College of The Redwoods Fine Furniture: Week 1

The first wood-shavings of the year have fallen from my plane and been swept into the dustbin. My year at the College of the Redwoods Fine Furniture Program has begun.

Monday started and ended with plane irons. Flattening my water stones and honing my irons this year was a lot more peaceful than my first experience last summer, when I contemplated bashing my Norton stones with a 4lb sledge hammer and tossing my plane irons in a smelter. This year I breathed calmly as I repetitively ground the tips of my fingers raw sharpening and honing. My experience from last summer had taught me the importance of a truly sharp blade, and though dulling to the mind, a having sharp tools is the basis for any project.

(Hock Plane Irons : Out of the Box Front and Back, Flattening, Newly Polished Backs, Hollow Ground, and Honed Irons.)

After a fun day of sharpening, the class got started on constructing hand planes, a smoother and a joiner. Bandsaws started running, block planes were tuned, and shavings started hitting the floor as our planes took shape. A good part of the day passed looking at my square, then planing some more, looking at my square again, planing, looking at my square….

maple block becoming a plane

Eventually my plane ramps seemed good to go and I got out the clamps for glue up. Back to sharpening my tools again and making sure my stones were flat while I waited for the glue to dry.

Clamps were removed and soon folks were gluing on the soles, working on their plane throats and starting to shape their planes. By Thursday a few planes were cutting their shavings and by Friday the class was starting to move on to the next project…The Perfect Board…

Sam getting ready to glue up his sole

glue up

John tuning up his black plane.

The Prefect Board was my least favorite least favorite exercise last summer. On a scale of One to Ten, one being slamming my head in a car door and ten being in a state of zen I’d go with a two. The goal is to become familiar with the new planes and the idiosyncrasies, the method is to take a lightly milled piece of board, split it, and then re-join it and square it from every angle. My panes either have a lot of idiosyncrasies, or my adjusting skills need some adjusting. Last summer I spent two days on my board before I had it perfect. I proudly took it to an instructor to check out and was told I was approximately half a 64^th off of square. It was supposed to be the perfect board. This year I hoped to the gods of wood that things would go smoother for me. I began working on my board with my smoothing plane, flattening one side. Once I had a reasonably flat surface I hit the planer, the jointer and the table saw. A little bit of work with the planes and it was time to rip it. The most daunting task was almost at hand, re-joining the boards. So with some trepidation of what was coming I took my board to the band saw, and ran the blade through a spot in the grain that looked like I could hide a cut. Ideally it would take about three passes with the jointer plane to get the surfaces of the board ready for glue up. Hours later, with f-bombs flying, and some irons in need of re-sharpening I was close to having the tow halves meeting. It just needed one more pass. Thirty-six passes later I had it in the clamps gluing up. Not as quick as I would of liked, but still a full day quicker than last time.

Carlos working on his perfect board with his smoothing plane

perfect board glue up

and back to sharpening

Sunday finally rolled around and for the one day off of the week Chase, Tom, John and myself headed inland to cut and split around a chord of wood. Nothing like a good day off from the shop.