Bl Working

Since I work many styles besides Greene and Greene I sometimes have to fool around for a minute til I remember how exactly to do this when I have to do it. Im putting it here for myself and anybody else who wants it ... Enjoy ! Click to enlarge ...

Since several years I wished to make a panel raising plane. Inspiration came to me from a model listed in the 1934 UMAT catalogue.
 



Other than the main blade, it was equipped with an auxiliary iron for moulding the inner edge of the panel and a nicker for scoring the wood across the grain.
Woods are lamellar beech, wengè and cherry (handle). Here is the result:






The plane (13" long, blade bedded at 50°) has a razee shape like motif and is provided with an adjustable parallel fence as well as a depth stop. The fence permits changing of rebate width. 





The main blade (25° skew angle) has a chipbreaker and the "Stella Bianca" mark. It is a new old stock blade and showed very good quality and ability of keeping a sharp edge. The moulding iron comes from a file, shaped by bench grinder.
The first nicker (red point) comes from an old plane iron; it is inserted in a mortice and held in place by a wedge. Another nicker (green point) is present; it avoids the tearout of the moulding edge when the plane cuts across the grain.



The main wedge is kept in place by a 5 mm steel rod I obtained from a screwdriver.

The cherry handle is glued to the plane body by a sliding dovetail joint (PR means Panel Raising and 13 is the plane length).












  A description of building the plane follows.









It received three coats of shellac and two coats of wax.











 


The following short video shows the plane in action. 
What a satisfaction!

Well okay, not an actual windfall (as it was cut to avoid that) but a windfall of wood nonetheless. Our Alaskan birches dont tend to get very large, at least around here, because they either blow down or get crowded out by the spruce. This big guy was too close to the house of some friends and was making them nervous - which is why I found it on their lawn.

A call to my brother Josh, (who took the smaller stuff for his wood stove) and here was my haul:


My idea was to air dry it (I love the way air dried wood works with hand tools) and use it for all sorts of projects. The challenge is to avoid checking (splits) as the wood dries. If the wood is dried in the round, it will almost certainly check, as the wood shrinks tangentially to the grain much more than radially. In other words, as the outer rings of grain try to shrink into smaller rings, they cant move inwards enough to allow them to stay whole, so they split apart. The easiest way to do this is to split the wood into halves or wedges, which allows the wood to move freely as it dries and shrinks (the angle of the wedges become more acute as they dry).

Heres a photo essay of the splitting process.

Step 1: Start a split with the axe.


Step 2: Use a sledgehammer and a sharp wedge to open the split farther. I scored this old logging wedge down in Oregon and it is perfect for this step.


Step 3: Open the split wider with a larger wedge.


Step 4: Leapfrog the sharper wedge and advance the split again.


Step 5: Add another large wedge. A lot of the time I can leapfrog the large wedge to the new position, but this log was not in the mood to cooperate. The grain from the large branch (cut flush) complicated things and the first large wedge didnt release.


Step 6: Split complete.


Alternate Step A: Make a glut. I think traditionally these are made from some tough wood like dogwood. But seeing as I was at least a couple thousand miles away from the nearest dogwood, but only about ten feet from a scrap lumber pile, I made mine from an old 2x4.


Alternate Step B: Use the glut like a huge wedge (which of course is exactly what it is :) to split logs that are particularly large and/or ornery.



And here is the final result after a few hours of work.


And the tool kit:


I dont have any particular projects in mind for this wood, but Im sure something will come to me.

Ive begun construction on the built-in in Sylvania, Ohio!  The week prior to this point has been filled with prep work for this project.  Ive spent the previous week buying, sanding, priming, and painting the materials to be used here.
The first picture is the drawing showing the general layout of the built-in, and what the desired features are going to be. The more time spent on this phase with the owners the better. Its where ideas, wants, and needs get all hashed out, and it also eliminates surprises.  The drawing shows wider and deeper bench areas below the windows, decorative areas on either side of the windows, a large overhead display area, a center open area to accommodate the tv (to include a pull out shelf), and a lower center section to house the electronics.

Earlier in the week, I began my series on my Ghetto WorkCenter Boom Arm. Its my homemade version of a boom arm and platform that fits on the systainers that fit on my vacuum.

I was hoping to finish the description about the Ghetto WorkCenter Boom Arm before I posted the video, but Im down with a cold, so heres the video (its an easy post to write). Ill get back to the construction in my Monday post.

Ive rediscovered my old toolbox. I made this tote in an Industrial Arts class my freshman year of high school, which I believe makes this the oldest woodworking project of mine that still exists. I have no memory of actually using it.

Somehow this thing followed me up to Alaska (I dont even remember packing it), spent some time in my brothers shed, and more recently moved into a funky corner of my garage (on the fringe of my shop space), where it promptly got buried under layers of junk.

A few weeks ago, my brother Josh was out in my neck of the woods harvesting spruce poles for a sod house he will be building on his remote property. I was heading out to help, but needed some good way of taking a small kit of tools along (axe, hatchet etc.) What I needed was a large tool tote...

Hey! What about that one buried over there? I quickly dug it out (finding the hardware for the never completed treadle lathe and a perfectly usable brace in the process - how many of these do I have?)and cleaned it off.

It is very simply constructed - nailed butt joints - but apparently I was very proud of it, because it has my name handwritten in pencil all over it. It was fun to see that - back when I went by "Danny".

I loaded it up and off we went. Here it is in the field:


It easily held my axe, hatchet, disassembled bowsaw, file, sharpening stone, drawknife, hammer and punch (for bowsaw pins), gloves and some snacks.

You could tell it was happy finally getting to do yeomans work after almost 30 years of sitting around!

*** The Candle Till is finished, but the post isnt. That should be coming up next...