davepolaschek

I got the bow saw completed today. I still want to decorate it, but it's together and functional now.

First on today's menu was getting the arms shaped. They don't really need to be thinner, but making them a little thinner will make the saw more comfortable to use. I used a drawknife to get the other dimension thinned down and smoothed.

With that done, I mixed up some epoxy and glued the pins into the handles.

Then some quick chamfering on the corners of the arms, mostly for comfort, but also to clean up a couple spots of tear-out where the grain wasn't cooperating with me.

Then a coat of tung oil on the parts I had done.

And I disassembled a paracord boot-lace to get one of the strands of nylon string out of it. That'll be the cord that tensions my bow-saw. And yes, I'll need to tie a knot better than a square knot.

Then I cut a toggle out of one of the citrus offcuts left over from turning the handles, and put a groove in it so the string wouldn't slip off it.

And I tried a little kolrosing on the side of the toggle. It looked pretty good, but my carving skills still need work.

And that sorta finishes the saw. Everything needs to cure, and I want to decorate the arms and cross-piece, but that'll be another day.

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My next shop session was spent shaping the cross-piece and the arms. First up, taking a spokeshave to the cross piece to thin it slightly in the middle, and make the ends match the arms nicely. It's not going to be a huge taper, but just a little bit looks a lot better than none. Plus I get to smooth out the surface now. I don't think I'll be doing any sanding on this saw, so I want to fix any little spots of tear-out from cutting and planing the pieces.

Then I used the spokeshave and a knife to chamfer the corners, giving the piece a slight octagonal shape. Again, lots of grain-reading, as there are some funky reversals in this wood.

Next up were the arms. It's time to round over the ends where the pins for the saw will go. I basically mark an equal amount on the top and side, then use a rasp to round over, removing my pencil marks. If it doesn't look right, I'll add more marks and remove a little more.

Then I took a knife and chamfered the corners on the part of the arms which will hold the string. I didn't want to do too much, as I also need to shape the lower parts of the arms, but that's a job for tomorrow.

And that's it for today. I've got a day and a half in, and other than sharp corners on the lower parts of the arms, the saw is usable and not looking half-bad,

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I decided I don't like the metal-frame coping saws. I find that the far end of the saw will often twist when I don't want it to, and I'll end up cutting a curve when I don't want to, or cutting a straight line when I want a curve. So I decided I'd make a bow saw that uses the standard coping saw blades to complement my bigger turning saws ( 1 and 2).

First I cut the arms out of a piece of citrus I got from AZWoody a couple years back. Then I drilled holes in the arms for the pins (from Gramercy Tools) and inserted the pins with one of the coping saw blades I want to be able to use in this saw. This let me figure out the length of the cross-piece. The important thing is to remember to leave material for the tenons that will stick into the mortises in the arms (DAMHIKT).

With that done, it's time to chop the mortises in the arms.

Just chisel work with a ¼” chisel. Aim for about ⅜” deep, because I'm working with ¾” stock.

Then it was time for a little break, so I fired up the lathe to make the handles. The citrus turns pretty well, I think.

Time for some tenons. Cut them to match the mortise, then pare with a chisel to make them fit. They can be a little loose – the shoulders carry all the load.

Do a test fit and mark the pieces for orientation.

Then it's time to start shaping the arms. I do one dimension at a time, roughing with a coping saw, then a spokeshave, then a knife, and eventually maybe a rasp (if I can't get a nice finish with the knife).

Then it was time to take a break and get some food. Next up will be shaping the other arm (they don't have to match exactly, but they need to look good together) and the cross piece, then doing the same in the other dimension for all the pieces. Also need to epoxy the pins into the handles, find some string, and carve a toggle to tension the string.

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This is a project I built in December of 2020. It's one of my most-used saws in the shop.

• First Day's Construction
• More Shaping
• Wrapping It Up
• Cleaning Up The Surfaces
• Test Run
• Kolrosing

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This is a smoothing plane I made for the 2019 Spring Surprise Swap. My recipient was Jerry, aka Turns4Wood The plane body is a sandwich of birch, African mahogany, and elm with an ipe sole. The elm was spalted and has been stabilized. The wedge is pear. The blade is at 45°︎ so it's fairly general purpose.

