Consumerism

You may have guessed that I loath consumerism. As a person that "does" things for himself, from homemade butter, bread, veggies, building most of my furniture, I usually abhor marketers and peddlers attempting to sucker people in.


However when a certain beloved tool manufacturer puts up a free shipping deal around tax return season (coincidence? methinks not), who could look upon their shopping cart and not buy the plane one has been wanting-for since it's release? Certainly not this guy. I caved and set myself up.

I plan to give customer service a call to thank them, and inquire about acquiring a second fence, so that I can swap fences rather than applied wooden fences. That seems potentially easier, though maybe wood fences with threaded inserts and machine screws would work as well.
On happy accidents... I found that with a heavier cut one can produce spills with the Veritas Skew Rabbet (Veritas Moving Fillister). I don't think they are as tight as a dedicated spill plane, but I'll be able to get a feel for them before I build one.

Table and Stick Chair Progress

Here's some more on the two projects that will inhabit my kitchen in the near future. First up the chair seat.


Lines drawn in a grid on the surface help me to visualize the compound curves of the seat. I do this with all sorts of shapes to illustrate form to my students too. Try it, it's surprising how much more informative a surface becomes with simple lines on it.


This photo shows the centerline particularly well, and with it, the basic contour of the seat. I've done most of the scraping, but there is still sanding to do. After a coat of primer, I'm sure to find high spots that I've missed and I'll need to do some more carving and sanding.

Here is one of the legs, primed and painted with the undercoat. I couldn't wait to see how the paint showed up. Right now I'm laboring through the morti, 8 2" deep 4" long and 1/2" wide holes are big, I'm just using a huge mortising chisel, instead of boring and paring.

Welsh Stick Chair-Drilling

If you're not familiar with Peter Galbert, or his blog Chair Notes, I suggest you check it out. Since about a year ago when I started compiling project photos for Windsor/stick chairs I've been following him, and today it paid off in a big way. This post, has a great explanation of sightlines and computing the resultant angles based on orthographic views. I'd also much rather do some geometry than bust out the trig.


I'm shooting from the hip here, doing something like what Krenov called composing. Working this way is really nice, compared to a very regimented project working by eye and your sense of relationships. It's like sketching with a solid piece of wood.

Hole Digging

This post has nothing to do with digging, holes, dirt or any of that. It's more of a phrase that sums up my relationship with my project list. I finally started working on a pair of Welsh stick chairs, a form I've always wanted to build.

Half of my morning was spent going through several different photos of seat shapes and drafting out one that looked good. The sight lines are my best guess so far based on examples I've seen. I still have to come up with the final angles along those lines though. The blank is a glue up from 8/4 poplar. The board I bought was a bit too narrow, I wound up having to glue a 2x2 turning blank and a piece of 4/4 to get the seat depth needed. This may wind up looking like dog meat, but it should do well as practice.

A shot of the seat with all the sight lines. I'm sorely tempted to buy the LV tapered reamer, though I'll have to build a tapered tenon cutter as the small diameter for the leg joint will be 7/8".


One shovelful of dirt did make it's way into the hole though. Yesterday, amid other work I managed a few more coats of shellac and the fitting of the leaf supports. I'm so happy with this project, it came out great. If you don't recall, this was a project I started in November at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.

Return to Planemaking

Well I've taken off long enough, not that I haven't done any woodworking, just that I've been busy with a few different things like not blogging, but now I'm back.

Work is progressing on several projects, I've only got one lock left to install in the tool chest, the Pembroke table is about to get it's leaf supports and finish, and I've started turning legs for a farm table. But more on those later.

The first two photos show an example of what's called an Iron Shod miter plane. Sort of the transitional plane equivalent for infills.



I may have mentioned that I'm commissioning a miter plane from Raney Nelson, at Daed Toolworks, and I've been so excited about it I've been looking at a lot of miter plans lately. My planemaking interest struck hard when I saw this example, I couldn't hep but want to start it. Maybe you're thinking, should you slow down? You do have at last count 21 plane blanks of various descriptions waiting in various states of beginning. I'm glad you're wondering. It's true I do have a tendancy to start lots of projects, and it takes me a while to finally chug through them and finish everything. Sometimes you just loose interest in something for a bit and need the right kick to get back to it. As I was working on the #8 H&R planes I got really disinterested in the metalwork that I was almost ready to tackle. I'm back and ready for it now.


These last two sketches show the geometry involved in the applied steel sole for this plane. Currently I'm working on the milling fixture to rough out the bed and ware surfaces in one shot.

Finishing the Honey/Jelly Cabinet

We've finally gotten to painting this cabinet. We're using The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company's Tavern Green, with a top coat of boiled linseed oil. This paint is awesome. Unlike modern paints it doesn't smell like chemicals (it has a pleasant lime/earthy smell) or have VOCs, it's completely friendly and cleans up easily. That alone makes it a great product for our uses because we do the finishing in our living room.

This is the paint partly dry, that's why it looks so streaky, in actuality there is still some streaking and the texture of the wood shows through, but that's another reason why we like it. Milk paint has character that a latex paint glosses over.

And here's a color shot so you can see what color I'm actually talking about. We installed the door and oiled it, it might need another coat of oil. The top is going to be soft maple, which I have to pick up when I get the lumber for the dining table. I'll post another update with the finished piece soon I hope.

#8 Hollow Plane with Wedge Fitted

Yay! I finished putting handles on two of the floats I just made today and had to work on the #8 that I was working on. I'm almost at the point where I can spend most of my shop time on planes. Very exciting for me.

It's by no means perfect, but I'm surprised at the fit for my first completely fitted wedge. I have a long way to go though, I took apart a 1/4" dado plane last night, one with a wooden friction fit depth stop. It's an amazing piece of work, the stop itself is perfectly square and parallel in all four sides and the mortise is equally well made. I expected the mortise to be undercut, and it wasn't. I hope to be that skillful one day.