I've had a project on my mind for several years, now. I've never had the tools to tackle it, until now. (Actually, for the better part of the last year, I didn't even have a workshop, but mercifully that problem has been solved)
In the last month, I built this:
And used it to make this:
And I made the handle for this:
And I bought this:
Now, I don't have any more excuses...
Nice tapered reamer. I see the hole in the oak by it. Can that tool actually cut its own hole or is it just a reamer?
The tapered reamer doesn't bore a hole - it just makes it tapered. That's actually sassafras, not oak
I guess I am stupid but what is the 2nd pic?
you making a chair?
You're not stupid, the post was intentionally ambiguous
The second tool is a rounding plane, AKA tenon cutter. I wrote about building it
here, if you're interested. It's for cutting tenons to match the tapered mortises made by the tapered reamer.
And yep, I'm making a chair. A Windsor chair, to be exact. Peter Galbert has finally gotten to me.
Nice, I finally finished my first chair this past summer and look forward to building a set next spring.
The rounding plane is actually not hard to build. I took a slightly different approach, but the results are the same. I was using a tappered reamer bit which has a steeper angle, but will be making a reamer like yours and a new rounding plane before starting on anymore chairs.
I also made a compass plane that for me works better then an adze.
By the time you get to the last few spindles, you will be very good with a spoke shave and draw knife.
Scoony said:
Nice, I finally finished my first chair this past summer and look forward to building a set next spring.
The rounding plane is actually not hard to build. I took a slightly different approach, but the results are the same. I was using a tappered reamer bit which has a steeper angle, but will be making a reamer like yours and a new rounding plane before starting on anymore chairs.
I also made a compass plane that for me works better then an adze.
By the time you get to the last few spindles, you will be very good with a spoke shave and draw knife.
I think of a compass plane as more of a finishing tool, like a travisher. The adze is for roughing it out. Did you do the whole seat hollowing with the compass plane?
I will definitely get some practice with the drawknife and spokeshave, but those are two tools that are never too far from my hand anyway!
Welcome back! Love that adze. And your new blog is excellent.
Steve
Thanks Steve! Good to be back. Good to have a shop again too, after going a year without. It would have driven me crazy to sit around talking woodworking with you guys with no shop to do any woodworking, so I was in voluntary extradition. Thanks for the good word on the blog as well - I hope to keep things interesting over there.
The adze was a lot of fun to build- aside from spoons, I don't get to use branches very often
I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
Well my adze is small. Basically a hammer head forged into an adze. Blacksmith was selling them on ebay a few years ago. Not sure if he is still at it. I can get some wood removal with it, then I switch to the compass plane which works more like a scrub plane so I get fast stock removal with it. Definitely not a finishing tool, at least mine is not. I even used it on my Maloof rocker seat for stock removal.