In prior posts (April 2021), I talked about how I made the arms. I started with them because I thought they would be a bit harder to do and when possible I like to try and do the harder stuff first. Now, it feel like the rest of the work would be relatively easier to finish this project.
The one remaining unpleasant task was going to be ripping out the stretchers from the rough sawn 2"ish thick ash. Some day I will own a band saw and it will come in hand for this kind of work. Till then, I need to do things by hand. To make this less drudge work, what I do is break the task into smaller parts. I set a timer for 10 minutes and saw for 10 minutes and then take a break. Repeat as needed. It is also a great task to do in between other things such as house chores. Little by little I finished it.
From there, it was "just" a matter of getting the stock twist free, square and to final dimensions. Though it isn't a piece of fine furniture, I still want to make it as nicely as I can. The ash gave no ground in the planeing either. It was "hard" work to plane it relative to other woods I have used in the past. I did sharpen the blades of each hand plane I tried. Usually, I prefer vintage planes because they are lighter. It still felt difficult. I went to a wooden hand made hand plane (even lighter) and that didn't seem to help. Finally, I went the other direction and broke out the "battle ship" a heavy No 8 metal hand plane. Surprisingly it seemed a bit easier to use than the others. If I had to guess, the momentum in the cut. First time in 5 years of woodworking I have found an advantage to using a heavier plane. Lighter has always been better for me. I like it when I discover new things. In other hobbies and my professional career, much of the "best" choice/tool is very situational. I guess I have found one situation where my heavy plane has an advantage. It is a rare situation though as I don't plane on routinely using ash.
Cutting the tenons was easy work. I forgot to take photos of this. I am not going to glue this up. I want to be able to disassemble it should I need to transport it somewhere to work. As such, I made the tenons a bit looser than I would normally do. Before slipping on the hardware from Blackburn tools, I removed the burrs and arris on the steel with a file. Everything assembled easily.
For the finish, I considered two options: linseed oil or shellac. Since I had some blond shellac left over from a prior project, I decided to go that route. No photos either (maybe phone ate them). I then finished up with wax. It came out nice and I am happy. I don't have an immediate need for it but am looking forward to using it. There is a nice feeling of building ones tools. I will probably seek out other opportunities to build tools. I have a spoke shave kit I bought two years ago so I will do that next.
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