Sunday, July 1, 2012

The Mafellator Roubo

Welcome to my new blog. I have a blog, I must be an expert! I was going to start this blog by posting a bunch of philisophical hooey about my approach to woodworking, but after thinking about it, my guess is two months from now my first post wouldn't be up yet. So, instead I'll show you the state of my workbench after having done most of the heavy lifting (literally) at Christopher Schwarz' bench class at Dictum a couple weeks ago.
Just to show you my skill and prowess laying out the order of how the legs should be organized, I used a carpenter's triangle as per CS' instruction. Then I changed my mind. Then, I messed it up anyway.
Anyway, long story short, I got the bench glued up on the last day of the course, and Christopher Schwarz needed a ride to his hotel in Munich. So, I took him with me. Before I dropped him off, he helped unload the bench, which would have probably killed me. I guess he's unloaded 350 pound benches from SUV's before. If you want to see an amusing video of my shop that he shot, check out his Lost Art Press Blog. Anyway, I finally got my keller cleaned out, getting rid of a whole bunch of stuff I don't need down there. My wood-rack for instance is now in another town, but this space is just too small.
After getting that behemouth in my cave, I felt pretty proud of myself, so I thought I would mess around a little with my scrub plane. There was one beam in the glue up that had a pretty dramatic bow in it, which caused it to sit proud of the rest of the bench top a good 3 mm or so. This scrub made mincemeat of it in about ten minutes.
So, there is where we stand now. I was going to next try to get the face vice done, but after reading Wolfram's blog I have decided to install the tail-vice first. I'll be able to use it for doing some of the rest, and there is no point doing any more flattening until the vices and chops are in place.

3 comments:

  1. Dear Woodbrother-Brian, I am really amazed, what you did and what you do in your spare-time. Not only woodworking, no also blogging. And I really hope that you will publish your philosophical approach to woodworking and all you know about: Which websites should a beginner read? Or what were the most helpful, astonishing sites for you? Which would you recommend and why? Many questions, I know, but I learned somewhere "Nicht zu antworten bin ich auf der Welt, sondern zu fragen!"
    Until soon, Alex the Austrian Chicken :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Alex,

      I should be asking you for guidance. You are a far more precise and experienced woodworker than I.

      I did see a blog yesterday that reminded me of you:

      http://dans-woodshop.blogspot.de/2012/06/tour-of-school-shop.html

      Another site that I enjoy is http://unpluggedshop.com/

      Stay tuned, philisophical drivel is bound to pop up here soon!

      Delete
  2. HI realbrother-Brian...hahahaha....I am so impressed here. YOU are amazing. Everything you do in your life is done with passion and enthusiasm, something to be very proud of. I for one, am very proud of you. You are extremely talented at woodworking and BLOGGING!!! Nice to see you here.
    Karen

    ReplyDelete