Half-Day Job Only Takes Weeks

On the theory that people are morbidly fascinated by tales of inept woodworking, I thought I’d post an update on my continuing efforts to create six pieces of walnut suitable for assembling in a slab which can be turned into a Telecaster body.

Tonight I resawed a new chunk of walnut, stuck the pieces on my new, shorter planer sled, and face-jointed them. It actually worked, although I got a tiny amount of snipe on both boards.

Initially I figured my tools were 98% to blame and I was responsible for the other 2%, but it has gradually become apparent that those numbers needed to be reversed. Ignorance, lack of technique, and sheer stupidity were causing most of my problems.

I have learned that good technique can almost eliminate snipe when I use the planer sled, and improved shimming and a more manageable sled are solving my other problems. The infeed tables I ordered should make things even better. The orbital quarter-sheet sander I bought yesterday does an acceptably quick and effective job of fixing my jointing errors. I now have six 18″-24″ pieces of usable wood, and I only had to buy nine feet of walnut to do it.

I guess I won’t have to buy a jointer right away, although the little Rikon 10″ looks really enticing and may end up in my garage anyhow.

I look forward to the arrival of my restored Stanley No. 6 plane, so I can put the sander and maybe even the planer away.

By the way, here’s a great tip I came up with tonight. When using a shop-vac as a passive receptacle to catch planer dust, don’t connect the hose to the shop-vac’s blower side. Don’t ask me how I got so smart. You wouldn’t understand. It’s a gift.