I was able to spend some time in the shop today. I’m between projects so I was focused on honing hand tool skills. I had a stick of rough sawn maple that was scrap from ripping a board, and thought, that looks like a frame.
I cleaned up and trued one edge, jointed it flat, squared and trued the adjacent sides, and jointed to uniform thickness. My #4 got everything smooth as silk. No electrons were harmed in the process. somewhere, Chris Schwarz was smiling.
Next was cutting a Rabbet in the back. No Rabbet plane. Hmmm? The Veritas small plow has a 3/8 cutter. It was a lot like work. Maple is hard stuff. I need a skewed Rabbet plane. Effort aside it worked just fine. My new sticking board worked great.
Now the miter cuts. Here’s where I get anxious. I can hand cut miters pretty close. Pretty close ain’t good enough. I remembered I made a bolt on fence for my shooting board, but never used it. No time like the present.
I trimmed everything to length and checked with my combo square. It showed all was well with the angles. It had deceived me in the past. The truth is revealed when you dry fit. I was pleasantly surprised. No gaps. The chatoyance reveals where the joints are, but no gaps.
This hand tool stuff is showing promise.
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Originally Posted by Daniel Culotta
