Got Wood?

Personally, I like naps.....

MAde three medium sized mallets out of some Osage Orange from a tree my neighbor cut down last year. Osage Orange is a really tough fibrousy hevy wood .Its a neat yellow color. All I did was cut a thick branch into slices like sausages and stuck em on the lathe to round em off to look lik a barrel shape. Then I drilled a massive hole through the sides of each about 1- 1/2 ".. Made some handles and cut a split in th top of eachone to fit a shim to spread the wooden handles (I used some wide dowel rods for the handles. Ill use one for tapping in and carving , the other tweo go to my neighbor and to a friend who makes wood sculptures and hes had a n old wooden mallet made of "Lignum Vitae" .It was maybe 100 yars old and has gotten its face all beat up from years of chisel work.. My fried will let me know which length is best for him and how much of the face I should remove so hes got a comfortable chisel face.

Osage is an interesting wood. Its hard as hell and tough. Its not as hard as Lignum but itis good enough for mallet making. They used it a lot on the Chesapeake for the Prows of 13 Log canooes and Oyster fleet boats. They would also use it for prows and keels of Chesapeake 5 sail schooners that had to fit in the C&D Canal connected the Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware bay at sea level,(no lox)

My god you're a clever one. Have you any interest in posting pictures? I would love to see them!

Ive tried and apparently my IP and I have some problems in up and downloaing. I can stor pix on my computer but cant seem to get any hosting services.Ive tried the places like Imgur . Ill have to send Philbis a PM and see what advice I can get.
Ive still got a load of pix on SD cards that I made from when I built this little Currach or when we fixed up the little Bug eye Sprite. Ive even got pix of Some Black Buzzards eating my rubber windshield wipers when I went fishing dby the Conowingo Dam

Yeah, it can be a pain. I used to use photobucket, but I recently got a message stating I had violated terms of service by posting a pic. Since when? News to me. Then I realised they now charge a little money. It's no longer free to do it. So it goes.

I have resisted online shopping but that doesn't seem to be an option anymore, so, I've finally created a paypal account.

I'm on lumberjocks. I'm a collector of Stanly planes.

what would the no 2 be best used for?.
I have a few (Ive posted on my other thread), but due to a past high energy occurrence. Im not able to handle most hand planes except finger planes, handmae molding planes and a really big floor jobby.
I do use Milawaukee battery (and a corded) planes but Im sure theres not the "feedback" you get with a hand plane.

I envy folks who can handle em like a fiddle.

Its a small, general purpose bench plane best suited for one handed use (similar to a block plane).

Im not familiar with small bench planes. I see that one is only 7" . The front knob isnt used at all?

you have any sets for sharpening the steel?

I have one of these, but its something I picked up off of craigslist and is low quality.

I got 2 almost new Stanley hand planes , N0 5 and a no 8. Got em both a a garage sale for $4 penienzes.

Found a hand tool guy on YouTube who spent 2 grueling vids going over cleaning and tuning and sharpening hand planes.

He like a no 8 for a shooting board (especially doing end grain). Im going to try mu best at learning how to use these tools. My electric planes are a little too aggressive .


Saw anoither UTube where a guy was distressing over a number 8 as being a "one trick" plane of which he was convinced that noone should buy , because of its limited usefulness .

Wow — those 8's are hard to come by. You scored, big time!

When I saw th pair, IN THEIR ALMOST PRISTINE BOXES, I tried not to look like a rube. They didnt hve prices on em so I used a very common trick my Dad taught me years ago. I took out my wallet and was sorta mumbling that I hadda heck to see how much lunch money I could spare. I pulled out 7 ones . The guy said "Hows 5 bucks for both?".
" That'll leave me with 2 bucks for lunch, damn!"

:OK , you can hve em for 4 bucks"

"Well that will probably work" sez I.

Now I have a hand plane that works as a great tool for a shooting board . 8 is a bit of a heavy mother.

Just out of curiosity, with the electric to be too aggressive is there a way varying with the rheostat and tame the aggressiveness a bit?

not that I know of, at least within the unit. Theres no place for the customer to have access that Ive found. You unscrew it you bust it. A rheostat would just adjust the speed and torque no? There already is a knob to adjust speed. The aggressiveness is more a matter of how much blade is exposed at a specific speed. I cant take out greater than 1/64 per pass or else it just chews up the surface and makes beautiful shiny smooth ditches. I could do better and make smoother with a Foredom with a big drum carver. Instead of the e-planer I use an 8" jointer for bigger boards nd longer passes.


The power planer is ok, Im not complaining but its almost a feeling that Im not the one in control of my mission. Whereas hand planes give me all of that. Sorta like hand made dovetails using a back saw rather than a jig. Anyway, I think Im an analog guy, Old school. I still paint using airbrush nd oils.

Saw this new method of sharpening tool blades etc. Its a set of some kind of composite material made into wheels that fit on a 6" grinder. You dress the wheels ,one with a metal oxide embedded into wax, md another that you dress with an Al2O3 polish . I was watching it on one of these youtube "10 tricks you gotta know for woodworking"

ANYBODY hear of this gizmo? I must have 3 or 4 old wheels that I picked up for 2 or 3 bucks at yard sales and then reconditioned em.

Its n MDF composite wheel. Theyre rather cheap and fit on any spare 6" wheels.

anybody use a mini lathe?? There a tool reconditioner near Quarryville and He has about 15 minilathes (without motors) on hand. Are they hard to dress and balance?? Any better brands to look for. Most of these are industrial grades so they seem to be overdesigned.

anybody?? Im seriously considering buying a mini lathe that comes with a really heavy cast mounting table (I guess the weight keeps down the vibration.
Any advice is welcome.

Damn, I wish I could help you but my woodturning experience has been close to minimal — I used to turn stopwaters for keel rabbets. But you're right about mass being important and the heavy table sounds like a good feature.