A mid-life crisis?

“No matter how insignificant the thing you have to do, do it as well as you can, give it as much of your care and attention as you would give to the thing you regard as most important. For it will be by those small things that you shall be judged.” Mohandas K. Gandhi

As I was working hard, planing some ash stock to make a sewing box, it occurred to me that I  had been concentrating for a good few hours on what, in the big scheme of life, is fairly meaningless. Ought I to be wasting my sunday evening on the "simple" task of making four pieces of wood to perfect dimensions, all square and true? There are so many other things that really need doing. Am I burying my head in the sand? Am I procrastinating to delay more important tasks (mostly work related)?


Probably. But one thing is certain: I had not thought about everyday stresses in all that time spent in the deep immersion of my woodworking.


I could try meditation, yoga, fishing…


At least this way I am producing something that will hopefully be of use, be aesthetically satisfying and god willing be appreciated for years to come.

The tail vice and bench dogs

For planing boards and a variety of other tasks where the workpiece needs to be flat and firmly held, one option is the tail vice with a bench dog system. See how I made mine very easily here.

A Panel Board

If you have visited my page on making a tail vice and bench dogs, you may recall mention of a panel board.

Well I finally got round to putting one together. And very easy it is too.

It's basically made from a few off-cuts of plywood and pine. It only took a few minutes to make and is very useful for working on a medium size piece.

The baton is screwed in place and can be moved depending on the size of your workpiece.

The wedges hold things nice and secure

The board has a stop underneath which is clamped in the vice.

Easy!

Been Rather Busy!

Since my first post a couple of weeks back I've been pretty damn busy. Mainly with my real profession which maybe I'll go into at some point.

I've finished my intermediate course with the completion of the oilstone box. 

I'm pretty pleased with the result. Check it out. Comments are very welcome.

The box was a great chance to play with the Veritas low angle jack plan both for end-grain shooting and also using the higher angle iron for smoothing the iroko's interlocking grain.

My new Father's Day present (Lie Nielsen low angle skew block plane) got a bit of a workout too on the coffin top ends. It's a beautiful plane which I'm sure I'll get tonnes of use from in the years to come.

The African iroko finishes beautifully and with a danish oil and beeswax finish is sooo smooth.

In addition I've been prepping ash for my first attempt at a dovetail box. I've made a box lid from some beautifully figured sapele. I've used a door frame type construction incorporating haunched stopped mortise and tenons hand cut with a hand-me-down motise chisel from my Dad. I also used my Grandfather's old wooden plough plane to prepare a groove in the frame to accommodate the central panel. This was prepared with a rebate cut with my L-N medium shoulder plane (before I had been given the skew block plane). Using a baton clamped to the workpiece was actually really simple and very effective.Keep a lookout for some pics before the glue up stage.