going to try an all hand made......

I think I'm on a good step in my wanna be a hand tool woodworker ladder to try this. The goal is to make three, and as many as eight, Tangram puzzles by hand. I can get maple from Lowes but after looking around the shop at what I had I changed my mind. I ended up with two wood choices, cherry or poplar. I picked poplar only because I intend to spray paint the puzzles once they are done. I don't think I could ever bring myself to paint cherry.

still flat

This is the stock for my bookstand. I sawed these parts out earlier in the week and they have been stickered for a few days. It looks like a go for starting this project. All I need is stock for the top.

saw this tonight

I got lucky where this chunk is missing. It's on what will be the bottom inside of the bookstand. I still have to trim about an inch or so off and I'll be putting a circular cutout here. It looks like very little of it will be left, if any.

some leftover 5/4 rough sawn poplar

Here's the plan of attack. Cross cut off a 12" long piece. Rip that in half. Flatten on face and the two edges and sticker it to allow it to do stupid wood tricks. Flatten the opposite face and resaw the two halves in half the long way. Flatten and thickness the ripped long grain faces and make 5" squares out of them.

11 1/4" wide

The crosscut is done and now it is on to ripping this in half. I'm shooting for a finished 5" square as my end result. Ripping this way in the vise horizontally is not something I like doing. I think it's because I have to stoop down a fair bit to do this. When I saw it off the side of the workbench, I'm looking down on it. There are times when I can't hang it off the side - here it wasn't held securely in the dogs so I had to do it this way.



earned an attaboy here

I may not like this way but I did good on this outing. I stayed close to my line and the edge is square to look at.

checking for twist

I am getting better at reading what I flatten. I thought I saw a bit of twist and the sticks confirmed it. After I got rid of the twist, I squared the two outside edges.

3 of the 6 surfaces are done

I was hoping to get the ends squared but I need to sharpen the iron in my 51 before that happens.

stickered until tomorrow

When I first started out doing this I planned to get 2 puzzles per half. It didn't dawn on me that I was resawing these two pieces in half and that doubles the output. They are an inch thick so I should get something close to 1/2" and I'll plane that down to 3/8" or less.

This was it for tonight. I'm being pressed into bag carrying duty again. We're eating in at home first and then heading out to UPS first. UPS is not leaving anything unless someone is there to sign for it. So we have to call them to hold what they couldn't deliver at the depot and pick it up the next day. Real inconvenient but understandable.  After  the UPS stop my wife decided we're going to do some last minute shopping.

Tomorrow I'll try to get this sawed in half and ready to make puzzles. After I make the puzzles I will have to make some kind of box to keep them in.

accidental woodworker

trivia corner
When was the first rocket invented?
answer - by the Chinese in the 13th century

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