"Raising Pistachio"

[C. in Indy]

Here will be a little bit of a build-along.... no hurries.

Before woodworking myself, I spent a lot of money on guitars. I was always intrigued when Taylor would use a grafted tree for a guitar-back piece. Here lately, I got some grafted Pistachio from a seller. It was a plank a little bigger than I need.

Using a tip once mentioned by Christopher Schwarz, I use a few shavings to 'prop' a warped board for flattening. (Actual objects are small; that is a No. 2 plane. Also note my exotic plastic bench dogs!):




My use of a shooting board for edge-jointing owes a lot to the "New Chinky Workshop" site that I had looked at many times:




Here is the "freed" piece which now avoids some knots and problems which appeared to be aggravating the flatness problems after months of drying in my basement:




More in a few days, hopefully!

[Dan Moening]

That's very cool.

I've seen Claro Walnut at that juncture where its grafted to whatever root stock before, but never Pistashio.

With all the fruit woods around I've tried to get some but the growers are tight with it. I'm not as local to it as those that are obtaining it though I'm sure.

Is the Pistachio the lighter more reddish of the two colors?

[C. in Indy]

Hi Dan,
I hadn't even realized the pistachio could be possibly grafted to a different species. So, I really don't know which color is which 'nut'! Anyway, it's nice, hard wood, and it is planing well.

[Ken Vick]

According to the UC Davis website, the species we use for nuts can be grafted to one of 5 other Pistacia species' roots depending on what soil disease the farmer is trying to guard against. I was very familiar to the grafting of English walnut on American black walnut root stock but hadn't run across the pistachio issue before. Ken

[C. in Indy]

Rushed home to find a parcel from a fellow Woodnetter, a nice LN140 plane to fill a recent 'void' in the shop. It is just fantastic! Went to work on the Pistachio piece:




Here's where it's going to go; it's one of the dozens of repairs I'm doing to an old Machinist Chest, this being the front panel where I 'customize' it a little:



P.s. the groove in the upper Oak rail wasn't hand-cut; that was off my Shopsmith.... But the final ripping and x-cutting of that piece will be by hand.

[TobyC]

How does that front knob feel?

[C. in Indy]

TobyC said:

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How does that front knob feel?

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The No. 2's front knob is small but fine for me.... The No. 140's front knob feels more graceful than it looks. I think the high knob profile helps the mental concentration when balancing the plane on its side for the rabbets I was doing. Boy, these are nice planes!

[C. in Indy]

Now I drilled a couple of holes for the metal sockets in the top of the front panel assembly. These accept plungers in the main carcass which are pressed down when the top-lid is latched shut:





Finally after some tweaking a test-fit is successful:


That Yankee brace was also used to drill over 60 rotted holes out of the case, to be filled with wood plugs.

[Isaac S]

Neat little chest and repairs. But what really jumped out at me was the Yankee brace with a wood handle. Did you replace the original, or did they make one with a wood handle early on?

C. in Indy said:

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[Bibliophile 13]

That's a really cool looking wood, and the graft makes it even better.

Also glad to see I'm not the only one who prefers to use a shooting board on edges rather than on ends whenever possible.