Another new guy...

[Dave Bamber]

Hi Everyone,

I've been lurking for a few weeks now, found these forums originally from Philly's blog, figured it was about time to say 'Hi'.

A bit of background; I am the quintessential woodworking 'newbie' in that way back at school about the only thing I learned about woodwork was to be very very scared of the big bad bandsaw. I then spent the next score years building a career in IT and until very recently didn't even own so much as a hammer.

I recently (last August timeish) got talking to a luthier about building an acoustic guitar for me, and after a few weeks of discussions he ended up suggesting that given how interested I was in the mechanics of how it all works I should perhaps consider making one myself.

Off I then went out to our garage and emptied out 20 odd years of gumph and malarkey, got myself a (very) basic (old) workbench and realised that, actually, I might need a few tools too...

Thus began a journey which appears to have become all-consuming, and which has led me here, where I've spent a lot of time reading...

So far with the meagre tools I already have, I've built myself a marginally disastrous smoothing plane with an old Sorby iron I picked up in a flea market and restored, and a slightly strange plane which I'm sure has a name but I don't really know what it is. It's for making rabbets and uses a chisel instead of an iron. Not sure what you'd call it, but it works. When I've made enough posts for the spaminator not to attack I'll post some pictures and perhaps someone can give it a name besides 'oddplane' which is what I tend to call it.

For my next project I'm planning on having a go at making some planemakers floats, which I've heard are pretty good at getting the thickness down on the acoustic guitar's headstock and maintaining flatness.

Anyway, sorry for the essay, very pleased to meet you all and hope to enjoy sharing my many failures (and hopefully occassional success) with you all..

--Dave

 

[Lord Nibbo]

Nice first post. Welcome.

 

[Woody Alan]

Hi Dave You're very welcome, looks like a challenging first project, should be fun.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx ... 1182,48945
Is this your chisel plane?
Alan

 

[kafkaian]

Welcome Dave, from one in the IT industry to another. And who is still building up a repertoire of tools in newbie style.

Dare I say, could one of your first power tool purchases be a Triton TRB001 Router for table use at £98 from B&Q?

Hope you have a great journey

Ian

 

[Waka]

Dave

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Dave Bamber]

@LN – Many thanks!

@Alan – Well, it seems that picking building an acoustic guitar as a first project was certainly a great way to ensure a ‘baptism of fire’. Everything has to be spot on, and all that quartersawn wood is not cheap, so mistakes can be costly. (All I’m going to say on this matter is that making a 15 degree cut through a 3” x 1” x 40” quartersawn mahogany neck blank without a tablesaw, bandsaw or even a decent tenonsaw is actually quite a bit trickier than I thought it would be…) >.<

On the other hand, it does mean I’m learning fast, and that I get to work with some really nice timber, and appreciate the value of well-kept high quality tools whilst at the same time learning what to do in order to correct muffups with low-quality tools and embarrassing inexperience.

My chisel-plane-thingy is nowhere near as nice as those ones… for a start it’s all Padauk from a wood recycling place nearby. It also takes it’s main reference from the vertical and horizontal planes. I built it for 2 reasons. First, I wanted to be able to create rabbets for glass in a picture frame I want to make my wife for her birthday in April. Second, I read somewhere that the earliest known planes were made from chisels in that way, and that dedicated irons didn't come along until later. I figured it would be interesting to find out how well the idea worked...

@kafkaian - Thanks for the welcome. It's a funny feeling coming home from a day talking about IT strategy and high technology at the state of the art to going out into the 'workshop' (in my case, a generous term) and making something with substance from something so natural as wood.

Regards the router, I have to say, so far I've been leaning towards the 'neanderthal' school of thought. Not that I have anything against powertools particularly, it's just as a complete amateur I have the luxury of not having to account for my time spent on a project, and one of the things which has really grabbed me about woodworking is that 'tactile' feedback I get from using a good plane, or a nice chisel. At the moment (although this may change) a lot of the reason I'm doing this is for the pleasure of doing it. Although I do now own a (very) small bandsaw, jigsaw and router, I don't really enjoy using them particularly.

