Side Project II

I’ve been wanting to make my own round bottomed plane for a while; although I have a couple of commercially made ones, I feel that the curves are too tight for the internal shaping of the archtop’s top and back plates, they tend to act like scrub planes and I want to achieve a finer planed surface. If I don’t make one now, I won’t make one once the next instrument is underway and I’m in the zone!

You can see how the curve is much tighter compared to my carving template.

 Here's the finished plane and it works!

 

Although I suspect it will need some fettling once I’ve got a top plate in front of me. Equally, having made one, I’m open to making some different sized ones too- we’ll see how we go!

Side Project

Whilst the Tru-oil is hardening on Dave’s e-mando, I’m trying to get some side projects, that have built up, done before I get fully involved in the next instrument. I made this box about 38 years ago; made from elm and inspired by James Krenov. It’s been languishing in the loft for years, so it needed a bit of restoration work.

It was made as coursework for a City & Guilds course that I did. I used to cycle everywhere, so I designed it so that the individual parts would fit in my back-pack!

 This board of stunning pommele sapele is waiting to be made into the next archtop, I keep looking at, working out the best way to cut it for the back and sides. I don’t like to rush into things; I’ll keep mulling it over whist doing the other stuff.