Breast hook

My approach to the breast hook is a bit different to what Arch describes. For a start I laminated the block up from two pieces of 3/4 inch Fijian Kauri with the grain running at right angles.

Rather than scribing the lines on the block and shifting them as Arch describes I started by making a template from some ply scrap. This gave me an exact pattern at the top of the sheer. I then copied this onto the bottom of the block. I cut the block on the bandsaw to these lines square to the block surface.

One little amendment to this is due to the angle of the stem and the fact that the top of the block is 1/4 inch above the sheer. To account for this the top edge against the stem needs to be moved forward, 1/8 inch in my case.

Next I cut the angle to match the back of the stem. In my case this meant moving the line under the block back 3/4 an inch. I cut down to this line with a saw and chiseled out the waste. From here I was ready to cut the angle on the side of the breast hook to match the angle of the sheer. First I scribed a line 1/4 down from the top surface, the level of the top of the sheer. I then set the bandsaw to the angle of the sheer and cut the edges of the breast hook so that the top of the cut was 1/4 from the top surface.

Perfect fit! All that was left to do was plane the camber into the top of the breast hook to bring the edges down to the top of the sheer.

In the end I think this was a good way of doing this as I was confident that the block would be the correct shape rather than risking moving several lines. However having never done the latter then I’m not sure how difficult it would be.