Mike Allen1010
03-26-2012, 4:27 PM
I've made the critical error of tackling two family projects at once -- replacing 12 particleboard/laminate cabinet doors with raised frame and panel doors for my wife, and building a "platform" bed for our son, who at 18 has somehow magically grown to 6’ 2” and no longer fits in the bunk beds he's been sleeping in since he was 8!
Motivated by delivery of a new 3 stone set of Sigma Power sharpening stones from Stu at Tools From Japan, I ventured into the garage to sharpen up some planes and began rough dimensioning the 150 board feet of Poplar I purchased for the projects.
I decided on Poplar primarily because it was affordable and easily workable with hand tools. The cabinet doors will be painted. The bed is my son's choice and is a simple construction modeled after the one by Matthew Teague in the July/August 2011 edition of FWW. It will be dyed/finished in a dark shade, I'm hoping similar to the color of Walnut (provided I can cover the green in the raw Poplar!).
Below are some pictures of the glued up panels for the cabinet doors after rough surfacing with my Stanley and LN #5 and #6:
228073228074
Here are some pictures of the 8/4 and 6/4 surfaced poplar for the bed and a picture of the glued up/surfaced horizontal and vertical rails of the bed frame:
228071228069
Finally, pictures of one of the piles of shavings I ended up with next to my 8” workbench:
228070228072
After a very sweaty but ultimately productive weekend I'm pleased to report three things:
1) The Sigma Power Stones worked better than I thought possible. I've been using King water stones for 15 years primarily because they were affordable/available. After following some the posts here on the Creek, I decided to invest in the Sigma Power Stones and I'm very pleased with their performance -- on my Hock and LN A2 blades they were fast, stayed flat and left a very keen edge. All in all, they were much better than the King Stone's I've used previously and made sharpening much less of a chore and delivered a demonstrably better edge.
2) The Poplar was a real pleasure to work with hand tools. Very straight grained it yielded nice full-length, full width shavings with no tear out and was easy to cut with hand saws (I did use the bandsaw to rip the 8/4 bed frame material).
My last project was with African mahogany that had lots of difficult, reversing grain and in comparison the Poplar was a pleasure to work. I haven't used it a lot before, but if I can get the finish right, I will definitely consider it for other larger scale casework in the future.
3) I am definitely not as young as I used to be! As much as I enjoyed watching all those shavings come off my freshly sharpened blades, after a full weekend of surfacing wood for both projects, there were lots of creeks and groans as I got out of bed this morning!
I'm definitely looking forward to the lighter work of sawing up the panels and cutting the joinery. I will try and post some pictures when both projects are finished.
All the best,
Mike
Motivated by delivery of a new 3 stone set of Sigma Power sharpening stones from Stu at Tools From Japan, I ventured into the garage to sharpen up some planes and began rough dimensioning the 150 board feet of Poplar I purchased for the projects.
I decided on Poplar primarily because it was affordable and easily workable with hand tools. The cabinet doors will be painted. The bed is my son's choice and is a simple construction modeled after the one by Matthew Teague in the July/August 2011 edition of FWW. It will be dyed/finished in a dark shade, I'm hoping similar to the color of Walnut (provided I can cover the green in the raw Poplar!).
Below are some pictures of the glued up panels for the cabinet doors after rough surfacing with my Stanley and LN #5 and #6:
228073228074
Here are some pictures of the 8/4 and 6/4 surfaced poplar for the bed and a picture of the glued up/surfaced horizontal and vertical rails of the bed frame:
228071228069
Finally, pictures of one of the piles of shavings I ended up with next to my 8” workbench:
228070228072
After a very sweaty but ultimately productive weekend I'm pleased to report three things:
1) The Sigma Power Stones worked better than I thought possible. I've been using King water stones for 15 years primarily because they were affordable/available. After following some the posts here on the Creek, I decided to invest in the Sigma Power Stones and I'm very pleased with their performance -- on my Hock and LN A2 blades they were fast, stayed flat and left a very keen edge. All in all, they were much better than the King Stone's I've used previously and made sharpening much less of a chore and delivered a demonstrably better edge.
2) The Poplar was a real pleasure to work with hand tools. Very straight grained it yielded nice full-length, full width shavings with no tear out and was easy to cut with hand saws (I did use the bandsaw to rip the 8/4 bed frame material).
My last project was with African mahogany that had lots of difficult, reversing grain and in comparison the Poplar was a pleasure to work. I haven't used it a lot before, but if I can get the finish right, I will definitely consider it for other larger scale casework in the future.
3) I am definitely not as young as I used to be! As much as I enjoyed watching all those shavings come off my freshly sharpened blades, after a full weekend of surfacing wood for both projects, there were lots of creeks and groans as I got out of bed this morning!
I'm definitely looking forward to the lighter work of sawing up the panels and cutting the joinery. I will try and post some pictures when both projects are finished.
All the best,
Mike