Step 1: Face Side

All other measurements and angles come from the face side of your wood. When you've prepared the face side, you'll mark it with a looped line that goes off one edge.

The face side goes inside your workpiece, which means it's the less good-looking side. Its characteristics: flat in length, flat in width and out of twist.

You need two measuring tools to check your work: a straightedge and a pair of winding strips.

Step 2: Face Edge

The marking for a face edge is a V connected to the looped face side mark.

Use a straightedge to ensure that the face edge is flat in length (top) and in width (bottom).

A pair of winding strips ensure that the face edge is out of twist (left). Use a try square to make sure the face edge is at a right angle to the face side (right).

Step 3: Width

To get your stock the correct width, either hand plane it to a gauge line along the face edge or rip it to width on the table saw or band saw.

In order to first clarify some important nomenclature, every piece of stock has six faces: two sides, two edges and two ends. All of these have to be prepared before stock becomes a suitable project part.

Step 1: Preparing a Face Side

We begin with a side. Look at the piece and choose which is the best looking and the one you want to show on the outside of the piece of furniture. The other side is destined to be the face side - face sides go inside. The face side is simply the datum (a surface to work from) from which all other measurements and angles will be taken. It has three physical properties. It is: flat in length, flat in width and out of twist.

To prepare a face side using hand tools, you need a very accurate (flat) bench, a jointer plane, a straightedge and a pair of winding strips. The straightedge checks the planed stock for flatness in length and width; the winding strips check for twist. To prepare a face side by machine, you need only a jointer with accurate tables. Once the surface satisfactorily meets the condition of a face side, it is marked with a looped line which goes off one edge of the wood. The edge where the face side mark leaves the planed surface is destined to become the face edge.

The face side and the face edge are the only two faces which get marked. They are used to orient the part in the structure. Face sides go inside and face edges go down or to the back, depending on whether the face side is oriented vertically or horizontally.

Any subsequent marking with gauge, try square, sliding bevel or miter gauge is done from one of these two faces. Any machine setup should have one of these faces against the bed or the fence to ensure consistency.

Step 2: Forming a Face Edge

The face edge has four physical properties. It is: flat in length, flat in width, out of twist and at right angles to the face side.

The hand tools necessary to prepare a face edge are a jointer plane, a straightedge to ensure the edge is flat in length and width, a pair of winding strips to ensure that it is out of twist and a try square to ensure that the face edge is at a right angle to the face side. To prepare a face edge by machine, all you need is a jointer with a fence positioned perpendicular to the tables.

Once the edge satisfies the conditions of a face edge, mark it with a V connected to the face side mark. You should put the marks which indicate the face side and the face edge onto the workpiece when you know it to be correct. Make them bold and use a soft pencil 4B or 6B, so they will remove easily at the cleanup stage prior to polishing.

Step 3: Bringing Stock to Correct Width

It is common to prepare the wood to width next. By hand, the procedure is to set a marking gauge to the width required and gauge down the two sides, making sure that the fence of the gauge rides the face edge only. If the amount of material to be removed is small, plane down to the gauge line. If the amount is substantial, remove the waste with a rip saw and then plane. With machinery, the most probable procedure is to rip to width on the table saw or band saw, cutting all pieces of like dimension in succession before changing the fence setting. Then clean up the sawn edge by passing through the planer. The normal technique is to assemble all the parts that are the same width, bank them together and pass them through the machine as one piece. An alternative is to pass the sawn edge once over a jointer. This is not the best method, but it is acceptable if you don't own a planer. (Steps 4 through 6 of "Stock Preparation" will be covered in Chapter 4, Lesson 2.)

Winding Strips: Essential Tools for Determining Twist Winding is the woodworker's term for twist. A slightly twisted piece of wood will have twisted joints on its ends and will give you all sorts of trouble at the subassembly stage and thereafter, so twist really is an important factor to be dealt with early on. To tell if a board is flat, you place your winding strips at right angles to the edge of the workpiece and near the ends, line up the center marks and sight the top edges. Trying to assess twist by sighting directly on the stock is as futile as assessing straightness or squareness by the same method. Winding strips have always been an essential measuring tool for the woodworker. We have no other method to survey flatness. Most woodworkers would have two or three pairs of different lengths. You can make your own very easily. The drawing above will give you some "starter" dimensions, but they can be made to any size you want. Use good quality, straight grained quartersawn wood that you know to be dry. The major requirement is that the opposite edges of each strip be straight and parallel. They can be made using hand or machine tools. If you care to emulate your woodworking predecessors, you might inlay the top edge of one strip with a white material so that it will be in sharp contrast to the black material inlaid on the edge of the other strip. Detail the center mark with inlay or incised carving and apply finish to suit your pleasure.