Badger Woodworks

Dado Plane before tuning up

A while back I picked up a set of three Dado planes, one of which was 3/4″ in good shape from the ever amazing tool seller Hyperkitten.  Of course that’s the really useful size in our modern day lumber world.  I hadn’t spent the time to tune it up to working condition, so this afternoon was a good time.  I needed to make some grooves in the case for the drawer supports.  I could easily do it with my carcase saw and some chisel work but I’ve been wanting to try this plane out.

Disassembled

I started out taking it apart to check the steel of the blades, and nickers which turned out to be in rather good shape.  I wire brushed it a little to clear some bulk of the crud off, and they both looked quite decent although the long part of the nicker had a bend in it.  The plane body was solid, no checks or warping.

After sharpening

I started out on a Medium India stone on the blade, and worked through to Translucent and finally stopping all by hand.  I was a bit worried that the nickers would be problematic, but after propping my stones up on the case I was able to get to the inside edge (never the outside edge if you can avoid it, you don’t want to make the over all width go down.)   As I worked the inside slowly I was having problems keeping it steady, and on closer inspection the last guy to sharpen it had the same problem.  It was rounded a bit, but the points where sharp so I figured it would be good enough which turned out to be correct.  I tweaked the slight bend in the top part of the nicker, and re-assembled it.

Testing the plane

I tested it out on a scrap piece of pine, and it worked fantastic.  I used a fence clamped to the board as a guide, and set the depth stop by eye.  The sides of the trough were square, and the bottom was smooth enough.  It took very little effort to use, and is now my new favorite way to make dados!  I put it right to use on the sides of my dovetailed three drawer carcase project.  The prototype is in Pine, and check out the cross grain shavings I was getting with the dado.

Shavings!

All in all, I’m VERY pleased with this plane.  Thanks Josh!  (If you’re in the market for old user tools, follow his blog for excellent deals.  He has never steered me wrong, and he finds great tools.  Highly recommended.)

Badger

My wife and were out Antique store browsing, and I ran across this interesting piece of work.

It’s supposedly from the 1800′s, and was German in origin.  The plate for the shoulder vise was missing, but otherwise it was complete.  It was very well worn, and had seen a lot of use in it’s day.  I couldn’t afford it, or had any space for it, but it was pretty cool to check out.

German Workbench 1800's

German Workbench 1800's

Stuff like this is pretty rare out here on the West Coast.  I’m sure those East Coast people are all like “whatever dude, I see five of those every time I turn around”.  Heh.

Badger

I’ve always been fascinated with the carving examples of “Gothic Tracery”, and the intricate and delicate feel to them.  After taking the “By hand and by eye” class with Jim Tolpin, and the ideas I picked up behind laying out things with a compass, I was somewhat inspired to do a little research.  However, there is VERY little out there for the aspiring carver to pick up and learn from.

I did finally find a book on Google Books that was of some help:  Practical wood-carving: a book for the student, carver, teacher, designer, and architect by Eleanor Rowe.  She touches on Gothic Tracery in some what obscure language in the book, and I sat down today to try and figure out how to lay this stuff out.

Starting with this (Page 99)

I came up with this:

I learned a few things, and actually feel pretty good about laying out this basic “quatrefoil”.  No measuring happened, just arcs and lines.  It’s a starting point, and I’m going to try and get some time down in the garage to lay this out, and try some carving.

This one was my favorite of the two, where I used a midpoint on the radius to base the circular lobes on.  I know that makes no sense, but putting compass to paper really helped figure this stuff out in my head.  The layout was fairly simple once I got started, it’s just complex looking to start out doing.

Let’s see what happens when the chisel hits the wood.

Badger

Finished up a special order for a set of 10 pens to be used as a graduation gift at a ceremony.

This is for a repeat customer of mine, and I’m pretty pleased with these pens.  The Koa wood I used showed a lot of variation, and has some very nice grain patterning, as well as a substantial curl in some of the wood.   The Paduak looks gorgeous as always, and there was on in Rosewood by special request.

Special Order of Pens

I haven’t had a lot of work in the Pen department for a while, so it was good to get down to the shop and turn a bit of wood again.

I did have one blow up slightly at the last possible moment, so I had to make one extra in the 11th hour.  The wood near the tip pulled up slightly, and was noticeable.  It’s not terrible, just not up to my quality standards.  Sucks that it happened at the last possible second, when I would have to totally pull the thing apart (no easy task, and no guarantee of success either).

Badger

 Starting a new project in the shop after some downtime.  I wanted to work on a couple skills, and try out a few new ones, so I grabbed a left over pine board (with knots, and voids, and all) and set out to make set of small drawers for my wifes sewing room.

Carcase outer shell complete

Last night I fit the last two corners of dovetails, and it went together pretty well.  This is a minor miracle for me really, as I’ve had a hand of these simple dovetail project go awry at this point, so I was very happy to see this come together.  I used a much improved marking system to make absolutely sure I had lined it all up right this time, and not repeat the mistakes where I cut the pins on the wrong side, or similar rookie mistakes.

Some of the things that worked well this time:

• Using my new marking knife from Blue Spruce.
• Cutting to the line.
• Simple layout of tails with a divider to step it out, and the Lie Nielson dovetail marker.
• Sharpening and stropping my chisels before I set to work.
• Cutting the waste out with my bow/turning saw right to the line.

All in all I was pretty happy with things, except for the two times I cut my self on my chisels.  I did this over two different evenings, and in true “Underhill” style managed to nick my fingers both times with the super sharp chisel.