First chunk
After glueing up the first chunk of boards together I quickly realized that I did not have my circular saw centered, when I ripped these boards to begin with. At this point, I am pretty skeptical about using a hand plane to make this thing flat. (never used a plane before) I see that I got some glubies there. What a mess.
After reading more in Chris’s book, I decided to clean the boards with acetone, before gluing up additional boards. I wish that I would have done this on the previous chunk of boards. This may be a good experiment on bonding unclean surfaces.
Finally, I get everything glued and clamped. I believe I used every clamp that I had at this point. Cross your fingers.
Are you sure you want to use pine for a bench top? Pine is a very soft wood, but I guess at this point you are pretty much committed.
As for handplanes, get the very best you possibly can, and make sure you learn how to tune and sharpen the blade properly. If you don’t you will hate handplanes for the rest of your life. Once you learn how to use them, you never want to be without it.
Best of luck,
yaakov…..
October 25, 2010 at 2:51 pm
I was pretty impressed with Chris Schwarz’s use of Southern Yellow Pine in his many variations of benches. I had thought of using a nicer wood and may actually do so in the future. But for now it is SYP all the way! It’s cheap, plenty and takes a beating. Yeah, it dents up pretty easy but for my first bench I think it will do for now. Not to mention (which I guess I just did) I can get the stuff at the local home center! So when I screw up a piece and can just get more. Did I mention that it was cheap!
As far a handplanes go: I currently have 2 jack planes, a Millers Falls and a Staney that I inherited from my grandfather. I like the Millers Falls but I haven’t used the Staney too much. I also have a Millers Falls smoothing plane. I recently acquired a Veritas low angle jointer plane. OMG! That thing is a beast and cuts silky smooth. It makes for a pretty good upper body workout at that.
Thanks for the reply and hope that I can have more blog entries worth commenting on in the future.
Eric
October 25, 2010 at 7:08 pm