I’m Awesome

I made a board. Wait, it’s more exciting than it sounds. I bought a planer a while back, and I made myself a planer sled so I could use it as a face jointer. Today I put the final parts in (screws to hold some shims in place), and I tried out the planer. It works! I took a three-foot piece of scrap spruce that was 3/4″ thick, and I turned it into a three-foot piece of scrap spruce that is 1/4″ thick and very flat.

I’m so proud of it, I plan to turn it into something. Probably a box. I see no point in splurging on real wood when I can learn from crap I have lying around the garage. I have scrap coming out of my butt, and I need to get rid of it. Maybe I’ll find a way to use 3/16″ angle iron in a welded base for a 5″ box.

I love the planer, but boy, does it make shavings. For some reason the dust thing on it doesn’t want to connect to my shop-vac, so I let it fly, right out into the yard. Mulch, you know. When it was over, it looked like it had been snowing. I actually had to vacuum the yard.

I can tell I need to get some kind of outfeed support. The sawhorses work great for the table saw, but for the planer, I need something that is has less friction and can be adjusted very accurately so it’s at exactly the same height as the planer’s feed area. Rollers, I suppose.

I got like four inches of snipe, because I could not control the sled and wood on the way out of the planer. But when I took the board off the sled and flipped it and began thicknessing it, the snipe completely disappeared. I can’t find it now. Very odd. I suppose for light, short pieces of wood, the planer acts like a guide.

I still have to learn edge jointing. I bought some crap to make a jig for the table saw.

I’m going to sit down and draw up plans for a box. It will have to be small. I have 36″ by 8″ to work with, total. I don’t care. It’s a start.

Now that I see how the planer corrects short pieces of wood, I’m thinking I might be able to skip the sled sometimes.

I love this piece of wood. I keep carrying it around with me so I can fondle it.

I just talked to Great Aunt Gladys up in Frostproof. It’s her 93rd birthday. She says I should come up there and let her give me some woodworking lessons. I better do that.

This is for me: