Flattening, Planing, Scrapping and Sanding

  The current project is a three legged stool using an ash round as the seat.

the half round marble table top is used as my 'flat' reference surface in the shop.
I found it put out as garbage by a neighbour one day, a real find.

  My Brother in Law cut down an ash tree a couple of seasons ago and generously gave me a dozen rounds of various sizes. The wood is  gradually getting turned in to cheese boards, clocks etc. This round will have three legs set in as a small side table/stool, plant stand.  The rounds were cut from the tree trunk with a chain saw and so are pretty rough. Even with skill and care a chain saw leaves plenty of marks on the wood.

   The  challenge is making the flat face smooth using a reasonable amount of time and effort.  Having now flattened several rounds I think I have arrived at the most efficient method.  

electric power planer.

 I bought this planer on clearance from a booth at a wood show a few years ago. It is fairly short and somewhat awkward to use but...it cost $10.00.  As a rule I don't use a power planer but for hacking away at end grain like this it works very well.  Once the face of the round is flattened somewhat,  hand scrappers are the next step.  Again the scrapper can be used aggressively but still controlled.  The final stage is random orbital sander time, 80 grit and up.

  The end grain planing leaves a pile of rough saw dust, not nice shavings.

   The legs are poplar 2 x 2's 14 inches long.  Initially, since the power planer was on the bench I used it to knock the corners off the legs before turning them on the lathe. Funnily enough the power planer was not the best tool for the job.

  Quickly I turned to using my jack plane to ease the  corners, and the result is much better for the shop's air, and as quick, in my opinion.  My Grand kids used to call the shavings feathers. They liked cedar feathers best, don't we all!

  It is quick, easy and quiet using a hand plane.

  It took about 20 minutes a leg to turn on the mini lathe, and sand ready to be set into the seat/top of the stool/table.

   Next, decide the leg angle, make a jig and drill the holes using my drill press. 

   Planning and set up will take longer than the job. 

cheers, ianw

  

Instead of Sand Paper

  As we all know the smoother the surface the better the finish will be.  A smooth surface makes gloss varnish shine and oil or wax finishes soft to the touch.  Getting our projects smooth is one of the great challenges a wood worker faces, and as with all wood work challenges there are several solutions.

  Lots of folks have a whole stable filled with hand planes.  Scrub planes, fore planes, smoothing planes, scraping planes etc. etc.  This is a wonderful way to get a wonderfully smooth finish on your projects.  I have a bunch of planes and often reach for one, I couldn't have a shop without a block plane.

  Another route to smoothness is sand paper and the related sanders.  I have them too, I have shown my set up for making cutting boards, using both belt sanders and random orbitals.  I like my sanders but they are noisy and do kick up a heck of a mess.

  A few years ago I added another tool to my shop, cabinet scrapers.  They are very useful for smoothing projects and I also have one that is thick and pretty brutal for removing paints and stains.  The Wood Whisper has an excellent video here on sharpening your cabinets scrapers, in less than 10 minutes he covers all the bases.  I serious recommend this video for you attention.  

   A further bonus, cabinet scrapers aren't expensive and require no special tools to maintain.

   As a further foot note, I use my heavy duty scraper to clean away crud and check for nails etc in reclaimed wood.  If I ding the scraper, no big deal.  I can't make the same claim if I ding a plane.