Bench plane madness - Part 1

It's been a week since I made a post, not from lack of material. Since last week I've: reenrolled into college to get a Historic Preservation degree, started lathing in my Monday night Meet-ups, been applying for restoration work in the local area, and finally finished the bench plane shelf.

The bench plane project was pretty intense. I had some new hand tool techniques to learn and practice, and even made lots of mistakes. I going to break the posting into three, and from this moment forward, write shorter-partial project posts rather than longer-complete project posts. This should help keep attention spans....both the reader's and mine. Ha!

The Bench Plane Shelf!  Phase 1
Milling the stock

The stock was already at required thickness, allowing me to immediately proceed to cutting it to final dimensions.

I cambered the corners of the stock prior to using the shooting board. This helps to avoid tear out as the block plane squares up the shelves.

Lesson learned at this stage: Always cut your longer pieces from your stock first. If you cut the shorter ones first, from stock that was planned for longer pieces, it doesn't work. Better yet, layout and mark your cuts prior to putting tools to wood. This is only applicable until someone invents a board stretcher.

Below, I cut out the 1/4 in slats that will become part of the face frame. I learned that riving this piece of oak is not possible during the Molding Plane Shelf project.

Using a couple of hand clamps to hold the stock, I used my planes (and future residents of the shelf) to sneak down to the line. I did have to place some scrap wood in the center to stop the pieces from bowing when being planed.

Shorter ones finished.

Now working on the stock for the longer shelves.

When I rived a piece for the Molding plane shelf, I was left with some unusable stock that had to be replaced. However, the BORG no longer had the same stock on hand, so I had to buy the stock a little wider and cut it down.

Using my superbly permanent saw bench (aka, Mark's carport wall), I used my body weight to hold down and saw the waste off using unique technique  (and safe...no, my foot wasn't in the path of the blade).

I don't always wear Crocs when working in the "shop".

Finished. All stock cut to size and ready for joinery....next time!

This picturesque moment become the new blog header...cooooool.