The looks of the plane are roughly based on a 1935 Auburn Speedster. I think that's a pretty good looking car, and kept it in mind while I was shaping the plane body. I think I did ok, and definitely a lot better than my first try, which looks more like a VW Beetle.

The plane uses the Veritas small plane kit with an O-1 blade.

Rough shaping was done with a bandsaw, then a belt-sander, and finally hand-sanding using the sanding blocks I got in one of my first swaps. Thanks again for those, Pooh!

The wedge is a piece of stabilized pear. I got the pear from HokieKen, and it was pretty soggy, so I wasn't sure if it would stabilize well, but I dried it in the oven without it cracking, and after it was stabilized, I carved in my mark. Until now I had burned the mark using a small laser engraver, but that died so I carved it by hand, and then filled the carved lines with black wood filler. I need some more practice carving.

I sanded up to 240 grit. Finish is two coats of linseed oil, followed by three coats of blonde shellac.

I sent the plane to Jerry in a hand-made wooden box. The box is butternut sides, a pine bottom, and an African mahogany top.

I carved the lid based on a pattern from the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

I got the details on how to construct the pattern using a compass and straightedge from the book Islamic Geometric Patterns.

The splines in the corners are some eucalyptus from Arizona I got from HokieKen, who got it from AZDave, who got it from AZWoody (part of the fun of swaps is the bonus items included and I try to pass on wood I've received in previous swaps). I thought it would offer a nice contrast to the butternut.

I realized after I shipped it that I don't even know the dimensions of the box. It's big enough to hold the plane, plus about 1/8 inch on the sides. The sliding lid has a 3/32 inch deep groove carved in it that makes room for the adjuster on the plane when it's as high as it can go, so the plane is very securely cradled within the box.

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Over Memorial Day weekend (of 2019), I stabilized some more wood. I had some eucalyptus from Arizona that a co-worker wanted stabilized. I forgot to take pictures of it before giving it to him, but with a wood as hard as that eucalyptus is, most of what you accomplish by stabilizing it with cactus juice is filling voids. But it's also brittle, and we were hoping it would be more workable after stabilizing. I'll update when I hear more about that.

I also did some spalted birch, which was about as light as balsa after it was completely dried. As you would expect, it soaked up a lot of cactus juice, but it's nice and solid and pretty workable now.

None of those pieces are quite big enough for a saw handle, unless I do the stubby handles that fit the Veritas backsaws. I might just. They are mostly under an inch thick, and about 4×6 inches (25×100x150mm).

There were also two tiny pieces of birch from a log I carved on a bit during last summer's vacation up north. These might make knife scales. The two tiny birch pieces are maybe 3/8×1-1/4×4 inches – 10×30x100mm.

And finally, there are three pieces of maple. One was spalted, and the other two were still pretty sound. I stuck them all in some blue-dyed cactus juice for about three hours, baked them, then stabilized them in the vacuum pot with the second batch of birch and clear juice. I think they're pretty, but I need to remember to start with bigger pieces. At least one of them will probably make a through-tang knife handle, though.

The rightmost maple piece is about 1-¼ inch square by 5 long. 30×30x125 mm. The others are wider but thinner. Maybe 1-3/4×3/4×5 inches, or 45×20x120mm.

And that's the end of the experiments from 2018 and 2019. I haven't set up my stabilizing rig again yet since we moved to New Mexico in August of 2019, but I'm hoping to do that over the winter (of 2022-2023), and have some more fun with stabilizing wood soon.

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I did some more experimenting the weekend of January 20, 2019.

First up was some spalted elm for the surprise swap. I think I've got some stuff I can use!

Next some rotted oak. We were interested to see just how spongy the wood could be and still be worth stabilizing. I'm not sure it's worth it, but I'm glad I tried it.

