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This doesn't have to be done with a mallet or hammer, because this is removing wood from an edge and because of the orientation of the cut relative to the grain it can sometimes be done entirely using hand pressure, or by pressing on the end of the chisel handle with e.g. your shoulder, or youyour chin pressing on the back of your fist. But this will entirely depend on your chisel's overall length, the bevel angle, your sharpening level and, remember, the wood itself — hardness, grain orientation, whether the grain is plain or interlocked are all factors in the resistance it will put up.

A saw should be doing most of the work
Just like with forming dovetails, the chopping should be thea refinement process, not a creation process — the bulk of the shaping should have already been accomplished by sawing. How close to your layout lines you've sawn is a matter of individual skill and the saw being used, but I'd suggest aiming to have no more than 1mm (1/25") to chopshave away from the edges.

  • Use the widest chisel available, if possible use one that's wider than the length of the bowtie 'arm'. This is one of the reasons I bought a 2" chisel first opportunity I had.
  • Make sure whatever chisel you're working with is sharp sharp. And if it blunts during the process, stop and sharpen.
  • Knife your layout lines rather than just using a pencil. Fine pencil lines are plenty accurate, but a chisel can't register into them the way it can into a knife line.
  • Good lighting can make a huge difference; if you can't properly see what you're doing accuracy and speed can both suffer and good light is the first step.
  • Consider getting some sort of vision aid. Doesn't have to be an OptiVisor or even one of its inexpensive clones, inexpensivecheap reading glasses are a bit of a secret weapon for this.
  • If possible raise the workpiece up a little higher than your standard workbench height; over time your back will thank you. Note however that the higher you go the more you'll want to use a mallet/hammer.

If I can give you some cornerstone advice for where I think you are in your developmentwoodworking journey, practising sharpening is of absolute importance for the learner/developing hand-tool woodworker. Your process needs to give consistently good results, fairly effortlessly and, IMO quickly — while honing is not a race by any means, and speed isn't necessarily something to directly practice for, you do need to get to the point that stopping work to sharpen doesn't feel like too much effort3.

Stropping little and often (as carvers often do) is one good way to retain peak sharpness with almost zero time penalty, 'takingtaking you out of the'the zone' as any long, involved honingsharpening process — more than five minutes? — will tend to do.

StroppingFreehand stropping takes moments, literally 10 seconds or less; a quick hone on stones/diamond plates or honehoning + stropping should really take no more than three minutes all-in since there should be so little steel to remove.

2 Plus in a 'dense' practice mode like this you'll more easily pick up observations aboutnotice and retain how the grain of thea specific piece of wood you're working with can help or hinder you (compared with observations made weeks or months apart).

This doesn't have to be done with a mallet or hammer, because this is removing wood from an edge and because of the orientation of the cut relative to the grain it can sometimes be done entirely using hand pressure, or by pressing on the end of the chisel handle with e.g. your shoulder, or you chin pressing on the back of your fist. But this will entirely depend on your chisel's bevel angle, your sharpening level and, remember, the wood itself — hardness, grain orientation, whether the grain is plain or interlocked are all factors.

A saw should be doing most of the work
Just like with forming dovetails, the chopping should be the refinement process, not a creation process — the bulk of the shaping should have already been accomplished by sawing. How close to your layout lines you've sawn is a matter of individual skill and the saw being used, but I'd suggest aiming to have no more than 1mm (1/25") to chop away.

  • Use the widest chisel available, if possible use one that's wider than the length of the bowtie 'arm'. This is one of the reasons I bought a 2" chisel first opportunity I had.
  • Make sure whatever chisel you're working with is sharp sharp. And if it blunts during the process, stop and sharpen.
  • Knife your layout lines rather than just using a pencil. Fine pencil lines are plenty accurate, but a chisel can't register into them the way it can into a knife line.
  • Good lighting can make a huge difference; if you can't properly see what you're doing accuracy and speed can both suffer and good light is the first step.
  • Consider getting some sort of vision aid. Doesn't have to be an OptiVisor or even one of its inexpensive clones, inexpensive reading glasses are a bit of a secret weapon for this.
  • If possible raise the workpiece up a little higher than your standard workbench height; over time your back will thank you. Note however that the higher you go the more you'll want to use a mallet/hammer.

