Remember your first time ????

[Lee Koepke]

I am gettin started, learnin the slopes, having fun. I recently got a cheap plane (#4 Groz) and spent some time tunin it up. Sharpened the blade, cleaned up the pieces and parts.....Dont know if I did everything right, but i just put a 4' piece of hard maple in it that had alot of snipe cuts darn near the full length.

I took a little off at a time, and after a little heavy breathing and a pile of shavings, I have a nice smooth piece of maple.

Now, on to looking for some more planes to work on and have fun with.

PS, one of the things you guys dont mention is the potential health benefits, you dont get a cardio workout with tailed tools :D:D

[Jim Koepke]

PS, one of the things you guys dont mention is the potential health benefits, you dont get a cardio workout with tailed tools :D:D

I made a little comment about it the other day. I have noticed when working in the shop for a few days sawing or planing, that I can do more each day.

I think it is helping my stamina and may even help to lose a little weight if I do enough work.

jim

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
--Abraham Lincoln

[David DeCristoforo]

"I think it is helping my stamina and may even help to lose a little weight if I do enough work."

Yes! This is why it's called woodworking! I am always a bit amused by those guys who hire someone to do their yard work or build their fence and then go and spend more money to get exercise by working out in a gym.

YM

[James Mittlefehldt]

Remember Your First Time

LOL yes I do. I was not a woodworker, I would have had to improve to be a rough carpenter, but I was interested in antiques. When I got home from an auction sale once I found in a box of books a skewed blade wooden dado plane. It looked to be in good shape and I suspect someone may have hidden it there and thenm bid on the wrong box of books. There were a lot of books at that sale.

It sat around the basement for ever, well maybe a year, when I had installed some shelving made from rough 1 x 12 pine. a few weeks later, after installing the pine I absent mindedly picked up that plane and looked at it and the rough pine, and for some reason ran it across the board, I swear I said ewwww when the shaving came up and I have been hooked ever since. That was 12 years ago when I was in my forties, now I have a shop in the garage and frost on my car LOL.

[Greg Crawford]

First time with a hand plane, besides just being in awe of my Dad's Stanley Handyman as a youngster, was in Jr. High a long, long time ago. I'm finally back to doing more by hand and it's more rewarding, more relaxing and sometimes faster and produces better results. What more can you ask for?

[Bob Glenn]

Mr. Olsen's eighth grade woodshop class. After watching the "Primitive Pete" films (a little red haired caveman that abused tools as a lesson for us all on the care and use of hand tools), Mr Olsen turned us lose with jack planes and walnut boards to plane down to make coffee tables.

All I remember is all the frustration trying to plane the walnut with what had to be a dull jack plane. Lots of catches and gouges. We spent most of our time trying to get straight edges that would glue together for the table tops. After glue up, we tried to plane a smooth surface for the table top. I think Mr. Olsen took all the tops over to the high school one night and ran them all through a surface planer. I still have the table, and also have the table my father made in the same wood shop when he was in school there.

When I think about how careful I am sharpening my plane irons now, and how terrible the planes in that old shop must have been, it a wonder I found my way back to hand tools.

[Circa Bellum]

PS, one of the things you guys dont mention is the potential health benefits, you dont get a cardio workout with tailed tools :D:D

obviously you've never had a toe-kick saw skate across the floor dragging you with it. My heart races just thinking about it. Ah, memories...