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I just couldn't resist --

Posted on 2007-04-19 19:46 By Tim Van Dusen (Maple Rating 3 216)
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Since I like working with wood - I just couldn't resist . . .

Comments

sweet

Comment on 2007-04-21 12:21 from Joe Riel (Maple Rating 4 1260)

The color scheme is a bit garish for my taste 8-). I prefer a tung oil finish on sugar maple. Click. Suddenly I realize the origin of acer's pseudonym. Acer saccharum, the sugar maple tree. My latin is rusty.

You a woodworker too?

Comment on 2007-04-21 19:27 from Tim Van Dusen (Maple Rating 3 216)

Are you a woodworker? I use a lot of tung oil - mostly polymerized.

Besides the usually woodworking type of things, below are a couple of links to some other things I make with Maple.
A Flute
A Patented Violin Bridge

Below is a link to a picture of my shop with a slab of maple, I've yet to figure out what I'm going to use it for.
Maple slab

occasionally

Comment on 2007-04-21 20:04 from Joe Riel (Maple Rating 4 1260)

Nice looking shop, I can only dream. My wife's car get's half the garage. I'm an occasional woodworker. With the exception of a ratty lathe, I only have hand tools, so my production rate is rather slow. My bench is sugar maple. Ripping the 8/4 stock for it with a homemade bowsaw was quite an experience. Now I mostly use Japanese saws and chisels, though I prefer push planes (various Stanleys picked up at flea markets) to the Japanese pull planes. Last big project was a porch swing/glider, but that was a while ago. One of these days I'll get around to finishing a tool chest---the chest is together (and holds my tools) but it needs a lid and drawers for an internal cabinet to make it useful. An advantage of using handtools is that they take up very little room, the downside is that even small projects take a while.

Maple's great to work with

Comment on 2007-04-21 20:32 from Tim Van Dusen (Maple Rating 3 216)

I'm glad you enjoyed the shop pic. I consider myself very fortunate to have such a nice shop. It was something I only dreamed about most of my life and was finally able to make it a reality.

Making a quality bench from maple is a really great project! Since you like working with hand-tools, you may understand how much I enjoy doing something like shown at the following link.
Hand carving a cello bridge

Both the japanese chisels and stanley planes are great tools to have around the shop. I don't go too expensive with the chisels, but for gouges, I always opt for the japanese variety. Working wood with a plane and especially the art of doing it well, can be a very rewarding experience.

Do You Take Requests ?

Comment on 2007-04-22 11:59 from dcasimir (Maple Rating 3 296)

Tim,
do you sell any of your products ?

If so, I'm an amateur guitarist, and a
left handed guitar personalized to myself,
and or with
respect to mathematics would be very
appreciated.

Please forgive me if I was wrong with my
assumption.

v/r,

no new projects at this time

Comment on 2007-04-22 20:49 from Tim Van Dusen (Maple Rating 3 216)

v/r,

I'm not taking on any new projects at this time.

You may be able to find someone willing to take on your project at . I think a solid body electric would allow for all kinds of creativity towards what you described.

tools

Comment on 2007-04-22 12:28 from Joe Riel (Maple Rating 4 1260)

What's the tool in page 6 on that link? Looks like a small round scraper. Must be a luthier's tool. Do you burnish it get an edge? When I started tool collecting there was, by luck, a small woodworking shop in town that carried mostly Japanese tools. So I picked up a single chisel and a few waterstones. Later I purchased a saw and a plane. I was amazed at the difference between these tools and comparable American/European tools. Out of the box, the edges of the Japanese tools are much better. 'Course, you need to be able to maintain that edge, but I've mostly found that easier to do with the Japanese tools and the waterstones. Still haven't mastered tapping out the hollow of a chisel when, after lots of resharpening, that is required.

The tool is a scraper

Comment on 2007-04-22 20:42 from Tim Van Dusen (Maple Rating 3 216)

Joe, the tool on that page is a scraper. You can get them (or make your own) in any size or shape. Small oval ones like the one shown, is a size I just file the edge flat and that provides enough for scraping. Larger ones need burnished to work well. I rarely use sanding paper since scrapers do a finer job - more quickly.

So you collect tools? That's very cool! Although I'm not a collector, I really enjoy looking at the collections of others. Old planes as well as new ones that are well crafted are probably the most collected woodworking hand-tool. Stanley planes are one of the most collected. Below are a couple of links to some very fine planes:

As you may already know, good chisels are made of hard and soft metal fused together. The hard metal provides the edge. They are also very expensive. There are quite a few places on the internet that explain sharpening procedures for all types of chisels.

planes

Comment on 2007-04-23 00:12 from Joe Riel (Maple Rating 4 1260)

I own a regular bench scraper and a couple of scraper planes, but no round scrapers. Round is more work---the porch glider had a lot of curved pieces in the backrest, and sawing them was tricky. I've got a small bowsaw that is supposed to be able to cut curves, but it cuts so slow I instead used the Ryoba (Japanese saw with crosscut and rip teeth on opposing edges) with a fairly aggressive bend (edge essentially parallel to the face of the board so it can flex with the curve). With the faces waxed, that worked surprisingly well, much faster than the bowsaw. Finished the pieces with spoke shaves. I like scrapers, but need more practice with them. Sometimes they work great, other times not so well. I've never got the scraper planes to work particularly well.

I collect tools for use---none are for display. About the only new tools I've purchased are the Japanese saws and chisels; they don't show up in yardsales or swapmeets around here. Lie-Nielson makes some nice stuff, my dad has some of their pieces. I hadn't heard of the Holtey---I see it's based on the Norris. A bit out of my price range, but nice to look it and think about.

I applaud you

Comment on 2007-04-23 06:01 from Tim Van Dusen (Maple Rating 3 216)

I applaud you for doing the work with the hand tools as you do. You must feel a great deal of pride after completing a project such as the glider - knowing that it was built using those type of tools. The availability of specialized saws such as the one you described have either greatly improved within the past 15 years of so, or I just never noticed them as I have in recent years. Even blades for my large bandsaw have taken on a new face. There's a blade known as the "wood-slicer" that when new, can cut a paper-thin slice of maple up to 12" without a blade mark on it.

The trick with scrapers seems to be to scrape cross-hatched at about 15-30deg angle to the direction of the grain. Moisture content of the wood at the time they are being used can also effect their perfomance. On a humid day, a little more agressive cutting angle seems to work best. Depending on wood type, the variation of moisture content can vary a great deal based on relative humidity.

I have a friend who has been working on some windsor chairs for a couple of years now. He's doing it all with hand-tools, and is doing a very fine job. That's a project I'd like to undertake sometime in the future when things slow down a bit for me.

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