If I can give you some cornerstone advice for where I think you are in your development, practising sharpening is of absolute importance for the learner/developing hand-tool woodworker. Your process needs to give consistently good results, fairly effortlessly and, IMO quickly — while honing is not a race by any means, and speed isn't necessarily something to directly practice for, you do need to get to the point that stopping work to sharpen doesn't feel like too much effort3.

Stropping little and often (as carvers often do) is one good way to retain peak sharpness with almost zero time penalty, 'taking you out of the zone' as any long, involved honing process — more than five minutes? — will tend to do.

Stropping takes moments, literally 10 seconds or less; a quick hone on stones/diamond plates or hone + stropping should really take no more than three minutes all-in since there should be so little steel to remove.

2 Plus in a 'dense' practice mode like this you'll more easily pick up observations about how the grain of the specific piece of wood you're working with can help or hinder you.

This doesn't have to be done with a mallet or hammer, because this is removing wood from an edge and because of the orientation of the cut relative to the grain it can sometimes be done entirely using hand pressure, or by pressing on the end of the chisel handle with e.g. your shoulder, or your chin pressing on the back of your fist. But this will entirely depend on your chisel's overall length, the bevel angle, your sharpening level and, remember, the wood itself — hardness, grain orientation, whether the grain is plain or interlocked are all factors in the resistance it will put up.

A saw should be doing most of the work
Just like with forming dovetails, the chopping should be a refinement process, not a creation process — the bulk of the shaping should have already been accomplished by sawing. How close to your layout lines you've sawn is a matter of individual skill and the saw being used, but I'd suggest aiming to have no more than 1mm (1/25") to shave away from the edges.

  • Use the widest chisel available, if possible use one that's wider than the length of the bowtie 'arm'. This is one of the reasons I bought a 2" chisel first opportunity I had.
  • Make sure whatever chisel you're working with is sharp sharp. And if it blunts during the process, stop and sharpen.
  • Knife your layout lines rather than just using a pencil. Fine pencil lines are plenty accurate, but a chisel can't register into them the way it can into a knife line.
  • Good lighting can make a huge difference; if you can't properly see what you're doing accuracy and speed can both suffer and good light is the first step.
  • Consider getting some sort of vision aid. Doesn't have to be an OptiVisor or even one of its inexpensive clones, cheap reading glasses are a bit of a secret weapon for this.
  • If possible raise the workpiece up a little higher than your standard workbench height; over time your back will thank you. Note however that the higher you go the more you'll want to use a mallet/hammer.

If I can give you some cornerstone advice for where I think you are in your woodworking journey, practising sharpening is of absolute importance for the learner/developing hand-tool woodworker. Your process needs to give consistently good results, fairly effortlessly and, IMO quickly — while honing is not a race by any means, and speed isn't necessarily something to directly practice for, you do need to get to the point that stopping work to sharpen doesn't feel like too much effort3.

Stropping little and often (as carvers often do) is one good way to retain peak sharpness with almost zero time penalty, taking you out of 'the zone' as any long, involved sharpening process — more than five minutes? — will tend to do.

Freehand stropping takes moments, literally 10 seconds or less; a quick hone on stones/diamond plates or honing + stropping should really take no more than three minutes all-in since there should be so little steel to remove.

2 Plus in a 'dense' practice mode like this you'll more easily notice and retain how the grain of a specific piece of wood you're working with can help or hinder you (compared with observations made weeks or months apart).

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Bowties/butterflies don't have to be perfect, in fact some asymmetry might be considered to be desirable rather than a defect. As far as I've seen historical examples are rarely up to the standards of today, which isn't surprising really since they're largely (completely?) a feature of vernacular furniture and not something seen coming out of the workshops of craftsmen of the highest order.

