On Going Refinement

The work of Independent Tool Makers changes over time. I'm still making some of the same models of planes that I made when I first started into making planes professionally but the end product at this point is considerably different.

Some of the refinements are not obvious and some are hidden but the point is every time I make a plane a bit of refinement occurs and after one makes a certain number of planes the end product can gradually evolve into a much different thing. The Stainless Panel Plane pictured below is full pound lighter than the prototype and is visually lighter as well. The configuration of the assembly pins has been revised 4 times in the last couple of years.

Some changes are purely for functional purpose and some are visual. Whereas some of my first planes used tightly spaced threaded pins for assembly, my later planes use a combination of threaded pins, taper pins or in some cases press fit dowel pins. Most of this can't be seen without holding the plane body so that light reflects in such a way as to make these features more visually apparent.

The new lever cap in the Stainless Panel plane derived from a desire to design a different lever cap for the Winter Panel Plane pictured below. It was a natural progression to incorporate an improved design in the Stainless Series of planes as well.

 This refinement is part functional improvement but mostly a visual refinement that allows the lines of the plane to flow together in a more harmonious way. In the pictures below you see one my 912-50S planes in Macassar Ebony with the old style lever cap and the one below with Olive Wood and the new style lever cap. I've made both these planes somewhat recently however the Macassar Ebony plane is part of a matched set that began with the older style lever cap. As you compare the two it's obvious that the lever cap in the picture of the Olive Wood plane is more cohesive with the lines of the plane side.

Of course in some cases it's the process that's refined and one just gets much more proficient at performing a given task and that in itself produces an improved result, and then again the end result is most probably a  combination of all of these factors.

I've heard it said "when you quit learning, you start dying", I like the keep learning option myself and continuing to learn leads to more refinement.

Ron

Why a 16 Foot French Oak Roubo Bench?

When pictures of Bo Childs 16 Foot Roubo bench showed up on several blogs and videos some questioned making a bench of this size. Some even suggested maybe it was a male ego strut of sorts. However there was a functional reason for a bench of this great size and capacity.

It's easy to forget that handwork on a large scale is still done in some places and some businesses make it their specialty. Wyatt Childs is one of those businesses. Bo provides flooring of several different types and textures among many other products. Almost all require some measure of hand work to create the unique look he is known for. Wyatt Childs  has some very fine machinery, in fact you'll see state of the art Martin machines in the background of these pictures and video,  but for some effects Bo knows that nothing looks quite like a surface created with hand wrought methods.

As you can seen in the above pictures and the video below, 4 people can work at this bench hand scraping walnut flooring.....and that's why sometimes a 16 foot workbench is required. Wyatt Childs does large scale work on a regular basis so this workbench will rarely get lonely.

Ron

The Different Personalities of the French Oak Roubo Project

Today as I was moving thru the shop at Wyatt Childs I began thinking about this group of bench builders and how diverse a group they are. Included in these people are Doctors, Attorneys, Glass artist, Auto Body Shop Proprietors, Tech Gurus, Woodworking Store Owners, Surveyor, Plane Maker, the list goes on and on.

Yet this week they are all like minded people converging in a common task. I can describe them all in just two words "Good People".

Ron

The Joiner's Shop.......French Oak Roubo Project Day 3

The third day of the French Oak Roubo Project. A day in the Joiner's shop. 16 benches are  underway in the shop of Wyatt Childs and the atmosphere is unique to say the least. It's easy to imagine that it was very much like this in the early days of the industrial revolution. A few machines running to do the heavy lifting part of the work, yet hand tool work is till occurring all around the machines and literally in every corner of the shop. The blend of the sounds is enticing to say the least.

Ron

For a direct link to a larger format version with more viewing options:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kTm2o_c5A0

French Oak Roubo Week......Fate Takes It's Course

Fate is a funny thing.

Some people meet their Fate, that's never a good thing because it's usually a description of their demise. I've heard the comment "fate takes it's course". This can be a reference to a good thing or a bad thing depending on the context. In the incidence that I'm alluding to it's a good thing and possibly a historical thing, and then again maybe it's just the continuance of history. "Fate" can also just mean that the right two people meet at the right time and participate in the right conversation and then you just have to step back and see what happens next.

A year ago this past January I invited some toolmaking friends and some woodworking friends to my house for a couple of days over a January weekend. We cooked and ate some BBQ and we talked woodworking and tools. Bo Childs attended the BBQ and struck up a conversation with Jameel Abraham.

Sometime  it only takes putting the right two people together, having the right conversation, and then you just stand back and watch an idea conceived by two very capable people come to fruition.....and that is what's happening in Barnesville, Georgia this week.

The French Oak Roubo Project is well underway and judging by the number of sweaty t-shirts and empty beer bottles showing up at my house, it is going well. Something that started with a gift of trees from Thomas Jefferson to Marie Antoinette over 200 years ago is coming to work benches in Barnesville, Georgia.........you can't make this stuff up.

The entire French Roubo Project entourage is coming to my house for dinner tonight........film at 11'........well, at the very least pictures.

Okay it's after 11:00 pm. I apologize. I was so busy attending to my guest that I completely forgot to takes pictures or video.

Ron

Fear, Disappointment......Hope and Faith

When faced with an incredibly amount of fear and disappointment, one either quits or goes forward with hope and faith. Sometimes the result is an increased fear and more disappointment and sometimes the result is this:

Ovid Eamon Brese

Born on the 7th day of the 7th month and weighs 7 lbs.

Life is Good!

Ron 

(aka Grandpa)

The Kit Plane Dilemma

Since appearing at HandWorks in May we have once again began getting inquiries about the availability of plane kits. I guess events like Handworks create traffic to the web page and when folks see that kit orders have been suspended I guess they naturally assume that at some point we will once again offer that product.

I can say with 99.9% certainty that we will not resume offering plane kits, and as of today those items have been removed from our web page.  Many of you will ask why?

 As our backlog of completed plane orders grew we had to make a change in the way we allocated our time in order to meet our obligations for those products. It seemed every time we needed a certain component to complete a plane, we had exhausted our inventory fulfilling orders for plane kits. This was having a negative impact on our ability to deliver completed planes in a timely manner, which of course is the main stay of our business.

My Mother always warned me to never say never about anything and so I won't say that at some point in the future we won't change our minds and decide to offer another plane kit product, but as of right now we have no plans to pursue that type of offering.

We certainly appreciated the customers that purchased kits from us in the past and regret not being able to offer this experience to future customers.

As a small business we have a limited capacity to produce and so it seems appropriate to pursue what we do best which is making hand planes to a very high standard.

Ron