Just thought I give a big "Thank You" to Ben Knebel and Doug Evans from the Shepherd Tool Co. for the infill plane build night that took place last Monday, 4/12/04. In addition to Doug and Ben were 7 members of the Central Jersey Woodworkers Association, all gathered in Bob Pulsch's fantastic shop space for an in-depth, hands-on plane-making education! The folks pictured below are (back row, L-R) Ben Knebel, Roger Ackerman, Paul Dzioba, Dave Healy, Steve Strickland, Bob Pulsch (front row, L-R) Doug Evans, John Aniano and Mark Gaertner. We all progressed quite far along in the ~4 hours we worked on that dark and rainy night to make one plane each. Infill thumb planes, smoothers, panel and shoulder planes all took shape under the instructive eyes of our expert guides, Ben and Doug. A few of us suggested we work to have the planes fully finished by the June 9th CJWA meeting to show them off to our fellow club members. Lets see if that can really happen!
We all had a great time and look forward to doing this again if we can entice Doug and Ben to trek the 10 hours back to NJ!
>John is right -it was a really great time- I never would have attempted to build a shoulder plane on my own. However, when I saw the directions and how machined the parts were , I would have no qualms about telling anyone to give it a try. There is a lot of "forgiveness" built into the Shepard planes. Mine is coming along just fine - all I need is time in the shop and not on this stupid machine!
Many thanks to Bob Pulsch for the use of his great shop and to Ben and Doug.
