Bruce Campbell
02-01-2011, 1:52 AM
I should start this out with a big thank you to the many posters here, especially the old hats at this game who patiently keep posting the same information over and over again (and I keep reading over and over again, trying to soak it up). For me it's finally started to soak in.
Last weekend I got frustrated by my desk which has run out of room to hold more mail plus my computer and stuff and decided I'd build a simple hutch, two legs, a top, maybe some dividers for mail. I figured if I had to I'd just nail the blood thing together, just to get it done, necessity over the purity of good woodworking.
It was a good decision, I did end up screwing the top into the legs. I tried to use a fancy new Bosch jigsaw. I learned more about hand woodworking than I have in years of reading and collecting tools not feeling adequate enough to use.
The hutch/shelf/whatever looks horrible but I'm not quite done with it and it will be far too embarassing ot post pics of so yeah, let's not go there. However, I screwed up every cut I made with teh jigsaw. Out of frustration, I grabbed my old stanley 4 1/2 to help clean it up. It worked. I'd been practicing sharpening and trying to plane boards, with little or no luck. For some reason it just worked this time.
I had to use a nasty piece of plywood for the top, I decided to try a simple face frame. That didn't work so I thought what the heck, maybe if I rabbeted it on there instead of just trying to stick it on... so I grabbed a stanley 190 I got as part of a birthday gift over year ago (came as part of whole bunch of planes my mother bought from a guy who was moving). I'd never figured out how to adjust it right much less use it, but it just happened, like I had done it 100 times before. It was great.
Best discovery was I improvised a shooting board out of my nasty workbench (was there when I bought the house, more of a fix-it bench, not meant for anything other than a tall table to work on things, bolts sticking out of it and all) and a vague attempt at a bench hook I made months ago. It worked, suddenly the concept of getting something square made sense not just in a I read it kind of way, it was a real thing in my hands. Very cool.
I do have a question on how the heck are you supposed to use the plane you're shooting with. I ended up with a 1.5 inch blister on the palm of my right hand and a smaller one on my thumb. Yeah, I'm an IT geek but wow, I must be doing something wrong there.
So, yeah mainly a thank you for all the vets. To the people who I know must exist like me who keep reading and thinking about doing it; Grab some scrap wood or cheap pine from the BORG and just do it. It makes a lot more sense when you try it, granted it probably helps if you NEED to build something as opposed to just goofing around.
For now I will just consider the shelving unit thing a functional prototype and look forward to someday getting some real wood. I have a feeling it works a lot different than the cheap scraps I had lying around.
Last weekend I got frustrated by my desk which has run out of room to hold more mail plus my computer and stuff and decided I'd build a simple hutch, two legs, a top, maybe some dividers for mail. I figured if I had to I'd just nail the blood thing together, just to get it done, necessity over the purity of good woodworking.
It was a good decision, I did end up screwing the top into the legs. I tried to use a fancy new Bosch jigsaw. I learned more about hand woodworking than I have in years of reading and collecting tools not feeling adequate enough to use.
The hutch/shelf/whatever looks horrible but I'm not quite done with it and it will be far too embarassing ot post pics of so yeah, let's not go there. However, I screwed up every cut I made with teh jigsaw. Out of frustration, I grabbed my old stanley 4 1/2 to help clean it up. It worked. I'd been practicing sharpening and trying to plane boards, with little or no luck. For some reason it just worked this time.
I had to use a nasty piece of plywood for the top, I decided to try a simple face frame. That didn't work so I thought what the heck, maybe if I rabbeted it on there instead of just trying to stick it on... so I grabbed a stanley 190 I got as part of a birthday gift over year ago (came as part of whole bunch of planes my mother bought from a guy who was moving). I'd never figured out how to adjust it right much less use it, but it just happened, like I had done it 100 times before. It was great.
Best discovery was I improvised a shooting board out of my nasty workbench (was there when I bought the house, more of a fix-it bench, not meant for anything other than a tall table to work on things, bolts sticking out of it and all) and a vague attempt at a bench hook I made months ago. It worked, suddenly the concept of getting something square made sense not just in a I read it kind of way, it was a real thing in my hands. Very cool.
I do have a question on how the heck are you supposed to use the plane you're shooting with. I ended up with a 1.5 inch blister on the palm of my right hand and a smaller one on my thumb. Yeah, I'm an IT geek but wow, I must be doing something wrong there.
So, yeah mainly a thank you for all the vets. To the people who I know must exist like me who keep reading and thinking about doing it; Grab some scrap wood or cheap pine from the BORG and just do it. It makes a lot more sense when you try it, granted it probably helps if you NEED to build something as opposed to just goofing around.
For now I will just consider the shelving unit thing a functional prototype and look forward to someday getting some real wood. I have a feeling it works a lot different than the cheap scraps I had lying around.