Today, I took my lunch break and scooted off to the garage for a little therapy away from spreadsheets and financial forecasts.
There's a cherry board that I did a little knot repair to for practise. The board has some dry rot along one edge and I figured if I could fill the knot as per the technique in TWW episode 113, I could cut away the rot and salvage at least part of the board.
After filling the knot, I was left with a high spot of epoxy and it has cured fully (I applied the epoxy last week). So I took my smoothing plane (the board is still in rough cut state), and started taking shavings. With each swipe, some hardened resin came away.
It was going well until the hollow that the knot is sitting in became evident and wood shavings around the knot started coming up. The blade is still sharp, and it was cutting well but planing a board takes considerable force. Too much for my workbench to handle (plywood on 2 sawhorses).
My bench started walking across the floor. If I want to be able to plane this board without destroying my 'bench', I will need to find a way of stabilizing it. Maybe I'll try again after work and align the board so that my push action is towards the shop wall.
Back to my spreadsheets for now.
Though I am new to woodworking, I think that the best part is how one learns to be creative to accomplish their goal. Using the wall is a great example of such ingenuity.
ReplyDeleteLet us know how it goes.