Also, part of my thinking is that if I can be disciplined and become proficient with the hand tools our ancestors used, then if I do move to having powertools in future I'll be able to evaluate when they are truly labour/time saving, and also know what to look for when buying them.

Obviously my decision has nothing whatsoever to do with still being marginally petrified of most powertools as a lasting legacy of my schooldays.

@Waka - thank you!

 

[Slim]

Hi Dave, welcome to the forum. It's good to have you with us.

 

[Chris Knight]

Dave,
Welcome to the forum. Sounds as if you jumped right in at the deep end!

 

[woodbloke]

Dave - welcome to the forum. I think most people tend to start off with the hand tool approach and move on to aquiring some power tools as they progress. The bandsaw you mention is one of the most useful machines to have in a 'shop and provided that you don't do anything really daft with it, is a very benign piece of kit. If you are looking to source some decent hand tools then I'd advise trying to locate a good second hand tool shop in your area. Older tools are generally of better quality (though not always) than their modern counterparts.
Looking forward to seeing some pics of your work later - Rob

 

[Philly]

Welcome aboard, Dave!
Philly

 

[kafkaian]

Regards the router, I have to say, so far I've been leaning towards the 'neanderthal' school of thought. Not that I have anything against powertools particularly, it's just as a complete amateur I have the luxury of not having to account for my time spent on a project, and one of the things which has really grabbed me about woodworking is that 'tactile' feedback I get from using a good plane, or a nice chisel. At the moment (although this may change) a lot of the reason I'm doing this is for the pleasure of doing it. Although I do now own a (very) small bandsaw, jigsaw and router, I don't really enjoy using them particularly.

Sensible I feel and where I re-started.

As for your dual-personality I agree! As a senior software engineer with a very sedentary and cerebral working life, the chance for a physical yet creative pastime is a welcome break.

 

[Gordon T]

Welcome Dave,

you are now on the slippery slope with the rest of us. There is a mine of useful information and skills held by the members of this forum. Happr planing

GT

 

[Dave Bamber]

@slim - Many thanks, good to be here!

@waterhead - Yep, the further I get in the 'build' the more I am realising just how right you are. It's one of the reasons I'm doing a lot more 'practicing' on reclaimed wood from the recycling place before I loose myself on the nice tonewood (and the figured walnut I have for back and sides is just too lovely to risk...)

@woodbloke - The bandsaw is the one powertool concession I made early on when I knew I would be shaping 1" thick MDF into a curved mould for the acoustic body. MDF just isn't fun to work with hand tools and sawing that much would have been just too painfully slow for my liking. Of course, I now know bandsaws aren't as easy to get good results from as you guys make them look... but that's a different story for another day, heh.

In terms of old tools, completely couldn't agree more from what I've seen and felt. In fact, my favourite planes by far are 2 old 'Mathieson of Glasgow' woodies I picked up in a flea market for £5 each, an 18" scrub and 22" fore/jointer. Love them to bits, love the way they feel, love the ease with which they can be adjusted with a bit of practice, love the feel of wood-on-wood when planing. By comparison, got given one of those new 'faithfull' smoothing planes which I dislike so much I decided to try and make my own...

@Philly - Many thanks for the welcome and for the great blog. One day I hope to get a chance to pick your brains about planemaker's floats...

@kafkaian - Couldn't agree more about the lifestyle differences. In fact my wife has commented that I barely seem to use the computers at home since I took this hobby up...

@Gordon - I'm afraid to say I'm well and truly sliding freely down the slope! I spend half my free time reading sites like these about tools and woodwork, the other half traipsing around every flea market and car boot sale in the area with an eye out for things which could be useful. Just picked up a lovely old saw set yesterday for £3 actually. Of course, it would probably have been an even better find if I actually owned any resharpenable saws as yet... >.< (Ach, never mind, at least I've got one now for when I *do* have a decent saw, right?...)

 

[OPJ]

Hello and welcome.

With regards to your bandsawing results, you can tune up even the cheapest of bandsaws to get decent results from it. Anyone who tells you that you cannot cut straight or accurately with a bandsaw is talking out of their backside! A decent new blade can also help (chuck the manufacturer's supplied one). You should be able to find plenty of information if you use the forum search.

