On the 166th day - there was light.

(and drywall, and a coat of primer and two coats of paint - but the lights... they were the big moment)


It has been a very busy fall. Once again my friend Andy jumped in and helped out with the 4' x 12' x 5/8" (fire code) sheets of drywall for the ceiling. We rented a drywall lift and managed to hang all 6 sheets in a night. My Dad and Jill helped hang the drywall on the walls, and I must say - the whole thing went pretty quickly and painlessly.

Then the taping and mudding - which I decided to do myself. This is our second house and over the years I have gotten fairly good at mudding. I am not extremely fast, but I have it to the point where I only sand once at the very end. I managed to get the first two coats on - then I hopped on a plane, and headed for England to the European Woodworking Show.

Ok - I have written about Westonbirt being the best woodworking show before - but I think this one was even better. First off - the setting was absolutely incredible. How can a woodworker not fall in love with demonstrating inside a medieval barn? These things were amazing and the first hour was spend with my head cranked back staring up at the structure. The sad news - I forgot my camera, but there are quite a few photos on the UK forum here and here. It was great to catch up with so many good friends and familiar faces. I was sandwiched between John Lloyd and David Charlesworth. David and I had a great discussion about bed angles, bevel down vs bevel up and sharpness. Phil Edwards had a few new beauties to check out - I think he has developed a weakness for Blackwood. One person I wish I would have had more time to visit with was Richard Maguire. He had two stunning workbenches at the show and I was delighted to see the Benchcrafted tail vice and leg vice. These are amazing vices and may just push me over the edge to make another bench or try to retro fit the tail vice to my shaker style bench.

One of the things that really impressed me about the show was the number of people from outside the UK. I spoke with people from Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, France and Austria.

Hats off to Mike Hancock and the rest of the Classic Handtool folks for such a fine show. And my deepest thanks to Peter and Helen for helping me get around and to Mark, Helen, Ella and Helen’s father Robert for helping to make my last two days in England most enjoyable. I look forward to the show again next year.

For some strange reason - I recovered from jet-lag quite quickly and was back in action. I finished off the third and final coat of mudding, sanded it and we then started the painting. Oh, I should also mention that Riley was very interested in this “mudding” thing (I think he loved the idea of being able to do something that sounded messy) and so he asked if he could help. One day after school, he had a friend over and the two of them helped me fill all the drywall screw holes on the lower walls. It was really great to see their interest and hopefully it will lead to a level of confidence and self-suficiency later in life.



There has also been some progress on the livingroom floor. I made a dedicated single purpose cross-cut sled for cutting the QS white oak herringbone pieces to length. Thankfully it went faster than I expected. I am not quite finished, but above is a shot of the first 528 pieces. I still need to cut a slot in the ends, but it looks like the flooring may just happen some time in October.

And if all this doesn’t sound busy enough - I am leaving tomorrow for the Woodworking in America conference in Valley Forge PA. If this show is anything like the one in Berea - it is going to be fantastic. The line-up of speakers is amazing - quite a few of whom I will try and listen in on.

PS - the camera is already packed.

No.4 madness!

It has been unhandled smoother madness over here the last several weeks. I am just finishing up my SNo.4 smoother (second from the right - more pictures below). Here are a few quick pics of three XSNo.4’s and the first two SNo.4’s.






Here is yet another variation of the XSNo.4. This is an all steel version infilled with African Blackwood instead of Ebony. I am extremely pleased with the results.



I wasn’t sure how the warmth of the blackwood would work with the cold look of the steel - but they work wonderfully together. It is also nice to see the little bit of grain showing through - a subtle departure from the dead black of Ebony.





And here is my SNo.4 smoother. I was looking at my own planes a few weeks ago, and realized that I did not have a typical traditional British plane - steel sides, bronze lever cap and Rosewood infill. I was a little relieve to be honest - it is getting tough to come up with new combinations of sidewall and infill material.



I decided to treat myself to a wee corner of some Curly Rosewood. Here is a detail shot of the rear infill after the first coat of french polish. I can’t wait to see it after 12 coats! And it looks like I will be able to complete it in time for the show in England later this week.

Finishing the firewood drawer

I have found a few spare moments here and there between planes and coats of french polish, and have used the time to finish working on the firewood drawer. Other than a finish on the white Oak door - it is completed.

This was one of those odd notions that led to much head scratching but ultimately, I hope a very useful solution. Here are a series of photos to show some of the detail.

One of the big issues was how to keep this from being a huge source of heat loss in the winter. The cavity around the drawer was filled with spray foam insulation when the rest of the room was done. Below is a quick shot with the cover off.



The large red box on the end serves 2 purposes. First, to push the handle into a more convenient location. And secondly to store six, 2" pieces of high density insulation.



With the drawer in a closed position, the air gap is 3/16" around the perimeter of the drawer and 1/8" gap on each side of the glides.




The first test piece of firewood...




... and its new home under the hearth. There is a 3/4" lip on the front edge of the aluminum drawer, but this should be visually blocked by the 3/4" flooring.



And a wider shot to show the drawer in context.

The white Oak door posed another challenge. The door hardware was a little limiting - the door could not be thicker than 1-3/4" and the stile had to be at least 4" wide. I managed to create a 3/4" cavity between the panels to put a single piece of Johns Manville insulation (R5).



The cavity.


And the insulation.


And speaking of insulation - the two exterior walls are now done. Next step...12' sheets of drywall.

Following up with sapwood

A recent comment from Tom got me thinking about how close I sometimes “cut it” with roughed out infill blanks and proximity to the sapwood. There was a fairly large area of sapwood on this Rosewood infill blank but I was pretty confident it would be removed by the time the plane was completed. Here is a little sequence showing the progression.



Good gravy this is going to be close!



With the rear infill fit, I can bandsaw off the waste to see what is going on. At this point - I am quite confident everything is going to work out.



With the sides lapped - I know I am out of the woods.



A quick shot of the rough layout line to mark the radius.



And the fully shaped plane with the first coat of french polish. One of the reasons I often risk cutting it this close is the best color and grain is often hiding just under the sapwood.