Told My Wife No Wood or Tools Till Nov - Sigh

On New Year's Eve we had a water leak in the kitchen that required professional attention.  To be fair, the insurance company did a good job helping us through the process of finding a service to rip out flooring some drywall and insulation and lots of fans and dehumidifiers to dry things out. The desired contractor and insurance company in a reasonable timeframe agreed on costs to fix.  Of course, we want to do a few things beyond insurance so money out of our pocket.  The good news is that I have an emergency fund so no debt.  The bad news is that we need to rebuild the amt we took out of the emergency fund.

I told my wife I have enough wood for the next few upcoming projects and I don't need any tools.  I can get by easily till Nov.  She didn't believe I could last this long.  I went so far as to write and sign a piece of paper indicating as such which she then taped on the mirror.

Sigh.  It's a bit difficult to not want to go out to sites and look at tools and wood, etc.  Logically I don't need anything for tools (until I save up for a bandsaw and dust collection but that is a few years off) and I have plenty of wood for the projects I want to do in 2021.  Still, it's mentally a bit harder than I thought it would be.  I don't know what this says about me and I'm not sure if I like it.  So far it's been 6 weeks since I made that declaration and like 6 months to go.

Rouobo Frame Saw Build Part 2 - The Arms

 In April 2021, I posted my initial work on rough sawing out the ash for the handles.  From here, I spent a great deal of time getting the wood dimensioned/S4S'd.  It had twist, etc and was quite a bit of work with the wood not cooperating the whole way..  Basically I made two 24" 2x4's.  I used my table top mortiser to put in the mortises.

From there, I took the Blackburn Tools template and drew out the desired shapes on all four ends.  Since I don't have a bandsaw, I used the stop cut method I learned from Paul Sellers and then chisseled out the waste.  It's lots of fun to do this as you get all kinds of hunks of wood coming off and you rapidly get down to the approximate shape.

From there, it was a mixture of chisels, spoke shaves, gouges, rasps, files, card scraper, and sandpaper to get the wood to the line.  Once I was satisfied that the curve bits were relatively square across, I started the round over process to make things comfortable.  I used my drawknife to quickly remove the bulk of the wood, then back to the tools mentioned above to get the round over nice and smooth.  This is where the sandpaper really came in handy.  I don't use sand paper all that much.  For this smoothing however, sandpaper is really handy and I used 80, 120, 220 grits.

Unfortunately, one end of the handles was a bit too spalted and verged on being punky (handle in the upper left of the picture below).  I purposely placed this portion on the decorative handle side so it doesn't get used.  The wood where the mortise resides is solid ash so the piece should be fine.  Just to make sure all will be ok, I used thin cyanoacrylate glue and let it really soak into the near punky ash.  After it set for a while, I sprayed some activator on it.  I don't know if this helps or not but I figured it couldn't hurt.

 

After that was done, it was time to cut out the mortise that holds the metal place that is used to tension the blade.  I just used my half inch mortise chisel for this followed by a router plane.  It came out nice.

Now it's time to move onto cutting out the stretchers from the rough ash.  I'm not at all looking forward to this but the wood isn't going to cut itself.  Fortunately, most of the weekend is over so much of the rough cutting will occur during the work week.  With Covid, I'm fortunate that I can work from home.  This kind of woodwork is perfect.  When I take lunch or a break, I can go out and cut for 15 minutes then stop.  Over the course of the workweek it will be relatively painless to cut out the stretchers.

How Much Sand Paper Have I Used in 5 Years?

 When I started woodworking 5 years ago, I bought a bunch of grits of sandpaper.  220 is my most used followed by 400 grit.  I really don't like using sand paper.  Mostly because after getting a nicely hand planed surface, I can't bear the thought of roughing it up.  I've asked and received answers from Paul Sellers, Bob Rozaieski, and Shop Talk Live folks specifically if it is ok not to sand after handing planing when using shellac as the finish.  All of them have said it is ok not to sand when using shellac.

Since shellac is my primary method of finishing a project, I really don't use much sand paper.  While having the week off and woodworking, I was curious to see how much I have used in 5 years.  For 220 grit, I had a five pack sheet I bought 5 years ago.  To date, I have used up two sheets from the 4 sheet pack.  For the 400 grit, I have used one and a quarter of the 5 sheet pack.  Not much at all.  Then again, I don't get a lot of projects done per year.

I know that sandpaper is ancient technology rather than a modern invention.  I just don't like to use it if I can avoid it.  I also don't look down upon those that do for whatever reason.  I have found in certain applications such as curved work sand paper is really handy stuff.  For some finishes and to prevent blotching for some woods it is necessary.

Roubo Frame Saw & First Time Working with Ash - oh my

 I took the week off from work and am starting a new project.  I am build a Roubo frame saw using the kit from Blackburn Tools.  For the frame I am making it from rough sawn spalted ash (57" long x 8" wide x 2" thick that Blackburn tools was kind enough to sell to me at the height of the pandemic).

Last week, I didn't mind taking a cherry board down from 1/2" to quarter inch.  This ash is a much harder wood and I wish I had a bandsaw (I am saving for one).  I don't so I am doing it by hand tools.  Needless to say, it is quite the workout.  I've cut out and dimensioned the arm handle pieces.  Now, I need to "just" need rip out and final dimension the two stretchers.  Wish me luck.

Though, I'd prefer not to do this work, I will admit there is some satisfaction from doing it.  Can't wait till I have a bandsaw.

Mongo Work Good

 About a year or two after I started woodworking, I built my first hand plane from a Lee Valley kit.  I decided that I needed a fore plane after reading some of Chris Schwarz's writings on coarse, medium, fine tools.  I made it out of scraps of laminated oak (body) and pine (handle).  It is ugly but beautiful as is light, powerful, and works very well.  I named it Mongo (based on a character from Blazing Saddles movie) as it seemed to fit the brute strength and simplicity of the tool.  Despite a huge wide open mouth, I get very little tear out if I use it for finer work.  The 8"ish radius camber on the blade works exceptionally well at hogging off material and thinning boards. 

Recently, I had a 1/2" thick piece of maple I wanted to use in a frame and panel construction.  I wanted the panel to be 1/4" thick.  I could have done a lot of other things to use the 1/2" thick stock.  But, I wanted what I wanted.  I've often found what matters most to me isn't what I make but rather how I make it.  I wanted it to be 1/4" thick because that is what I wanted.  It took a fair bit of muscle to get it there but I felt great satisfaction.  There was a slight increase in complexity because to get the best grain flow, the two laminated pieces had the grain raising in opposite directions and it required a bit more attention to avoid tear out.

Every time I look at the frame panel, I will smile because I will know what I did.  I even left some of the scallops on the inside non show face face so I could feel it as well.  This seemingly insignificant decisions will bring me joy for the remainder of my life because like Frank said, "I did it my way."