Showing posts with label hand cut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hand cut. Show all posts

Monday, June 20, 2011

update



As I wait for my primrose to blossom (and by the way there's a video but it's well beyond the capacity of both the blog server and my abilities as a videographer) I'm reminded of why I work wood by hand.


 It's the dedication, the patience, the knowing that is will all work out in the end, whenever that might be.


And just like the primrose it seems to happen all of a sudden after weeks of wait and toil or months in the case of wood working, years sometimes in gardening.



It's been over a month since my last update and that's OK by me, a lot of the work had been simply redundant, photos you've already seen directions you've already ignored. It is after all, a mirror image of the left side.



Some aspects, however, have been groundbreaking


how to cut the big bevel along the front


devising a sixteenth of an inch wide drawer divider
really learning my Stanley 113


Sucking it up when I know I could do this in five minutes with a power tool


 I'm finally to the point of assembly, dry though it is, the sucker is strong, I could practically smooth the top


it has been six months now, learning and mastering tools long forgot, discovering techniques no longer taught, with tools someone found in grandpa's shed and didn't know what price to put on them at the yard sale


as I've said before, I'll say again, there is NO substitute for experience


the stretchers are finally in place, the drawer fronts cut


spacers made (these will come in handy down the road!)

 

the biggest problem I have right now is horizontal surface on which to stack the ever accumulating pile of parts


I know I said 124, but it's final at 122, all done, no more mortices to hog, thank whatever deity you worship


and I'll talk again in another month, there's a bunch of smoothing, scraping, rasping, and sanding
oh yea, then finishing and glueing
then maybe I'll have something to write about again.

Friday, February 11, 2011

join


It all seems a little silly, three weeks in the shop, in the freezing (mostly sub-freezing) cold, bundled up so you can't put your arms down (just think Randy from Christmas Story) sawing wood that at eight percent moisture is more likely eight percent ice. Planing wood so temperamental you have to hone your plane irons every ten to twenty minutes, boards that started out at 4/4 are a little closer to 3/4 now. Sweat does freeze to metal and skin freezes to ice even when it's made up of sweat. But if you use the tool long enough it warms to your hand, becomes comfortable, true again...
or is that just the frostbite talking?


All this work for a board that looks like you got it at the B.O.R.G. store. It's really kind of a downer...


But then it becomes yours again, mark those tails...


use them saws...


learn a few new tricks from some guy who started something called the Schwarz Effect...


chop...


don't forget where you started...


and don't be surprised how fast you can do joinery by hand!