Then some spalted sweetgum. This shows a lot of promise, and I'm going to need to get a bunch more of it, I think.

And then the dyed wood. They are, top to bottom, left column: spalted oak, mahogany (2x), spalted elm (2x), spalted sweet gum and spalted maple; then right column: rock maple, spalted sweet gum, and apple.

I think I've got a couple in there that might be worth selling. I'm going to talk to a few other folks, and work on securing a bunch more of the spalted sweetgum, since I really like the way that came out. I also found it interesting that the mahogany looks lighter after stabilizing it with black dyed cactus juice. I've got some furniture that's made from pore-filled mahogany, and this kind of has that look to it. And the apple (I used sap wood, rather than heart wood) was just kind of blah. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but now I know.

And here are a few shots of individual pieces of wood. First, un-dyed spalted elm, blue-dyed spalted sweet gum, red and black dyed maple, and blue and black oak.

The other side of the blue-dyed sweet-gum:

Follow-up: the spalted elm ended up making a hand-plane which got sent to another woodworker in a swap.

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Having somewhat successfully stabilized a couple batches of wood, I figured it was time to add dyeing to the list.

I started with two tubs of cactus juice, dyed blue and red, and set pieces of wood in them for fifteen minutes or so. No vacuum, just open air. The dye was TransTint dyes in Bright Red, Blue and Black. Sorry I didn't make a note of how much dye I used, but I just eye-balled it, trying to get a fairly dark tint in the Cactus Juice.

The woods were some spalted maple, some rock maple, some hickory, and some white oak.

The fifteen minutes was a guess. It turned out to be about right for the spalted maple, but nowhere near long enough for the oak or rock maple, and a little too short for the hickory. So I learned that!

Then after baking the wood to cure the first bit of resin and letting it cool, I put it in a batch of black-dyed cactus juice and ran the vacuum for three hours. I started getting the smoke again and shut it down at that point. Curtis says that's just oil mist, caused by a vacuum leak somewhere in my system, but whether it's mist or smoke, I don't want it all over my garage. I really wish Curtis sold complete systems. I would have happily paid twice as much for a vacuum pump in order to not have to waste time trouble-shooting a vacuum leak.

Anyway, after three hours under vacuum, I shut it down and let the wood soak for another 16 hours or so. Again, not long enough. I only got good penetration of the black in the spalted wood.

But the spalted wood did come out very pretty. And now I know more than I used to.

Next up will be finding and fixing that vacuum leak so I can pull vacuum for longer without filling my garage with oil mist. But I've ordered some elm burl and spalted box elder that should also make pretty blanks.

Followup: The red, blue and black blank ended up getting used on a knife by my friends Craig and Jeff.

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I stabilized another batch of wood Christmas weekend of 2018. It included: butternut, salt cedar, cherry, citrus, spalted elm, eucalyptus, hackberry, ipe, African mahogany, hard maple, spalted maple, white oak, pear, and walnut.

I made a list, so I wouldn't forget. Especially before sanding off the excess cactus juice, it can be hard to tell what's what.

And here they are:

Butternut through ipe in the first photo, and ipe through walnut in the second. No huge surprises. Ipe remains hard and hard to work when stabilized. The eucalyptus I got from AZWoody is very pretty, as is the spalted maple I got from HokieKen. Butternut remains a favorite. Mahogany (khaya) and pear will both probably find their way into future projects.

Next up, dyeing and pore-filling. Oak and khaya are both interesting to me, especially if I get cool colors. And the citrus isn't quite as yellow as I'd hoped, but I'll keep playing with that.

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These first entries are from 2018 & 2019 when I was living in Minnesota and started experimenting with stabilizing wood.

• #1 Equipment and First Batch
• #2 Out of the Resin and Into the Oven
• #3 Unwrapped
• #4 Second Batch
• #5 Dyeing Experiments
• #6 Spalted Elm and Dyes
• #7 Spalted Birch and Maple

And that's the end of the experiments from 2018 & 2019. I'll add more once I get the rig set up again and have more pictures of dyed and stabilized wood to show.

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