Abs of destruction part III

Lapping a 28-1/2" jointer is no walk in the park and it took me a few days to psych myself up to do it. Once it was all taped up and looking Smurfy - it was time to start.



After day one, I had one side just about lapped, the other side close behind and the sole was well on its way. I decided to pace myself and not even attempt to do it in one day.

Day two went very well - the plane is just about done. Both sides are lapped, the chamfers are completed and the toe and heel are fully rounded and polished. My impression was this plane lapped a little faster than the Ebony filled A2ss. I suspect the slight reduction in weight is what helped. The smaller front bun may have helped as well - it was easier to hold the plane when I was lapping the sides. Either way - I am glad the lapping is just about done.

Here are a bunch of photos.















This was the last plane of 2009 and a perfect ending to the year.



I switched from small bottles to larger ones. This one got finished while lapping the plane.

PS - The official lapping soundtrack was Joy Division’s - Closer.

Making buns - a little more Mathieson and a dash of Norris

The front bun of the 28-1/2" A2 jointer has a few modifications to it. The “bun” portion has been pulled forward, which allows it to be lowered and creates an area just behind it for a thumb grip. I made a quick mock-up out of basswood - man is that stuff easy to work with! This forward and lowered bun is pretty typical of the Mathieson jointers I have seen.



I usually have an Ogee on the inside of the bun facing the lever cap (ala Spiers), but we wanted that inside ramp to be a bit steeper so it reached the sidewall before the small curve. This detail is typical of Norris. Softening that area is helpful when the back of the bun is used as a thumb hold.

Once the mock-up was done, I sent it to the client to make sure all the details were right. Everything was great so I proceeded with the real bun.





Shaping the bun uses quite a few tools. Fitting the block is done with handplanes - a few thou at a time. It has to be perfectly square - all other dimensions and measurements are referenced from these faces. Thankfully - I have a few decent planes to use. I use my bandsaw, tablesaw, lots of chisels and sandpaper to do the actual shaping. I do not use a router because very few of these profiles lend themselves to router bits, not to mention the idea of 20,000 rpm’s on dense brittle endgrain strikes me as an invitation for disaster. Plus, it would be really slow.



Here you can see the inside ramp and the transition area to the back of the bun.



Here are a bunch of photos of the fully shaped front bun. The next step is a dozen coats of french polish.









The french polishing went extremely well and the color and grain of the wood really came alive. At this stage, the infills and lever cap have been installed.

Next... lapping - aka abs of destruction part III.












One of the funny things about these massive planes is they are hard (for me) to photograph properly. Here is a quick photo to try to give a sense of scale.

Just in time!

I am just finishing up three special XSNo.4 smoothers. Here are the details - in no particular order.


First - a Figured Brazilian Rosewood filled XSNo.4ss smoother. This is the first plane in a series from this piece of wood and the other planes should be equally spectacular.



The grain in the rear infill is just insane! When I was roughing these planes out, I had no idea they would be this killer.





The next XS is infilled with some birds eye/curly English boxwood (oh to be so lucky!). This came from a piece of boxwood I picked up in England several years ago. Like the Brazilian above, the figure exceeded my earlier notions.








And last, but certainly not least is one of the last Mystery Rosewood planes. This is also one in a series and I am very pleased about the homes these last few Mystery Rosewood planes are going to.



The 28-1/2" A2 jointer is coming along nicely - I should be posting some photos in a day or two.

Hmmm... picking one favourite board?

This past Friday was sanding day. Well... part of Thursday too - but it was a tough day and we are trying to forget about it.

There was one issue with this room that we were a little concerned about - the floor was not perfectly flat or level. I debated on tearing out the sub-floor, leveling and re-installing a sub-floor... but that seemed like too much work - even for me. The uneven height and gentle curve to the floor did cause problems for us in both the installation as well as during sanding. We found that many of the nested board ends were not level with the adjacent boards. Part of this is likely the nature of a herringbone floor - any variation in board thickness will cause this, but everything was likely compounded by the curve of the sub-floor.

We used a random orbital floor sander with 4 discs. It was quite a bit slower than the belt style sander, but it was the right choice given all the crossing grain. After several hours we were ready for the first coat of finish.

After much deliberation, we opted for a light coat of oil followed by a few coats of satin Fabulon. At the end of the day, I am not really interested in removing all the furniture once a year to re-apply a coat of wax and polish to the floor. Add in two active kids, and a durable film finish seemed to be the right choice.



This floor is the first time I have ever worked with white oak. Over the last half year I have grown quite used to the light straw color of unfinished white oak, so when we poured the oil onto the floor - I was taken by surprise. There was texture, color and grain in there that I had not seen nor anticipated. The floor came alive. As we sloshed the oil around it became more and more impressive almost to the point where my head exploded. The beauty of this floor exceeded my wildest expectations.

