Juan Hovey
09-10-2013, 7:05 AM
This being my birthday and the beginning of my 70th year of life in the big wide world - and just in case you mistake me, this means I am 69 on this day, not 70 - I find delight in having just put the finishing touches on two new infill smoothers. They're the best work I've done, and a far cry from the crude planes I was making a year and a half ago when I set my mind to learning how to make these things.
270604
The infill on the one plane is blue gum, AKA eucalyptus, which grows like weeds in California, where I live, and stinks up the place something awful. It's dense, fibrous, tough stuff, but it often shows gorgeous figure like you see here.
It's also a hard wood - a very hard wood. I had just finished beveling the rear of a bun for this plane on my table saw when, as I pushed it through the saw once again to trim one side, the blade caught it and threw the bun into my face, beveled edge first. Believe me, that damned bevel was sharp, and it came at my poor face with evil force. The sharp edge went clean through my upper lip, broke big chips off of two teeth, loosened half a dozen others, and nicked an artery.
Spouting blood, I pressed a dirty shop rag against my face and, my wife being out on errands, ran to a neighbor's house, leaving a big pool of blood behind me on the floor of the shop - not to mention the tell-tale trail on the street - and hitched a ride to the hospital, where somebody with a steady hand put three stitches on the outside of my lip and two inside and told me it would heal nicely.
It has. And, yes, I now own a face mask, if you're wondering.
That's the good news. The bad news is that my dentist wants two large to cap the chipped teeth, and I say to myself: Look, you stand at the door of old age, and truth be told, you always had peasant teeth. If the chipped teeth don't bother you, why spend the money?
270603
But I digress. The infill on the second plane is black acacia, my favorite wood. The tote you see in the photo is the second one I made for this baby, the first go-round having turned out weird. I tend to have tunnel vision, and I literally did not see what was weird about that first go-round till I sent photos of the plane with the weird tote installed to Tim Lawson at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking and to Chris Wong, whose lovely wood sculptures you may see at www.flairwoodworks.com (http://www.flairwoodworks.com), asking for feedback.
It would embarrass me to describe just what was weird about that tote, and in any event the point is that Tim and Chris opened my eyes to it, leading me to yank the offending thing from the plane and start over, having spent some time studying the totes of Ron Brese, Derek Cohen, Raney Nelson, and of course Konrad Sauer.
Many thanks, Tim and Chris. Ditto Ron, Derek, Raney, and Konrad.
270605
These smoothers have the dimensions of a Stanley 4 1/2, not counting the overhang of both bun and tote. The sides and bottom are 0-1 tool steel, double dovetailed. The wide irons - Ron Hock specials, with my logo on them - are pitched at 45 degrees. The estimable George Wilson made the lever cap screws, and the adjuster in the blue-gum smoother is by Ray Iles. Last but not least, the shaving you see in the third photo is 0.001 inch thick, taken from a board of the same black acacia from which I made the infill. On black walnut, this plane and the other spit out shavings measuring 0.0005 inch. Think of that - half of one thousandth of an inch.
Fun, fun.
270604
The infill on the one plane is blue gum, AKA eucalyptus, which grows like weeds in California, where I live, and stinks up the place something awful. It's dense, fibrous, tough stuff, but it often shows gorgeous figure like you see here.
It's also a hard wood - a very hard wood. I had just finished beveling the rear of a bun for this plane on my table saw when, as I pushed it through the saw once again to trim one side, the blade caught it and threw the bun into my face, beveled edge first. Believe me, that damned bevel was sharp, and it came at my poor face with evil force. The sharp edge went clean through my upper lip, broke big chips off of two teeth, loosened half a dozen others, and nicked an artery.
Spouting blood, I pressed a dirty shop rag against my face and, my wife being out on errands, ran to a neighbor's house, leaving a big pool of blood behind me on the floor of the shop - not to mention the tell-tale trail on the street - and hitched a ride to the hospital, where somebody with a steady hand put three stitches on the outside of my lip and two inside and told me it would heal nicely.
It has. And, yes, I now own a face mask, if you're wondering.
That's the good news. The bad news is that my dentist wants two large to cap the chipped teeth, and I say to myself: Look, you stand at the door of old age, and truth be told, you always had peasant teeth. If the chipped teeth don't bother you, why spend the money?
270603
But I digress. The infill on the second plane is black acacia, my favorite wood. The tote you see in the photo is the second one I made for this baby, the first go-round having turned out weird. I tend to have tunnel vision, and I literally did not see what was weird about that first go-round till I sent photos of the plane with the weird tote installed to Tim Lawson at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking and to Chris Wong, whose lovely wood sculptures you may see at www.flairwoodworks.com (http://www.flairwoodworks.com), asking for feedback.
It would embarrass me to describe just what was weird about that tote, and in any event the point is that Tim and Chris opened my eyes to it, leading me to yank the offending thing from the plane and start over, having spent some time studying the totes of Ron Brese, Derek Cohen, Raney Nelson, and of course Konrad Sauer.
Many thanks, Tim and Chris. Ditto Ron, Derek, Raney, and Konrad.
270605
These smoothers have the dimensions of a Stanley 4 1/2, not counting the overhang of both bun and tote. The sides and bottom are 0-1 tool steel, double dovetailed. The wide irons - Ron Hock specials, with my logo on them - are pitched at 45 degrees. The estimable George Wilson made the lever cap screws, and the adjuster in the blue-gum smoother is by Ray Iles. Last but not least, the shaving you see in the third photo is 0.001 inch thick, taken from a board of the same black acacia from which I made the infill. On black walnut, this plane and the other spit out shavings measuring 0.0005 inch. Think of that - half of one thousandth of an inch.
Fun, fun.