face to the scribe line. A pencil works best here since you are drawing with the grain.
Now saw the pins.  Your saw must not cut inside the  lines. 
Cut so that the saw kerf is entirely in the waste.  If you come inside the lines into the pin, you will have a gap. How close you come to the line depends on how good you are at marking and sawing. The closer you can come to the line (i.e.  the more practice you have),  the  quicker and easier dovetailing will be for you.
As with the tails, saw starting on the end grain to make a shallow groove,  then angle the saw around to make a groove part way  down  the face.  Work the cut down to just a saw kerf above the scribe lines  on both  sides of the board.  Once you have all of the cuts down  to  the scribe  lines,  you remove the waste with a chisel just like when  you cut the tails.  Be careful of the fact that the pins are wider on  one face than the other.
5.	Fitting
Fitting is difficult at first.  Your goal is to shave away at  the places  on  the  pins where there is too much  thickness,  until  they exactly  fit the holes between the tails.  You should take your  time, making fine shavings with a sharp chisel,  and frequently checking the mating pieces against each other. If you prefer a file or rasp, by all means use it.  Shave the tails as a last resort, as I find shaving the tails  is  a good way to make a mistake.  The more dovetails  along  a corner, the more difficult the fitting. 
The  ideal fit that you strive for is one which you  can  assemble and disassemble without using a mallet (just barely). It is terribly easy to  damage your wood surface with a mallet.  The fit I usually end up with  needs light mallet work to assemble and disassemble.  If you experience  any resistance to assembly,  try coating one side of the joint with  chalk on the rubbing surfaces.  Partially assemble the joint,  and the chalk will mark the high spots you need to work on. You can also look for shiny spots on the pins (compressed areas) to indicate high spots.
Some books will recommend a tighter ideal fit,  on the  assumption that the pins and tails will slightly crush each other on assembly and fit each other better as a result. I have used this approach with good success in soft woods like pine and cedar. I would not recommend using a this approach in hard woods, as it is too easy to split something. Cherry in particular is a bit brittle and you must be careful not to have too tight a fit.
6.	Gluing
Before  you glue,  take time to think about how you are  going  to finish your boards.  You probably want to fine sand the inside  pieces before assembly,  and you may want to finish the insides of the boards before assembly,  depending on how you are planning on finishing  your wood.  I usually do not finish before assembly,  but I am  less  picky than a lot of people.
Before you glue,  clear your bench top.  Place within easy reach a square,  all of the clamps you own,  cardboard to pad the clamp jaws, towels,  a mallet and a scrap block of soft wood to shield your mallet blows. It is probably a good idea to get someone to help you the first time you glue up a box. I  usually  use  yellow (aliphatic resin) wood glue.  If  you  have  a complex  assembly  or have not put many joints  together  before,  use white glue.  White glue is not as strong as yellow glue,  but it takes longer to set up.
If  you are making a box,  you must glue up all of the corners  at once  to  make sure everything is aligned.  Apply glue to all  of  the hidden surfaces of one joint on at least one piece of wood. Some books recommend  applying glue to both pieces, but I worry about  the  extra time  taken allowing the glue to start setting up before  assembly  is done.  This can be pretty messy,  and you must be careful not  to  get glue where it doesn’t belong. Work efficiently,  and try not to panic.  Assemble each joint before applying glue to the next one.
If  you  should  still be assembling your corners  when  the  glue starts to set,  please don’t panic. Glue which is just starting to set is  really not a problem if you deal with it in the right  manner.  Do not use your mallet to persuade a joint which is setting.  Glue  which is  beginning to set responds best to steady pressure,  not  impulsive pounding.
After all of your corners have been glued and  assembled, check your corners for squareness. Put pipe clamps around the outside of the joints to snug up any remaining gaps in the dovetails. Watch where you put  the  clamp jaws as your pins and tails should stand  just  a  bit proud  of the surface.  Adjust the tension on the clamps gradually  to square  up the box.  Your box will probably not be  perfectly  square; reach a compromise between the wood and your pride.  Let the glue  set overnight.
The next day remove all of the clamps.  The protruding ends of the pins  and  tails  can best be made flush with a block  plane. Now is also a good time to work carefully with a plane to make the edges of adjacent pieces of wood meet exactly. Set your plane really fine and be careful not to tear up the opposite piece. 
Break  all edges of your assembly with a block plane or fine  sand paper.  You will never see the difference,  and your work will be much more comfortable to hold.  If you use a plane, be careful to work both ends against the middle.  Now is a really bad time to tear out part of an edge.
Miscellaneous Comments
When  you  are making a box,  you must decide how  to  attach  the bottom at the beginning.  One method is to cut a groove the same size as the bottom thickness on the four sides of the box, so that the bottom is raised from the lower edge of the sides. If you are making conventional through dovetails,  the groove must stop before it reaches the edge of the board or it will show on the outside.  Cutting a stopped groove is difficult with hand tools. A better solution is to cut the groove all the way to the edge of each board and put a mitered dovetail over it. Look at a picture of this joint in a book to see how it  is  done.  It is not too hard,  but takes a little  practice.  The grooves should allow the bottom some room side to side for expansion and contraction.
Be sure that the grooves on each of the four sides all line up with each other when you fit the dovetails together! 
Assembling  a  box  with a grooved bottom is  only  a  little  bit trickier than a dovetailed frame with no bottom.  Assemble two of  the corners,  then slide in the bottom and assemble the last two  corners.  Do  not glue your bottom in place. Gluing this joint would result in cross grain construction.  Leave the bottom floating so it can expand and contract without stressing your joints.
A  very  elegant addition to a box is a shaped  footing.  This  is really very easy to do if you use the right sequence. Cut a groove for the bottom a couple of inches above the edge of the boards.  After the groove  is finished,  draw a pretty curve on the couple of  inches  of each board below the bottom and saw out your footing.
You can  make the footing a separate frame (from the main box frame). This short frame needs to be larger than the box, and has a groove cut around the top edge just large enough for the box to drop into. The two end up getting glued together. If you make the groove around the top edge of the footing tall enough, you don’t need to stop the groove you cut in the box to hold the bottom. Run the bottom groove all the way to the edge of the board, and let the footing cover it.
There is another way to attach the bottom  with a separate footing piece. Assemble and glue the four sides of your box. Cut a bottom board the same size as the outside edge of the box. Make a small four sided frame (dovetailed, of course), larger than the outside edge of the first box. This will turn into a footing. Cut curves in the edges to decorate. Before you assemble the footing frame, cut a groove along the top edge deep enough for both the bottom and the main box to drop in. The bottom will be supported by the frame, and the box will sit on top of the bottom. Both the bottom and a piece of the box need to drop into the groove. Remember not to put glue on the bottom or you will end up with  cross grain construction. The frame needs to fit the box fairly well. You may want to cut the groove with two steps, so that the bottom sits in one, and the box sits above the bottom in the other step. This will help in keeping glue away from the bottom.
A  very  nice way of assembling the legs of a small table  with  a central  pillar is to install the legs with sliding  dovetails.  These are pretty tricky to do right.  Fitting is much easier if you cut your dovetails at a steeper angle than normal. 
Appendix
An excellent place to buy hardwood locally is Mr.  Clyde Hetzel in Laporte,  Colorado.  Mr.  Hetzel is 84 this year,  and has been in the lumber business for a long time.  He is fun to talk to if you take the time,  and  has  reasonable  prices on  a  good  variety  of  American hardwoods  (typically  $2.00 to 2.50 per board foot,  except  walnut).  Some  of the wood is air dried,  which can be good if you remember  to measure  the  moisture  content before using to make sure  it  is  dry enough.  He  often  has walnut, oak,  cherry,  Kentucky  coffee  tree, sassafras, mulberry, hackberry, ash and incense cedar.
Mr. Clyde Hetzel
Laporte, Colorado
482-7672

