Wood US idea: 7

Showing posts with label 7. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

LN 7 Jointer Plane

Its funny how things all turn out and help you make a decision. In the past week I have both sold my boat... and ... received a lovely letter (and cheque) from the Tax man. Finally, the icing on the cake,... I was sent a discount email for 10% off any item from Axminster tools.

Now, despite all the above, ... This decision did not come lightly I can assure you! I am sure the Quangsheng planes would have probably served my purpose adequately, in fact from the reviews I know they would.

They sound like really good planes at amazingly cheap prices. But... I am thinking of this as a one time quality purchase and I would always be wondering or lusting after the Lie Nielsen tools. No political or moral views came into it - I simply could afford what I wanted in the first place, regardless of the quality and value for money of the competition.

Its lovely! ... If I get the same feeling from using this new no#7 plane as I get from my other LN tools, its money well spent. I am also enquiring about a LN no#3 smoother in iron (not bronze), but I would like it with an O1 blade and the high angle 55 degree frog. I have decided against the LN no#5 Jack plane for the moment as my old Stanley no#6 has been (begrudgingly) earning its keep with a newly cambered iron.

As the new no#7 jointer / try plane and my crusty rough and ready no#6 fore plane both have 2 3/8" irons I decided to also spring for the DMT Diasharp 8"x3" stones in both Fine and XX Fine (8000g). I will still keep and use my 6"x2" DMT stones for chisels etc as they are a lot lighter and more portable for other work or jobs I may do away from the house.

And lastly, its time I started doing a lot more dovetail work and treated myself to the Veritas 1:6 dovetail marker.

I will be using it in a little project soon....

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Its Wanderful Part 7

When everything was sanded flat, I checked the bottoms on my tablesaw and joined them as necessary in order to eliminate wobble. Then it was time to sand. All four (4) wand stands were hand sanded from 80 grit to 220 grit.

As I wasn’t concerned with the walnut blotching, and shellac is a resonable blotch control in it’s own rite, I skipped the blotch control and went right to shellacing the bases.

The wands, mid-finishing.

2 coats of ½ lb and 4 coats of 1 lb clear shellac were applied, using rags. Once the shellac was dry, I buffed it with synthetic steel wool.

I had originally intended to add glue on plastic feet to the bottom of the want stands. As I played with the stands in my hands, I couldn’t bring myself to add plastic feet. Instead I decided I should make my own feet, out of brass.

Ripping the brass by hand.

I started with a ⅛” x 1½” brass bar from work. Then I used a hack saw to rip and cut it to pieces about ¾” x 2” (I say about, because I used relative dimensioning and my eye to make them, I never actually measured them). Once the were cut, I used a bastard file against the edge of my workbench to square the edges and clean the faces.

Two (2) sets of finished feet.

Then I tried to polish them using buffing wheels on a 6” bench grinder. This didn’t go so well, and after the first 3 or 4 feet I left them as the filed faces.

Ready to mix the epoxy.

I cut out for the feet using one (1) of the full blades from my dado set for an ⅛” wide, flat bottomed cerf. Unfortunately, all of the filing left the feet less then ⅛” thick. The gap was barely visible, but the fit was also less than snug. In order to secure the feet I used a two part epoxy paste. So far, it’s doing a fine job at holding the feet in. Hopefully it continues to.

The finished wand stands.

Now that the wand project is finally done, it’s finally time to again return to the shop renovation. Thankfully, I not only created four (4) nice and appreciated wand and wand stands, I also learned a bunch of new techniques and expanded my woodworking horizons along the way.

A finished want stand, armed with my wifes wand.

What have you done to push the boundaries of how you work?