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Im surprised that there aren’t more ideas out there already established for these shavings. There are so many generated on a project. Fire starters and compost sounds like the main ones. I actively use both ideas. Packing material is the next one I’m going to try when I have a lot of long grain pieces.
Paul, what have you done in your long history of woodworking with all those shavings? I would guess they would make a mountain of shavings if all piled up.
Thanks for sharing all.
-Stephen
I have been in the process of updating a stairway in our house (built by my grandfather) with walnut treads, and I decided on a sugar maple inlay on the treads for a little extra decoration. The steps were 10″ deep, 32″ wide and the inlay strip 5/16″ wide, so cutting with a handsaw didn’t seem like an option. I needed a groove, but had no plough plane.
I did the knife / chisel approach for one step. I should’ve used the marking gauge and it would’ve helped with areas where the knife wanted to follow the grain (against my trying to be careful about it). There were a one or two small areas it wasn’t as tight as I would’ve liked but everything looked good. It also took quite a while to get one done.
The second one I tried to do a knife wall and then use my stanley 71 router plane (has no fence) . There was a lot of wood to take out for the 32″ long cut, and the router plane had a tendency to undercut parts of the wall if you weren’t very careful (and stubborn where the grain was complicated). There were more areas I didn’t like on the end result of that step than the first one. It was faster than just chiseling it out, but less accurate. There was definitely a loss of control.
The real solution I found was a stanley 45 combination plane. The next steps I made were much easier to cut with the 45 (and depth was more consistent over the 32″ span). I was very pleased with the results.
The combination plane does beading and many other things as well, so you would possibly do better to look at that instead of just the plough.
good luck
-Stephen
I agree that it is more challenging, especially for those learning to rip close to the line on a 16″ vertical cut. The first pair I made out of qsawn black walnut and they kept getting shorter and shorter because I was tilting my plane over on that small edge. It took much longer than expected but helped me on the second pair, which actually saw the light of day. I did the inlay with maple for contrast. I used the black marker though, since I don’t have any ebony… and even if I did I didn’t want to mess it up there at the end after that hard work.
Stock preparation was the last holdout for me in my transition to hand tools. I see many people (carving, furniture building) that rip it close with a BS or TS and then hand plane down to the fine edge. I have spent many hours spent planing on my latest project, which involves flattening some cupped 13.5″ wide cherry boards from 1.25″ thickness to 7/8″ – with my no. 4 scrub, no 5 1/2, 4 1/2, and no 4 smoother- thinking that I may be off in the head.. knowing that I could just use the power planer/jointer/ts/bs to get them close quickly and then go from there. This same line of thinking had me falling back on power tools on previous projects.
Then about two weeks ago, I had set this project up on the table to show my wife and as I set each piece on top of each other they were so familiar to me that it surprised me. I had so much knowledge about the grain and each detail of each board they almost felt like an extension of myself. They weren’t perfect, but I knew every place on every piece that was less than perfectly square. I knew every place that I had made a decision on how close to my gauge line I wanted to get to. I knew every potential tearout spot and which way to work each one. Most importantly, I had so much more appreciation for the whole hand woodworking process, and especially the stock preparation stage. I never felt that connection to my previous projects. Since I do not have woodworking as a primary source of income (calling it a hobby just doesn’t seem enough, maybe obsession), feeling this sense of accomplishment and pride in something that I fashioned into what it is now has made me see a bigger picture and finally say goodbye to my former line of thinking. Thank you thank you Paul, and the rest of you guys too for sharing your knowledge and mistakes so the rest of us can keep climbing up this mountain with success.
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