If you want some veneer (just veneer, not attached to plywood), there is a very good source in Denver, B & B Rare Woods. They have very high quality veneer at good prices (the expensive fancy veneers get as high as $3 per square foot). Their pile of small stuff sometimes goes for as little as a quarter per square foot. Dave Bilger is the owner. He enjoys talking about the wood and doesn’t care if you buy small quantities. 
A  place to buy tools and books locally  is  Wood  Emporium. Loren has an excellent stock of hand tools, including a lot of carving stuff. Sometimes his prices are a little high compared to mail order prices.
    Wood Emporium
    Loren Ballard, owner
    618 N. Garfield Avenue
    Loveland, Colorado
    (303)667-5621

I find sharpening scrapers difficult, mostly because I haven’t had much  practice.  There is a neat little tool ($15)  called  a  scraper burnisher which makes sharpening scrapers a snap,  available from  the people below.  
Timberline Tool
28544 N. Hwy. 67
Woodland Park, CO 80863

Bibliography
I  strongly recommend all of Roy Underhill’s books if you  are  at all interested in working wood with hand tools.
The Woodwright’s Shop
The Woodwright’s Companion
The Woodwright’s Workbook
The Woodwright’s Eclectic Workshop
all by Roy Underhill, University of North Carolina Press

Other useful books include:
Woodworking with Your Kids, by Richard Starr. A good book for adults to start learning about hand tools.
James Krenov’s books. A mixture of philosophy and methods. 
Old Ways of Working Wood, by Alex Bealer (out of print)
Custom Tools for Woodworkers, by J. Petrovich, Stackpole Books
Make  a Chair from a Tree: An Introduction to Working Green  Wood, by John Alexander, Jr., Taunton Press
Fine Woodworking Magazine
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Copyright 2002 by Steve Smith, <sos at alum.mit.edu>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited and receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, I would appreciate a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.

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