We let the oil sit for a bit before wiping up the excess and buffing everything with clean cloths.

Here are a bunch of photos.











I suspect it will be nearly impossible to pick a single favourite board - but this section right in front of the pocket door is particularly stunning.

An incredible piece of Brazilian Rosewood

(and another honkin’ big plane!)

I have been working on a 28-1/2" A2 jointer for the last several weeks. The infill is Brazilian Rosewood, steel sides and a bronze lever cap. The set was roughed out almost 3 years ago. When I took the first cut off the rough piece I had selected, I saw this amazing pair of black lines. They were unusually straight and I knew right away that I was morally obligated not to screw up this special grain. I immediately roughed out a set for a 28-1/2" jointer. My goal was to preserve enough of the line to carry it from the front bun all the way to the rear infill.



I started on the rear infill first and was very pleased to find that the line did not disappear as the wood started to take shape.



A long view of the rear infill...

(click on the photo for a larger view)

... and a close up of a particularly nice section right beside the handle. It is hard to see it from this angle, but there is a black line in the handle that lines up perfectly with the black line on the deck of the rear infill. The planets had certainly lined up for me!




The block for the front bun is also fit, and the grain looks to be equally stunning.



And here is what I was after - that black line running from front to back.



And a close-up of the rear infill where it terminates into the sole.



The chamfers have been “roughed” on the sidewalls and the dovetails have been ground off using a bench grinder. The next step is the front bun.

Border & banding details

Here are some further details of the inlay in the border. I decided to integrate the inlay into the floor as opposed to try and add it after the border was installed. The process worked amazingly well - here is what I did.

The above photo shows the rabbet I cut into the floor boards just above the groove. I did this on the table saw with a dado head. I debated on using a router, but the table saw was much faster (I needed 170 linear ft). The rabbet was 7/32" deep and 1/4" wide.



Here is a photo of the banding “sandwich”. I started with three, 9' piece of black dyed Swiss pear veneer. They were 4-1/2" wide and .9mm thick. I cut them in half to yield six, 4-1/2' long pieces. I then found a really curly piece of hard maple and milled three pieces that were 3/16" thick, by 4-1/2" wide and 4-1/2' long. I glued up 3 “sandwiches” consisting of a piece of black Swiss pear, a piece of curly maple and then another piece of black Swiss pear. I put a layer of wax paper between each layer and put a caul on the top and the bottom of the triple-decker sandwich.

After 24 hours, I took off the clamps. I edge jointed each layer and went to the bandsaw where I ripped off as many 9/32" wide pieces as I could. I did not re-joint each piece between strips - but the over sized height made up for any variation in the bandsawn edge. I glued each strip in, and held it in place with blue painters tape every 2" (it took 2 rolls!).




Here is a shot of the underside to see what it looks like. Note that the width of the banding hangs beyond the white oak. This was intentional so that the banding would be snug against the next piece. The photo below shows what I mean.

(note the gap between the pieces at the bottom)

Here is a photo of the banding after cleaning up the miter.




This photo is out of order, but after the banding was glued in, I took a few minutes to plane it flush with the tops of the flooring pieces. It made installation a little easier and also allowed me to make sure everything worked according to plan. Plus it made for a great photo!

The end of the floor installation

The border and thresholds are now installed - the next step is to sand and finish the floor. Thanks to everyone who has offered their opinions on the finish. Your advise has positively influenced us for sure - and we are going to go with a very simple finish. I made up a small test section of floor, sanded it to 120 grit and applied a single coat of double boiled linseed oil. Everything came alive and the ray flecks and curly hard maple look amazing.

Installing the mitered corners

Unfortunately, I did not get a photo of the “miter station”. I clamped a shooting board to our kitchen island and used my large mitre plane to shoot all the mitres. The plane performed wonderfully.



We had to do some face nailing on the outermost courses of the border - the stapler could not get in that tight.




Steve and I were pretty surprised at how slowly the border went. The installation took almost as long as the herringbone did. We also realized that there were 14 mitered corners in this room - as opposed to 4 in a square space. I do not regret all the corners though - they really make the space pretty amazing.



There were a few high spots in the floor but a small smoother made very quick work of it. This should greatly reduce the sanding time.


















I used some curly quarter sawn white oak for the thresholds. These were a bit tricky to install - the new floor had the tongues facing towards the existing floor, and the existing floor had the tongues facing the new floor. I ended up cutting a dado in both edges of the threshold and pushed it in place with the adjacent white oak strip still loose. It worked very well and the joints are very tight. Oh, and to add yet another twist - the threshold had to be tapered a bit to square the two floors to one another.