A Weekend After a Weekend with Peter Follansbee

I was at the Furniture Institute of Mass. last weekend with the Lie-Nielsen Handtool Event tour. Peter Follansbee was there. I'll let the picture speak for itself.

How To Make a Crossbow (Guest Blogger)

(My oldest son wanted to write an instruction booklet. He dictated the reasons and instruction. Enjoy!)

My name is Sheldon Bickford. I am 6 years old. I decided to write this blog for other woodworkers with kids or grandsons. I think you will be interested in putting this together. It only takes 45 minutes.

These are the tools that we use to make the crossbow.

These are the pieces for the crossbow.

Official Knife Sharpening Day

You know you're doing it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Result

I have finished sharpening the dedicated plane I made yesterday. Here's a quick image of the result.

The profile my plane cuts is on top. The profile from Owen's router is on the bottom.

Three quick points:

1. A custom router bit is cheaper.

2. Setting this profile onto an edge, however, will always be a 5 minute operation from start to finish. Compare that to the time it will take you to set up a router table and then sand.

3. The making of this plane speaks well to the versatility of hollows and rounds. The sole of the plane was made with them. The profile itself can be made with them. There are scores of additional profiles you can create with just them and an incalculable amount that they could be incorporated into.

Dedicated Plane for a Harpsichord Bridge

It has been a while since I posted a step by step. I thought you might be interested in this one because it's a little different.

I'm in the process of making a dedicated plane for Owen Daly, a professional harpsichord maker. The profile is for the bridge.

The dimensions here are approximate and for the actual moulding, not the plane.

Rabbet plane

1 pass with a snipes bill

Rabbet plane for the chamfer followed by #1 round. (Take note that I am using the plane on a chamfer, not as I traditionally do on the arrises of a rabbet. It's just too small.)

#1 hollow. (Again, because the plane is so small I am simply starting on a single corner.)

Complete

Waiting for approval before I go ahead with the grinding, etc...

The actual profile is off his router table. The plane is my work.

You Cannot Crosscut With A Rip Saw But You Can Rip With A Crosscut...

Just not economically and not if you intend to remain friends with the person on the other end.

I spared you the picture of me being up on a ladder while doing this. I wouldn't want you to laugh, after all.

We were definitely craving the frame saw that the Minnesota SAPFM guys has at WIA.

I didn't have high hopes. The saw was hanging in my buddy's house. But we stayed on target and didn't go off by even 1/16". We went about 12" deeper than what you see on the far side. It would have worked, but I found access to a bandsaw with nearly 19" resaw capacity. 

Here are a few pictures of other pieces that are being worked on for NWA 2012.

Don's chest of drawers.

Chris' chest of drawers.

And of course, more progress. I will be done with the carving of this next week and will pick at it/clean it up for a night after that.

Don't forget the SAPFM deadline of Oct. 31 for submitting pictures of your work to enter into:

A Tradition of Craft: Current Works
by the Society of American Period Furniture Makers

I went down to Don's last week to take a couple pictures of the three pieces he has entered. Here's a sneak preview of one...

Progress Continues On Dressing Table

Our group met for the third time last night. You can see the night's progress on the right.

Everything looks smooth until you see a picture.