Cherry Shaves and power outages
Jack Guzman from Maine
>Last weekend we lost power.I was determined to work in my shop so I brought a gas lantern and a flashlight in there and looked for something to do.I decided to make a bookcase for my woodworking mags which are starting to be unmangeable.I grabbed some readymade pine 1x10 and cut to length for 4 shelves with a handsaw.Then I made dados to hold the shelves with a backsaw and router plane.It came out fair considering the very poor lighting but it was just carpentry.I needed a woodworking project.
Rummaging around I found a small hock spokeshave blade I bought over a year ago meaning to build a smaller shave.Now was the time. I found a small piece of cherry scrap that would work so I drilled the blade holes with the eggbeater.Using the blade to mark I mortised for the blade to fit with a knife and chisels,sawed the sides of the ware and chiseled it out.Then I resawed a small piece of ebony,planed one side,and mortised it in the shave as a wear plate. Once I got the blade fit close I marked out the shape of my handles.I cut the profile using a backsaw,curve cutting bowsaw,and jeweler's saw.Final shaping with rasps(first project for my auriou modelers rasp).I scraped as much as I could then finished by hand sanding with 180 and 220 grits. I've been doing fine tuning this week after work and finally got a little shellac on it for the picture.Honed the blade last night and it does a nice job on end grain.
If I had started this with power on I think I would have at least used the bandsaw,maybe the drill press.I look forward to the next power outage.----Jack