Which bandsaw do you have, out of interest?

I hope you are taking precautions against that MDF dust too... :?

 

[lurker]

Welcome Dave.

I'm with you regarding woody planes although I have & use oldish metal records too. The new metal ones don't bear comparision all ( unless you get into expensive stuff like LNs ) are not worth buying - older the better for me.

It won't be long before you find a few saws, I have to stop myself buying them. You can find good quality ones for a fiver a pop as most folks can't sharpen them.

Somewhere down brighton way there is a shop that sells old tools I believe. However I prefer the "chase" of car boots & junk shops.

 

[NeilO]

Welcome Aboard, Dave..

An eclectic bunch of guys here, knowledgable, charasmatic, witty, helpful and just a few complete headbangers (but i`ll blame that on the phases of the moon :lol: ).....And no names, im not quite willing to shoot myself just yet.

I notice you wrote "

In fact my wife has commented that I barely seem to use the computers at home since I took this hobby up...

That was until you found UKW :lol:

one last thing Enjoy..

 

[Dave Bamber]

@OPJ - Hello and thanks

Yes, this is indeed the 'cheapest of bandsaws' that you mention . It's the 'Aldi special' which I only bought because we were in Aldi a few weeks ago and I saw a bandsaw for £50. I'd been looking for one before Christmas for doing the mold, and of course they were all at least twice that price, so I kind of impulse bought it thinking I could spend the other money on getting all my tonewood at once instead of 'when I need it'.

Well, it's certainly an interesting machine, and setting it up was an education in itself. I've now got it cutting those mold curves okay with the smaller of the blades which came with it, but will definately look for something better if I wind up using it more. On the other hand, I've been considering making my next mold out of plywood and making myself a bowsaw to cut it with. That way I'd get to make and own a bowsaw too... I'm undecided as yet, and given that a lot of my gluing for the acoustic guitar build relies heavily on RH values, it could be a while before I finish my first let alone start my second...

@lurker - I have to say that even as a complete newbie I can tell how poor some of the cheaper modern planes are. I figured that a good guide would be whether when using it I could imagine using it day-in day-out with it's foibles and perculiarities, and if the answer to that is 'no' either I need to learn to adjust it or it's just plain (plane?) no good. With that Faithful one, no matter what I did, or how hair-poppingly sharp the iron I put in it was, it was just not as reliable, comfortable or usable as my old woodys.

I've only just recently started looking for saws as I really wanted to know how to sharpen them first before I started picking them up. Until now I've been potterring along with an old impact-hardened (and rubbish) cheap panel saw I inherited with the garage, a 'Footprint' gents saw and a faithfull coping saw. All pretty low quality, none of them reshaprenable.

I've ordered one of those rip and crosscut japanese pullsaws from Axminster recently, just so I have a relatively decent saw for cutting stock which is too long for my bandsaw down to size. I'm thinking that when it arrives at least I'll have something usable until I can start picking up and restoring old Disstons

If you can remember the name of the old tool shop, would love to know where it is...

@NeilO - Thank you, and yes, I know you're all a good bunch, been lurking a while

Don't worry, I think my wife was talking 'relatively' rather than absolutely. Between this site, the luthier forums, Dieter Scmidt's site and Classic Hand Tools I still have plenty of things to read online...

 

[Shadowfax]

A warm welcome. I know more about fire than I do about woodwork but that never stops me!
Get your questions lined up. Whenever someone asks about something we all learn something too.
Cheers for now.

SF

 

[Bodrighy]

where do you guys find boot sales at this time of year? I'm waiting for them to start down here.

Pete

 

[Dave Bamber]

@Shadowfax - Thanks you, and I'm hoping to keep my blades sharp enough so as not to greatly increase my knowledge of fire... And don't worry, I have plenty of questions lined up...

@Bodrighy - I find them here mostly: http://www.carbootjunction.com/car-boot-by-county.php there's one on there for somerset which runs September to April by the looks of it