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10 September 2014 at 12:05 am #76253
Ooh – always exciting!
They really don’t look in that bad condition, compared to some tools one finds…
9 September 2014 at 9:14 am #73361How hollow is ‘a bit’? I think this depends on your uses. I have a Silverline No. 7 (the epitome of a bad plane) that started out visibly twisted and concave. After a LOT of time with sandpaper on a marble tile it is now within about 0.1 mm from flat, and that is OK for me.
I’m not kidding. This really did take me a long while. The Silverline sat under my bench for years and whenever I tried a sole I thought – ‘I should do some work on the jointer’. A few years later though, and now I have a working jointer which I bought for about £20.
As for the tote, you can shim the top of the tote handle with washers of just the right size as a temporary fix, or (don’t do this) hacksaw off a bit of the bottom of the screw.
9 September 2014 at 1:44 am #71333I’m a bit late here, but I feel I should reply. I bought a huge amount of poplar two years ago – just before discovering Paul – to built furniture for my new house. Why? Because it was dead cheap and I think poplar is under-appreciated.
I’m still working my way through it. Here’s what I think of it.
1. It’s used for carcasses because it’s cheap, but also because it’s stable. Really stable. It just doesn’t warp like other woods I’ve used.
2. It gets dinged easily, like it were a softwood, but it is strong.
3. http://www.wood-database.com/ states Poplar is ‘Very easy to work in almost all regards’. On the whole, that’s true, but it can feel characterless, almost like MDF. It plays nice almost every time. It behaves consistently and rarely splits, it feels a bit dead under my tools, as opposed to other woods I’ve used, hardwood or softwood. It does plane like an absolute dream, though.
4. Every kind of finish I’ve tried with it has functioned perfectly. Danish Oil makes it look a bit lurid and yellow, though. Pale shellac is lovely, and it stains and paints REALLY well.
5. As well as the usual whitish yellow, you can also get wild colour variation (google ‘rainbow poplar’). This varies from purple, to black to green. I have a couple of 6×1 lengths that I’ve been saving that are almost consistently black in colour, and a couple of character pieces that are really lovely. When the lumber arrived I was overjoyed.
Then there’s the light green ‘snotwood’. This is really why everyone paints Poplar. It’s a truly horrible colour that fades to a slightly darker brown than the rest of the wood over time, which is better but still doesn’t look nice.
As long as you select your stock well, you can get perfectly decent, homely furniture, but when all’s said and done, I will never buy Poplar again. It’s a great wood for machine woodworking, but it’s not that much cheaper than Oak, or a proper Pine, or any number of woods that are just a bit nicer to work with.
I need to go to bed now. I really didn’t mean to write this much!
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You must be logged in to view attached files.9 September 2014 at 12:32 am #71009Ooh, I didn’t see that when I was in today or I would have snapped it up, thanks for the pointer!
I’ve not seen it, but i’m almost certain it’s blunt, roughly machined, but completely fixable as that tends to be the way with things like this.
9 September 2014 at 12:24 am #70929While I’m sorely tempted, I’m not sure I’ll purchase it. The timing is terrible for me, as I’ve just made my first woodworking equipment purchase since discovering Paul’s work – A bandsaw, of course – but setting that up and learning how to make it sing is bound to take more time than I have. A lathe project may be beyond me this year.
That said, Aldi have a habit of stocking the same product at a similar time every year, so there’s always next year…
28 August 2014 at 12:48 am #63005I bet a roofing joiner has some very specific joinery rules, because their work is primarily structural.
I don’t think most furniture is like that. At least in my experience, wood’s pretty strong, and as long as we’re vaguely sensible it tends to work out!
9 August 2014 at 2:11 pm #60204Why did I not think of that trick? I’m filing that away for use at a later date, I love it.
With this project I’ve decided to go with drawboring. It seemed the simplest solution to my problem, and I’ve never used them in a real project before, only in test joints, so it’ll be a learning experience!
The only problem I’m anticipating is that if the joint doesn’t come together perfectly square when I hammer in the drawbore pins, it adds extra stress to the frame. Fortunately I’m using quite a soft hardwood (poplar), so it should work out.
Oddly, I’m not at all concerned about getting the offsets correct. I’m happy to eyeball it.
J-P
4 August 2014 at 6:41 am #60075Hey all!
Thanks for your suggestions.
My main focus for this is not to buy anything. I’ve been thinking of getting cramp heads for a while, but there’s always been something else to get!
I rather like your suggestion, David, but isn’t a notch going to come with a risk of splitting the wood under high pressure?
I worry that ratchet straps will end up with me running about with a square making lots of micro-adjustments. I don’t really like stressful glue-ups!
I’m chopping the mortises for the legs this week so I’ll do a dry fit when I’m done and see how it’s going to work.
Many thanks!
J-P
15 February 2013 at 1:44 pm #8015Yeah. That’s a bit disingenuous. On the other hand, I’m not going to pile in against it too much. It’s always worth remembering that workshop time is precious. Sometimes it’s worth taking a different route.
For instance, if you used those with a home made hardwood top – that might well be woodworking. Not shaker woodworking, not traditional cabinet making, but still woodworking, just not as much woodworking.
13 February 2013 at 5:01 pm #7878Question: Wouldn’t it be less work to get a piece of wood flat and then add stops on top to keep the stone in place?
I guess that wouldn’t look as good though, but if someone’s in a hurry I can’t see there would be too many problems with it?
J-P
12 February 2013 at 2:28 pm #7802Incidentally, my paper from Abtec arrived today. Micheal is correct, it seems like good stuff. I got 25 extra sheets as a surprise in the box that made me wonder if the people at Abtec have been reading this thread.
They may raise a smile in those who asked about ‘glasspaper’.
(Incidentally, it would be nice if we could “img” tags in our posts here.)
J-P
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You must be logged in to view attached files.7 February 2013 at 7:36 pm #7644Ah, Halfords! Now why didn’t I think of that?
As for glass paper. Yes. I recognise it but wouldn’t use it, but then I don’t habitually use sandpaper either (despite the topic name!).
3 February 2013 at 9:21 pm #7388Great deal, that!
May be teaching a grandmother to suck eggs here, but whatever you do, just make sure you don’t forget to protect any bare areas properly with your preferred lubricant when you’re done (I use a bike chain lube spray with teflon for moving parts – it’s cheap and gets everywhere, but doesn’t gum up like WD-40).
Everyone’s right when they say a good vice makes a huge difference.
29 January 2013 at 6:26 pm #7169If someone’s based in the UK, I can’t see how, if someone’s looking for a low-price (less than £60) vise, they’re not going for an old, second-hand ‘Made in England’ Record 51 or 52.
Sure, they’re generally collection-only, but the smaller of the two (the 52?) will go through the post. I got one only a few weeks ago for less than £50 delivered from eBay.
There are enough of them about that you can pretty much always get hold of one. You can generally restore a rusty one, and most of them have got a lot of life left in them.
Sure, there are other brands of old ‘Made in England’ or ‘Made in the USA’ vices, but at that price for that level of convenience – if you’re on a budget – why look beyond them?
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