Sunday, November 22, 2009

Mitred

The Globe fall sale wrapped up this afternoon and was a great success. Thanks to everyone who came by and checked out my work, and an extra thanks to those who picked up one of my pieces!

Before the show I finished up one of the few remaining planes that was missing from my arsenal...a mitre plane!

A mitre plane is usually used with a shooting board and makes the job of squaring up your boards a whole lot easier! The body lacks the sexy curves of a smoother, but the blockiness lets it be used on its side. This one is made from ipe and quartersawn maple, and I think that ipe is a wood I'll use again in my planes.

I've rounded over the edges to make it a good fit in my right hand and so far it has worked extremely well. I also used a new wedge design that is a trade secret right now. I applied some of that knowledge I gained from my engineering days and I think I've come up with a simple, but great approach. Somebody probably already beat me to it, but I'll claim it as my own for now.

Right now it's sharing a Hock blade with my high-angle smoother and like my other Hock blades it works great. High carbon O1 blades from Hock have lived up to their reputation and I'd recommend them to anybody.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

End of the line...and the Globe Fall Sale - November 20-22

So I've come to the decision to close down my workshop at the Globe Studios. It's a great place and I'm sad to have to let it go, but I'm low on funds and time, so life will have to rumble on. My PhD has me spending time in labs doing things like motion tracking (seen below) and computer modeling, and this means I've been stretching myself thin.

I'll be working out of Globe until the end of December, so I hope to put on one more show sometime in January with the work I complete between now and then. I think it will mostly consist of lighting, and hopefully some fashion from a friend of mine (that is still TBD). There's also the Globe fall sale coming up on November 20, 21, and 22. I'll have a couple coffee tables and some lamps for sale, including this curvaceous beauty: