This episode is in response to a Twitter conversation about how to dress a board to proper thickness using only hand tools. Rick Waters at the Splintered Board Podcast tweeted that he wanted to know if there were any good sources on the web for how to do this. The web 2.0 community immediately responded with tips and advice. Since I was planning on presenting an episode on this topic eventually when I tackled the thick and wide vise chops for my Roubo, I bumped that task up in construction and filmed it specifically to address this line of conversation.
This episode is for you Rick!
Other excellent sources for this technique are the videos:
Coarse, Medium, and Fine by Chris Schwarz
Rough to Ready by Rob Cosman
Also be sure to check out Mack’s latest Way of the Galoot podcast, episode 16 where he addresses this same topic in response to the Twitter conversation. As of the time of this publishing, Mack had not put up the blog to go along with the episode but you can find it on iTunes or Blip.tv.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode when I take a straight edge plane blade and grind a curve and hone it for use in a Fore or Scrub plane.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Beth Perry // Mar 18, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Hey Shannon. Nice video. You did an excellent job of explaining while you worked. Doesn’t look like you’ll need to hit the gym any time soon after that workout! Here’s a question for you. When using your jack plane you said you marked the low spots and then proceeded to plane away your pencil marks. Didn’t you actually mean to say you marked the high spots, or am I missing something?
2 Shannon // Mar 20, 2009 at 11:26 am
Oops, you caught me. Yes of course I meant to say high spots. I can only blame fatigue at that point. Planing on a low bench is a lot easier but once you stack a 3.5″ piece of stock on top of that bench suddenly the bench is not so low anymore.