Day 111: Cap Completed

I was able to trim down the miniscule pieces I used to repair the wrestplank cap tearout so that it now looks pretty decent - good enough for government work, as they say.

Every year at this time of year, I slow production down a bit and concentrate on cleaning and repairing tools and preparing for the coming year. This year, I will be cleaning the band saws and table saw, replacing the knives on the Delta 6" jointer, and giving the 12" planer a tune-up. Along with these tasks, I'll start the process of refurbishing a couple of old Stanley hand planes I've picked up on my travels.

The top photo is of a No. 07 I found in a junk shop near where I grew up. I put a No. 04 next to it for scale. The thing is huge and is generally referred to as a jointing plane. The photo below that one shows a No. 78 that's in pretty bad shape. In fact, I'm not sure he can be saved, but I'm going to give it a shot. In his case, I'll use electrolysis to clean off the copious amounts of rust. The No. 07 (the big fella) just needs some oiling, cleaning, and sharpening. As I shift more to using hand tools, these will become an important part of my lutherie practice.

On an unrelated note, I recently received Grizzly's 2016 print catalog. Holy cow. After looking through just part of it, I was left asking, "What don't they sell?" As with all things Grizzly, it's packed with fairly good (not top-drawer) tools at reasonable prices. They even offer lutherie supplies! I'll be spending more time with the catalog and will post here if and when I decide to purchase anything in it.

Until next time...