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6 floats, push & pull, straight and skewed left and right. Build thread in projects section in anyone’s interested.

And…. 3 coats of that Liberon Garnet polish and I’ll call them finished.

Handles all chamfered and the bottom rounded for comfort during use. I didn’t have any beech, I didn’t want to use oak, so I’ve popped down to my local and bought a small plank of meranti. I think it was a mistake, it is too soft. I don’t know if they will ask very long. Never mind, if they get...

I’ll finish shaping the handles in the morning and get some finish on them. Yes they typically sell for about £80 each, and altogether now I’ve made 21! Probably cost me £80 altogether in metal.

Rough handles ….

Now cleaned up after the hardening process, sharpened and polished - there’s a limit to how beautiful I have time to make them but they are looking fairly nice. A couple of lessons from the hardening process, I really need to get a proper forge for hardening, it wasn’t really big enough which...

It’s actually an interesting topic. When I’m turning (and I am very much a novice turner, it’s an add-on to all the other things I do rather than the focus of my hobby) I grind my tools on the pro edge and then hone/touch up my skew and roughing gouges on a flat stone next to my lathe. For my...

Well, I worked it out…. I repurposed the box I made that was supposed to be a propane forge, as a charcoal forge using a heat gun as the air source. Easily got my floats up to 790 C, quenched then into a big vice to reduce any warpage. Job done - tempering next. I’m sure it wasn’t perfect and...

When I got into turning I bought a set of Vevor turning chisels, as many do who want to give it a try without expending too much cash to see if they get on with it. Mistake maybe. But reality. They came with a completely incorrect grind - especially on the fingernails. Now, me being me, and...

I think that in the modern world it’s almost a rite of passage to go through the silly sharpening journey before you and up with a few stones. But the traditional way of grinding a new bevel on a gouge wasn't to use a stone, it was a hand crank grinder, removing a lot of metal on a stone takes...

I have a Sorby pro edge I use for grinding, but once ground I‘m definitely not going back to it until I really have to. Its oilstones, freehand. Tbh I think that now I’ve learnt a bit more about grinding turning tools, at some point I’ll move to grinding freehand, but my bench grinder is...

I have the dasqua brand digital calipers from Chronos. They are good enough quality and accurate to < 0.001” if clean and carefully zeroed. They have the inch fractional readout which can be marginally useful for woodworking. The depth gauge is pretty useless, but good enough for woodworking...

Me too, I have done no end of plane blades. And about 10 floats previously. The difference here is that these floats are quite thick at 1/4” and the cutting surface is long - about 6”. So to get it to a consistent temp across the whole blade isn’t so easy. Ideally the entire float blade would...

I made this a long time ago, and it didn’t seem to get hot enough, so it has sat on the shelf since. Perhaps time for another try

Well, it’s not working. I need to get into 770+ and it is hovering at 720 and still magnetic. I think I may have to resort to the map torch. BTW the coal fire was my idea, not Tom’s! It is supposed to burn at 900 C, but when it’s smouldering it’s more like 700. Not quite there. But It’s thick...

Right, hardening time. Wife is out. See below my new hardening forge. As advertised, the coal briquettes seem to be burning at c 900 degrees. This will be fun. Thanks to Tom for all the advice!

Holes for rivets….

State of play…. All teeth milled, I think I only got 2 teeth slightly wrong, which isn’t bad. I’ll fix them later with a file. Next to drill some holes for the cutlers rivets, then on to heat treating…. somehow

There - that’s what I said all along! 😉

Table of differences in the slip gauge box…. Well,,the last inspection was done in 1987 (at 68 deg Fahrenheit) and it the results are shown in millionths of an inch. I am indeed in a predicament because in my workshop, only imperial is allowed. Whenever i have to introduce anything that’s...