Elm has Character

    Elm is also strong, heavy, prone to splitters and looks good with a clear finish.

   I have been trying to get some exercise to help with my waist (waste) line and to ease my back pain issues.  My doctor says walking is the best option and so I have been walking, not enough, but some.  Walking with a straight back and erect posture tends not to bother my back much at all so I have been walking with a hiking pole rather than a cane lately.

   My hiking pole is green and aluminium and when I looked around I found that wooden hiking poles are crazy over priced and pretty basic wood working. 

  

    As they used to say in "the six million dollar man" we have the technology, my technology is in my basement.

   This morning I started out with a 48 inch piece of elm that I jointed and planed before marking out the potential hiking pole, walking stick. 

  The first stop after the flattening was the band saw.  I have used a Viking Blade in my saw for more than 2 years and it is still cutting acceptably.  The next time I take on a big re-saw project I will replace the blade, but for now it is fine.  Once I finished on the saw, I just put my head down and sanded, and sanded and sanded.

  If I make another stick I will use my hand planes to get the basic, rounding shape and then sand things smooth if necessary. I skipped the hand planes this time because I was too lazy to figure out a good clamping arrangement, but as is so often the case the short cut turned out to be the long way 'round.

   Once the stick got a coat of Minwax Tung oil it looked pretty good.

    I even took the stick for a "test walk" today, it preformed up to expectations.  

Hand Saw Bench ll

  The other day I finished assembling my Hand Saw Bench in the style of Tom Fidgen.

  

The Unplugged Work Shop -projects. 

  

    I confess to not making it totally with hand tool. I prepared the poplar with my table saw and planer as well as did many of the cuts with my sliding mitre saw.  

  My design is a modification of Tom's plan too. The legs are a bit heavier than the original plan as are the stretchers, why?, 'cause I wood slabs I started with were a bit big, but not enough bigger to end up with usable wood if I had ripped them down to size.

   I also mixed my woods, the top is a spruce 2 x 6 stud while the legs and frame are poplar and the end stop is ash.  I wouldn't use spruce again, I had to fill some knot holes in the top when I came to sand the bench at the end.  Since the top is the part that is going to get cut up I'm not too concerned and one day I will replace it with a better quality wood.  The end stop is held in place by two 3/4 dowels so it can get moved out of the way easily.  Since it is a jig, shortly, it will get painted red.

  The bench is assembled with lap joinery, glue and dowels, there is nothing on the bench that can hurt my saw blades. Whenever I make a bench or work table I always avoid metal fasteners when ever I can. 

   In the original plan there is a stop that ran the length of the bench but I found I liked the stop across the end. My kneeling position seemed better on the long side rather than the short side.

  I built this bench so that I could comfortably  use my larger hand saws, I have an excellent rip saw that will cut as quickly as my band saw and an excellent cutting bow saw for cross cuts. With this saw bench in the future those saws will become a more automatic choice. I have  bench hooks  that enable work with smaller saws like my back saw that I use on my work bench, closer to eye level.  It is probably sacrilege but I plan to use this bench with my circular saw too.  To saw comfortably and and accurately I really like to to be able to get above the cut and see the line clearly, and this bench will enable that every time.  I also like to use my hand saws when the wood being cut is smaller, my plan is to retire with all my fingers.

   Something else I found today was that having a separate sawing bench meant that I could use the entire surface of my work bench for drilling, sanding, clamping and assembly with out having to leave room for sawing and trimming.  It is a very space effective way to increase working space in my shop.  The added bonus is the saw bench is the perfect height for me to sit upon and work on my lower assembly table too.

cheers,