Of Woods and Planes and Sharpening

Inspired by David Welter’s instruction and his article in FWW about shop sawn veneers, I set out to do a set for myself out of the apple that I bought in Mendocino.

Our shop doesn’t have the monster of a bandsaw that the CR shop does but we do have both a Hitachi resaw and an 18” Laguna.  Both respectable machines and theoretically also both up to the task.

I chose the Laguna.  Mostly because I felt more comfortable tuning and also because a 3/4 inch bandsaw blade is cheaper than the 3” one that the Hitachi takes.  

There was a crappy chewed up blade on the Laguna so first thing was a trip to Standard Saw in Oakland to get a new blade.  They’ll weld one up for you to any length and width you need.  They’re super helpful and very reasonable.  Having a fresh new blade was a huge advantage and at $40, a no brainer to choose. I’d recommend having one especially in a shared shop environment, if nothing else than to be able to replace it immediately when you discover that the current one is busted. 

Tuning the Laguna was also pretty straightforward as well.  I saw it done over the summer and actually read the manual off of the Laguna site.  They also have a couple of videos on changing blades and tuning the machine.  New blade and retuned, I was ready to saw this apple into slices.  

Since this was first for me, I choose to cut them a little thicker than what David had recommended.  This allowed me the option to resurface in case I ran into trouble and I had plenty of extra lumber so loosing a few layers wasn’t a big deal to me.

The veneer resawing went fairly well by my judgement.  I think I underestimated how hard apple was and maybe went a little too fast on some passes but overall we did ok.  

Pics to follow.

Even though the wood I acquired was air-dried, it still needs acclimating to it’s new home. I brought it into the shop at the end of June to let the moisture equalize for a week before working on it. 

After the wood has adjusted to it’s new home, I start by inspecting each of the slabs for defects but also I look for appropriate patterns for the tops and the sides of the piece as well as the door faces and drawers.  I posted earlier about CR’s approach to selecting lumber and from these lessons I tried to pick my grain appropriately.

For this project, I chose to make continuity of the case grain, the most important thing in selection.  The resulting wood pattern runs up the side of the piece and then over the top and the other side mirrors the other.  In the post immediately following you’ll see the resaw pics.

Some things I let go of, like runout at the edges and strict parallel grain.  I bought a little extra wood just in case but the end dimensions are big (for my comfort level anyway). To fully straightening the grain everywhere seemed too wasteful so I picked as best as I could and left the goal of no runout to another future project.

Another limitation was our 10” jointer.  This meant ripping and rejoining or convincing people to have furniture no deeper than 10 inches. (a consideration for the next commission).  I chose rip and rejoin.  More effort but also opens things up for bigger projects.

The resawing was great fun and it also gave me an excuse to retune the bandsaw.  Having worked on two awesome bandsaws this summer, I was determined to get ours up to snuff.  A new blade and an adjusted fence later, things were smooth sailing.

After the design was approved, the first order of business was what wood to use.  Since I was up in Ft. Bragg, I had access to several really nice sources of lumber and got a hold of some apple wood from chair maker Dan Stalzer.  Dan has a lovely workshop and a home in town which he rents out to CR students.  That was just about as much as I could lug home and not fill my ride’s trunk.  Between the stuff we brought up, the projects and tools, we accumulated over two weeks and the lumber, it barely fit but we got it home.

Back in the Bay Area, I then made a trip to local sawyer Evan Shively for some Western Maple.  I had used this kind of maple before which I sourced from this other guy’s yard in Napa.  My stack was running a bit low however and I thought it best to restock to have extra.  

The Napa supply was long gone but Evan had plenty of slabs and I purchased two 10 foot 8/4 pieces.

After coming back from the CR Fine Furniture Program, I was fortunate enough to get a commission for a custom piece of furniture.  

The piece will be a cabinet for a jewelry maker, styled after a Japanese tansu.  A choba dansu to be exact or a merchant’s chest.

I actually started this project in July but have been working on it steadily all the way to now (September).  I’ll be doing some catch-up posts and trying to detail as much as I can. Feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to reply along the way.