Workbench Wednesday – Planing Board 2

With the cypress slab glued up and the ends trimmed I gave it a light planing using the first Japanese plane I ever bought, maybe thirty years ago.   I set the plane to take a beefy cut to get the work done in a hurry, the final planing was still a ways down the road.

For the feet I had a couple of 12/4 tulip polar off-cuts from my stock of Gragg chair materials.  I decided to use this material with the grain running parallel to the cypress slab for the purposes of sympathetic moisture response.

These hunks were set into the underside of the slab with sliding dovetails.  I cut the rough rebates on the feet with the ryoba saw and finished them off with my homemade dovetailing plane.

To make sure I cut the sliding dovetail slots with the same exact angle I made a sawing bevel from a piece of waste wood.

Again I used the ryoba saw to cut the shoulders of the slots, the bevel guide made it a piece of cake.

Most of the waste was removed with a chisel and mallet, followed by my dado plane.  I would have used a router plane but for the life of me I cannot remember where I left any of the three I use regularly.  I hope that fact comes to me in a dream or something.

With a few smart taps from my mallet the feet were seated into the slab.