Sharing the Wealth - Part II

The fun continues!

Jenny uses a knife to mark the rails and stiles of her frame to final length...

...and then cuts them with the mitersaw.

She continues by flattening one face of her panel, marking the desired thickness off of this face with a marking gauge, and finally scrubbing down to the line with the Stanley #40.

Meanwhile, James has been working on "unfolding" his book stand.

He starts by sawing in to the hinges from both the top and the bottom. He knows when to stop by watching for sawdust falling from the hinge angles.

At this point, the only thing holding the stand closed are the long wood fibers between the hinge cuts. He releases these with a thin knife and...

...with a little encouragement, it opens! Always a amazing moment!

More to come...

Sharing the Wealth - Part I

James and Jenny decided they wanted to work on some projects and I was glad to provide the shop and assistance. We’ve been having a great time of it!

Our first meeting was dinner and design. James decided to make a folding book stand and Jenny is making a necklace holder based on a shaker “key board” design. After dinner, we went out into the shop to get a little hands-on time with the tools and techniques they will be using.

Last night we were back at it, and the actual projects took flight! It was great getting to spend shop time with younger people (not that I'm old or anything...) interested in learning to use handtools.

Here they are laying-out their pieces. James is using squares and a knife to mark his pine board for the chiseling and sawing that will free the two interlocking parts of his book stand. Jenny is using a marking gauge to get ready for re-thicknessing her Doug Fir with a scrub plane.

Here Jenny is scrubbing down almost to the gauge mark, and then she will finish up with a jack plane.

James is chopping and paring the hinge joints in his white pine.

And we ended up the night with Jenny doing some resawing – something she needed to do to get two parts out of one, and a small preview of James’ next step.

We had a great time, and I can’t wait until our next evening in the shop!