Getting Braces

It's a rainy day here in Virginia, a perfect day to get some time in on this project. After a major snafu getting the brace blanks etc. delivered to my house, today I've drafted out the bracing and gotten the Sitka Spruce brace blanks marked for sawing. I basically ordered an extra blank and a half of bracing since this is my first time, and want to have enough in case of errors. Here is the bracing drawn out on the blanks:



Then I thought I could use a backsaw to cut the braces out, only to discover that's not going to work very well. After using a straight-edge and a knife to score the line for the saw to ride in, then using a framing nail to again score the trench I began carefully sawing. After working on it for quite a while I had only sawn less than 1/4" depth, so I'm going to have to find something else. At this pace I would be spending the next three weeks sawing these.



I found a cheap Ryobi table saw used on craigslist that I'm hoping to get, it will come in handy later on too. The stand will also double as a stand to clamp my template to. In the meantime I'm going to cut out the plates and finish constructing my template. I'll post another update later today

Plates Joined

Finished joining the plates, not the best seam ever but I think it will work. Here's the top after joining, and the back being glued (as I type in fact). As you can see this is not the most professional set-up, but it works fairly well

First Shavings

The plane came in the mail this week, and of course I was excited to get to work. Far too excited as it turned out, when I quickly began working on the Redwood top. The sole was fairly true but I soon realized that the side was not, and getting a good joint was impossible.





I decided to use the back side of my MDF shooting board/workboard/sanding board to true the sole and side:



I felt like I had Popeye arms by the time I was done, it took a long time by hand. Although blurry, this photo gives an idea of how much the side was out of whack:



After adjusting the plane I got the top ready to glue, now I'm working on the back. I'm not having as much luck with the hardwood, I'm going to sharpen the blade and see if that helps att all. If not I may have to get a regular jointing plane, the lack of adjustability with this old wooden jointer makes using it difficult.



Next up, sharpen the jointer blade and get the back ready to glue. Then glue the top and back,cut out the plywood template and finish its construction, and begin planing the top and back down to the correct thickness