20 October 2008

Tormek and Timber

In preparation for next weekend, I stripped and reground all my plane blades on Sunday as it was about time they all got done anyway, so the Tormek was working overtime. I've come up with new sharpening routine in that all blades are ground at 23deg, with BD planes honed to 30 deg with a minute micro-bevel of 32deg which I do on the Spyderco 10000g ceramic stone. This gives a fantastic edge...in fact it's so sharpe it doesn't even feel as if it'll cut you, until the edge is tested on the end of one's finger. BU plane blades are treated in a similar way in that they're honed to 36deg with a micro-bevel of 38deg, giving an EP (effective pitch, a nice Charlesworthian expression) 0f 50deg.
After our visit to see Waka the other week, I've also reduced the mouth opening on my Norris A1 panel plane, which on the face of it, is quite hard to do...how do you reduce the mouth opening on an infill? Very simple, stick a small bit of veneer onto the bottom of the bed with some double sided tape. Purists might argue that the cutting angle of the plane has been reduced, but it's only a tiny amout and makes no practical difference. I still can't get over just how good the Veritas LA BU smoother is, it's far better than my old Record Calvert-Stevens and even that's been fitted with LN A2 blade.
I also had a look round in the off-cuts drawer for some bits and pieces of suitable timber. I've got a couple of decent bits of mahogany for chiseling and chopping mortices, both by hand and machine. I'm going to demonstrate how I cut mortises using the router so I also found another bit of stuff to use in conjunction with the mahogany...if you read this Paul (Chisel) it's the bit that got dropped on my foot...and it's still as hard and heavy! On Sunday I'm going to get Steve to make a small panel, fortunately there were some ideal bits of NA cherry in the drawer with a suitable piece for the panel that will be planed and shot in by hand.
Now that the picture frames are out of the way, the next job is the coffee table. My trusty bit of hardboard needs a fresh coat of white paint ready for the full size rod and once that's been done the English Cherry can be chopped into rough lumps to season a bit further. The design I'm considering at the moment is four frames cross-halved to form a 'X' shape and linking each frame will be wide rail, inlaid with a burr elm with an ebony line. It should be 'interesting' to do as there'll be a load of smoothing and shaping of the frames so it won't be straight forward by any means...
Now who do I know that makes a decent scratch stock?

No comments: