Canoe Strokes

I haven't made any headway on my canoe, mostly due to working lots and the nice weather drawing me to participate in all the outdoors sports I enjoy partaking in.  I've also broken several ribs trying to bend them, but I don't have the patience with everything else going on to build a proper steam bending setup.

Here's a quick video I shot a couple days ago when I was fooling around in a flat bottom john boat, playing with some canoeing strokes.  The boat surprised me with it's responsiveness, it's far better than the 16' Boston Whaler I had to paddle back to shore from a floating dock once (due to a dead battery failing to start the outboard motor).

While I'm at it, here's a butterfly:

Attempted Wood Plane, Camping

I've had my eye out for a good old plane iron for a while, and finally a couple of weeks ago I came across a wood bodied Jack or Try plane that wasn't in great shape with a good laminated, tapered iron.  After I bought the plane and an axe, I gave him back the body and just left with the blade.  Maybe he can sell the body to someone looking for a mantle decoration.

After I ground the iron, sharpened the bevel and got the back into satisfactory condition I started working on a body made from some Red Oak I saved from a house I worked on over the summer.  I've been curious to try a Japanese style setup for some time, so that's where I started with my layout.  The body is about 12" long, with the blade bedded at 45 degrees, or a tad less because of the tapered iron.  I think I might scrap this body, the Oak is really brittle and even being careful I ended up with quite a bit of breakout in front of the mouth.  The shavings aren't too bad, but I don't think it's worth trying to go any further with fettling it.  I might try again with some Cherry or Maple that I have.

In other news, I went camping a couple of weeks ago up in New York, right by the Canadian border with some friends.  The high for the weekend was about 5 degrees F, with nighttime lows close to -20.  A few days before we went out one of the guys that's local to the area went in with a chainsaw and cut several piles of standing dead Ash and Oak for the fire.  I think we went through just about all of it in the two nights we were there.  We walked in a mile or so, most of us using sleds to carry our gear over the 8" of snow.  I took three axes, my Gransfors carving axe, my 3.5 pound Snow and Nealley, and a 3.75 or 4 pound antique on an experimental handle.  The antique ended up splitting all the wood for the weekend, since my S&N is ground pretty thin and would just get stuck in logs, and no one else brought a big axe.  The experimental handle on the antique is Maple, with the growth rings oriented perpendicular to the way traditional wisdom says they ought to be.  My reasoning for trying that is that most wood splits more easily across the growth rings, and the way growth rings are oriented in a common axe handle, it seems that they would be more prone to splitting.  Anyways, the handle did alright, but toward the end a large section split off.  I think Maple is perhaps not the best axe handle material, and the cold also negatively affected another guy's axe handle, so perhaps that was a factor in this case.  Either way, I think it merits some more experimentation.  Maybe sometime I'll put together a proper scientific test.

My camp:

Montreal

Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Montreal.

 I spent this last weekend in Montreal with a couple of good friends, it's about a 6 hour drive north of here.  I saw a couple of interesting things woodworking-wise, and some plain old interesting things.  I was a bit surprised to see just how French the city and surrounding areas is.  Outside of restaurant menus in the touristy areas and some select safety messages, just about all of the signage etc is in French.  Everyone that we interacted with was very polite and helpful.  A funny thing was when you approach someone, they greet with "bonjour!", and depending on whether you reply in kind or in English they either speak to you in French or English.  At first we tried to play it cool and reply with "Bonjour", but then we just looked stupid shaking our heads and trying to politely express that we didn't know French.

Ah the Schtroumpfs, also known stateside as the Smurfs.  Interesting translation.

Interesting architecture.

The French Pirates, quite good.

Dovetails hidden by molding.

While there, we visited the archeological museum, which was interesting if a bit of propaganda for how great the city is.  The museum was built on the foundation of a historical building, maintaining the foundation in the basement.  Some interesting construction details, including the wood pillars buried in the ground beneath the tall tower, a technique apparently used effectively in Venice to stabilize buildings in unsound soil.  The wood rotted, though, and the tower had to come down.  In the basement, the wood pillars are exposed, in all their rotted glory.  On at least one of them I saw what appeared to be hewing marks, though the beams appeared to be extremely regular (perhaps more regular than I might expect from hand hewn timber).  I suppose a skilled axeman could efficiently produce a near-perfect timber, so it's not unlikely that these were entirely hand hewn.  In one corner there was also a kid's play area, which had a costume chest like a simple blanket chest or tool chest, with nice hand cut dovetails in the corners, and staggered glue joints.  There was also a cupboard sort of thing, with dovetails covered with moldings.

Drawbored mortise and tenon in a cabinet door.

Blanket chest (or tool chest?)

Dovetails

Hand hewn?

 Overall we had a great weekend and really enjoyed the city.  I could see myself enjoying getting to know it a bit better in the future, it would be nice to find some of the places off the beaten path.  We also didn't make it to the Mont Royal park, which is supposed to be very nice.  Next time I go, I'm definitely going to bring my bike.  Though the Metro was very simple and effective, I like the freedom of having wheels, and the city is very bike friendly besides.

When It Rains

The trouble with working in an outdoor "shop" as I prefer to do in the summer is that it's hard to get much done when it rains.  I could buy one of those cheap pop up tents, to keep the sun and rain off, but that just doesn't appeal to me that much.  And it's not critical that I can keep working on my little projects day in and out, since they're not making me any money.

So, because I have no pictures and only unedited video of the thing I've been working on the last few days, here is a great video of (I believe) Swedish woodworking in the late twenties: Link  This includes a clog maker, spoon carver, and chair makers.  They all work with a great deal of efficiency and precision, and with a fairly small tool kit.  Enjoy!

Finishing Up

Sorry for the gap in posting.  We started to get down to the wire, working upwards of 12 hours each day, and I didn't have the energy or the particular inclination to get on to post.  So I'm going to put up the last few days in one post.

We assembled one truss, got it upright and stabilized, then assembled and righted the other truss.  The trick to these was making sure they went up on rollers on the timber track that some of the crew constructed earlier in the week.  Once they were both up, we could install the tie beams with the knee braces, install the floor joists and decking, and finally install the rafters.  We got the roof sheathed in 1x, and got some good bracing in place for the locals that will roof the bridge.  All of this done, the riggers Grigg 2 and Grigg 3 prepared to roll the bridge over the falseworks and drop it in place.  Stable on the rollers and rigged up to a Tirfor, a large winch-like device, it slowly crawled into place.  It was jacked up, the falseworks removed (the timbers from which became a raft and a log rolling game for me and a few others), and it was settled into place on some Black Locust blocks.

My sharpening setup that I kept in my toolbox.  A 6x2" 220/600 grit DMT, and a two sided strop with black and green compound.  With a little spit or a dribble from my water bottle, this system allowed me to quickly and easily keep the edges on my tools sharp without having to walk back to the sharpening station at the other end of the site.

Cancelling the wind in a stick of timber using framing squares as winding sticks.

Will Truax, professional bridgewright, trimming a joint with a Gransfors forest axe.

This young man jumped right into planing, using my Stanley #8 with no problems.  He both pushed and pulled it, not seeming to have a preference.

Baron mean-mugging while trimming the roof sheathing.

My new friend Emma having fun with the camera.

Consulting with Bruce.

Grigg 2, the senior rigger.

Trimming decking made of 8/4 White Oak.

Joel McCarty, executive director of The Timber Framer's Guild, looking on.

Pulling the bridge into place.

Pirates trying to capsize my raft on Wason Pond.  Below, a spoon I carved in small increments in between the three primary activities: working, eating, and sleeping.  It's made from a hunk of White Birch I got from Dick Lewis, the sawyer that cut all the timber for the bridge.  I think it might be my favorite spoon that I've carved.

Framesaw Pieces

I snagged a clear 2x4 from work the other day for the stretchers of my framesaw, and first rough cut a length about 40 inches long. I planed it a little to smooth and even out the surfaces. Then I marked off 1.5" all around the four sides, and clamped it upright (checking for level) to the front of my bench. Then I used my cheap Japanese crosscut saw to rip down the lines. I would lay the saw flattish on the face and draw the kerf down the line, then do it on the opposite face, then clear out the wood in between. This way the saw tended to (but didn't always) follow the kerfs, staying straight in the cut.

You may notice that my batten is clamped at the end of my bench because in it's usual place the board I was planing would hang off the end. This worked well, and saved me having to drill out holes to accept the pins on the batten.

For the Maple arms (made from a 6/4 quartersawn Maple board), I first squared the edges, then marked off the same 1.5" lines and ripped. This time I used a combination of my cheap crosscut saw and the rip side of my cheap Ryoba. I hate that the perfect tool for the task at hand is so often the one that I'm building. It took me almost an hour to make my two rip cuts through the Maple. I could have scrubbed the 3/4" off the side of one of them, but I didn't want to waste the wood.

Just for fun, I decided to do a rudimentary strength test on the Maple bars. I placed a stool near my bench and used a Maple bar to span the distance, with only about 3/4" at each end. I put my full 190 pounds on the center of the bar and bounced up and down, with no noticeable flex. I think these will be fine for the saw. When I performed a similar test (with the stool moved farther away) with the mystery wood bars, they were also very stiff (though not quite so). This saw will probably end up being a little overbuilt, but with my history of breaking tools, I'm not concerned about it. Next move is to make the hardware!


As a sidenote, this morning I ran in an "un-race", the 42nd Tradition Run 5k with my crazy Canadian friend graham. I'm the one with the green hat. We elected to run back down the course for a nice round 10k.

Yosemite

We went to visit Yosemite today, it was a beautiful park, and we were lucky with a very dramatic sunset.

Away For A Few Days

For the 7 loyal (maybe more like "occasional") followers of this blog, I thought I would post up saying that I don't expect to be posting anything for the next week, not that I'm in the habit of posting incredibly frequently anyways.

I'm in the air over Texas as I write this, on my way to Fresno to visit with one or two of my good friends that were on my team in AmeriCorps NCCC last year. I will then be flying to Reno, Nevada, where I will take a bus to a tiny school in the middle of a high desert called Deep Springs. I will be spending a few days there touring the school and being interviewed. I'm hoping to be accepted, but it's a very competitive group of 45 young men, of which only about 13 will be admitted.

Sorry for not having any pictures. I don't like reading blog posts without pictures. Unfortunately, the in flight wifi doesn't seem to want to let me upload pictures. Se la vie.