Now if your bowties need to 'perfect' then you practice making them until you get to that level. By practice I don't mean doing them in projects as the need/opportunity arises and hoping to see progress (this'll work but it's a terrible way to hone skills). It means sitting down and making four, six, even ten bowties one after another each time you practice1 — and possibly using a selection of different species too, since every species will present its own set of difficulties in making a visually flawless bowtie2.

Or, you do them with a power router and template, live with the machine-made look that results, but get near-perfect results immediately and repeatably.

Should I pare with the grain?

Sometimes you'll want to do this (although I think primarily towards the end of the process when you're going for a sharp inside corner if desired).

Lay them on the face and chisel vertically, similarly to how the matching cavity is made?

Yes. IME and from observation of others doing them by hand you'll primarily want to chop them.

This doesn't have to be done with a mallet or hammer, because this is removing wood from an edge and because of the orientation of the cut relative to the grain it can sometimes be done entirely using hand pressure, or by pressing on the end of the chisel handle with e.g. your shoulder, or you chin pressing on the back of your fist. But this will entirely depend on your chisel's bevel angle, your sharpening level and, remember, the wood itself — hardness, grain orientation, whether the grain is plain or interlocked are all factors.

Do remember though:

A saw should be doing most of the work
Just like with forming dovetails, the chopping should be the refinement process, not a creation process — the bulk of the shaping should have already been accomplished by sawing. How close to your layout lines you've sawn is a matter of individual skill and the saw being used, but I'd suggest aiming to have no more than 1mm (1/25") to chop away.

I would really appreciate any advice as at this point I spend almost the same time cutting and fiddling with the bowtie as inlaying it.

That may be entirely appropriate, since the bowtie has to be as neat as your standards require, and it then forms the template for the mortise/pocket it goes into.

It may feel that this is "too slow" or "slower than it should be" but by what metric? For any given craftsperson at any given time, this is an it takes as long as it takes operation.

Some basic tips to follow.

  • Use the widest chisel available, if possible use one that's wider than the length of the bowtie 'arm'. This is one of the reasons I bought a 2" chisel first opportunity I had.
  • Make sure whatever chisel you're working with is sharp sharp. And if it blunts during the process, stop and sharpen.
  • Knife your layout lines rather than just using a pencil. Fine pencil lines are plenty accurate, but a chisel can't register into them the way it can into a knife line.
  • Good lighting can make a huge difference; if you can't properly see what you're doing accuracy and speed can both suffer and good light is the first step.
  • Consider getting some sort of vision aid. Doesn't have to be an OptiVisor or even one of its inexpensive clones, inexpensive reading glasses are a bit of a secret weapon for this.
  • If possible raise the workpiece up a little higher than your standard workbench height; over time your back will thank you. Note however that the higher you go the more you'll want to use a mallet/hammer.

maybe it was the time to sharpen

If you're in any doubt about a chisel being sharp enough it's extremely likely it isn't :-)

If I can give you some cornerstone advice for where I think you are in your development, practising sharpening is of absolute importance for the learner/developing hand-tool woodworker. Your process needs to give consistently good results, fairly effortlessly and, IMO quickly — while honing is not a race by any means, and speed isn't necessarily something to directly practice for, you do need to get to the point that stopping work to sharpen doesn't feel like too much effort3.

Stropping little and often (as carvers often do) is one good way to retain peak sharpness with almost zero time penalty, 'taking you out of the zone' as any long, involved honing process — more than five minutes? — will tend to do.

Stropping takes moments, literally 10 seconds or less; a quick hone on stones/diamond plates or hone + stropping should really take no more than three minutes all-in since there should be so little steel to remove.

1 You didn't think you'd only need to do this once, r-right? :-)

2 Plus in a 'dense' practice mode like this you'll more easily pick up observations about how the grain of the specific piece of wood you're working with can help or hinder you.

3 Which is probably how >95% of people feel early on, it certainly was for me and most of the woodworkers I know.