Author: jafederer

The back plate was heavy by about 7 grams, so I planed a bit off the left side where it was thicker. The graduation is now as it should be, and the weight is spot on at 121 g. That’s the usual target of 115 g plus an allowance of 6 g for linings. The belly is 81 g, 6 g over the target mass of 75 g.

The corner and end blocks are trimmed to size, but only approximately to height. I intend to make the plates non-coplanar, so I will adjust the block heights once the ribs are in place. The machined-in “linings” are trimmed back for the blocks.

Both the back and belly plates are graduated, scraped, and sanded. There’s no replacement for running your fingers over the surface to confirm smoothness and consistency!

Although I haven’t posted anything in a while, I do occasionally work on #9. Today I cleaned up the back plate inside. I have the upper plate profiled and cleaned on both sides. The back plate is now in the same state. I’ll still have to graduated the back.

Using the Veritas Pull Shave (regrettably, no longer in production), doing the initial gouging of the top plate was quick and easy. The back plate will be much more work. Then I’ll use finger planes in decreasing sizes, then finally scrapers, to get to the required thickness in each area. I’ll leave those details for later posts.

I used a 1/8″ CNC end mill in the drill press. I wanted a flat bottom, not little divots like what you get with a drill. I started setting the depth with the new caliper gauge I installed on the drill press, but after the 6 and 5 mm holes, I decided to use depth gauges instead for the remainder.

I also tried using a foot actuated operator for the drill press depth control, but that didn’t work very well. Holding the work-piece with my left hand and operatiing the drill press with my right is quite tedious. But over yesterday and today I got it done.

Over the past few days I’ve done a bit of work each day. Today I did the final rough shaping near the C bouts, then scraped everything end to end to reduce inconsistencies. The shapes are close to the templates. I’ll still do some detail scraping to satisfy the fine texture that only can be determined by running hands over the surfaces.

This morning I got the lengthwise profile set on the back plate. This is the second defining reference, along with the perimeter height. Next will be the transverse profiles at the upper, middle, and lower bouts. Then it’s “just” a matter of fairing all the curves to a consistent and pleasing shape.

This maple is quite gnarly in places. I’m doing a small amount each day. It’s hard on the hands, no matter which tool I use. The pull shave removed stock quickly, but it tore out a gnarly area in the lower left. I think the profile will still be fine, but I’m having to be really careful about cut direction with the small planes. Getting this plate to proper shape will take a while – perhaps a week or more of daily work in short sessions.

Several days of finger plane work and lots of scraping later, and I’m provisionally satisfied with the shape of the belly plate. The profile is slightly low in the middle, but that’s the limitation of the material I started with. The scraping also revealed the crack that was noted on the original slab. If the spots become an issue, I’ll try infusing them with a bit of CA glue before final finishing.

Next up is going through the same shaping process on the back plate. It’s physically harder work because of the hardness of the wood, but I’m not in a hurry and will take my time.

This wasn’t on today’s work schedule, but there it was, saying “I’m feeling ignored”. So I got out the hand tools and started removing excess spruce. The Veritas Pull Shave makes fast work of bulk removal. I was planning to add a link, but this unique item has been discontinued. Just like my workbench. Oh well, nothing lasts forever, except maybe this particular tool. In any case, the pull shave took off the major excess, then I switched to the smaller planes. Using those is a bit hard on the hand, so I stopped after doing the second phase of shaping. The pencil lines indicate areas still needing significant shaping before moving on too the small finger plane, then the scrapers.