Exhausting and Exhilarating

Sometimes a full day of handplaning is just, well, an Experience.  After being mostly absent from the shop for several months I spent the last couple of weeks just cleaning, organizing, puttering and preparing for upcoming events.

As part of that enterprise I spent last Thursday handplaning a pile of resawn mahogany and cherry panels for student workpieces during this week’s Introduction to Historic Finishing workshop in Earlysville VA.  I woke Friday morning with my right shoulder and left tricep barking at me, letting me know I was out of shape for hand tool work.  That, and the blisters on my hands.

Not exotic, but still an exhilarating day.  Plus a pile of tinder for this coming winter’s wood stove fires.