Welcome back!!! Your shop (and us)missed you!
Jerry
Ken, just want to add my voice to the chorus of "Welcome Backs"! like everyone else, really appreciate your contributions to the Creek and the larger woodworking community. Glad to see your wry sense of humor remains unchanged – I always get a kick out of your post!
I've never used Alder and am looking forward to your build and thoughts about how it works with hand tools. The most similar thing I've seen here in the desert of SoCal is "knotty Alder" – that looked like a pretty significant tear out challenge.
Cheers, Mike
Thanks Mike,
The shop is pretty slow going for this week, an initial pilot line at work will do that. Way too much time at work, mostly on the back side of the clock.
The Alder with machines doesn't tear out even around knots. I haven't worked it enough with planes to be sure but seems to work ok. More when I can get a little shop time,
ken
Mike,
Your post got me to wonder about tear out and I had a couple of minutes before my pre-work nap, once of a certain age a nap helps , so I cleaned up the inside of the little box I'm making out of the Alder. One side had a pretty good knot and it planed easily with zero tear out. Nice wood to work with hand tools, I'll use more of it.
ken
PS. A couple of the pins were a little tight, been awhile since the last set of dovetails , not many needed building workbenches. If the wood was Cherry or Oak it would have split. The Alder has not.
Last edited by ken hatch; 03-14-2020 at 12:48 PM.