Four Square

As is my want, at least once but usually several times a year my heart over comes my head and I bring out the winding sticks, scrub plane, and the big boys. This year a 700mmX200mm hunk of rough sawn 5/4 Cherry was the chosen victim.

I tell myself it is to justify the shop space devoted to the big, heavy, noisy, dust producing machines setting near the front of the shop. It's true, my production would go down even farther than the already slower than slow rate it is now but damn I would be a buff OF if I did this every day.

This board has a pretty good cup and bow but not too much wind. Here is a photo of the cup side:

I scrubbed flats on the high spots so the board would lay flat on the bench:

 and started on the bowed side: 

You may be able to to see (if you make it big) the pronounced bow on the left side and a bit of wind left to right. Worked it all out with the wood scrub plane and the old Stanley #5 with the heavy cambered iron. Then finished it off with the Type 8 Stanley #8. It is another post but damn I love me some early, Type 11and earlier, Stanley's. Put a Hock or LV O1 iron with chip breaker in 'em and there is no better plane.

With the first face flat and true, I used a #3 to put a "dip" in the middle of the edge and the cambered #5 to bring the edge square to the face.

Then finished off the edge with the #8 and marked the width to 25mm:

Two down two to go. That's where I quit for the night. I should have enough board to end up very close to 25mm or a full 4/4 board, if not it should be very close.

It is a good workout, made more so because my bench is set for working with finished boards. I've been thinking about making a new bench, just because I like to build benches. I have room for a second bench and it would be nice to have one lower for using to prep stock. If I do I might have to re-think the new bench, I had been planning on making a "pretty" bench out of Beech instead of the usual SYP. Pretty may wait.