Workbench Wednesday – Japanese Planing Beam I

Image from early 2012, the year before we moved to Shangri-la. At this point the shop was still mostly empty space.

In my early days of working in the barn one of the very first things I did was install a massive (8″ x 10″ x 8′) planing beam along one wall of the shop, but over time I realized it was mostly 1) the most robust junk shelf in the world, and 2) a tremendous space hog consuming too much valuable wall and floor space I could not afford.  Especially given the reality that eventually I had several other options for hand planing workstations.  In the end I dismantled the beam and repurposed the timber into something else.

Still, I never lost that ephemeral sentiment that, particularly in the realm of Japanese toolwork, an inclined planing beam would be a nice addition to the place.  [N.B. it seems as though I am creating new workbenches about as fast as I get rid of the old ones!  Mrs. Barn thinks I have “a workbench problem.”  She is incorrect; I do not have “a workbench problem,” I have a lot of workbenches.  Completely different thing.]

Thus I set about trying my hand at the classic Japanese planing beam using some of my less-than-perfect cypress planks as the core, glued together to make something stout.  By “less than perfect” I mean that one side of the 11/4 c.1840 water tank staves was a little beat up or degraded.  I extracted a pair of the staves from my stash and ran them through my little power planer that has been my corded apprentice for nearly forty years.

Once I got the gluing surfaces cleaned up I dressed them with a toothing plane to remove the planer chatter and increase the surface area for the glue contact.

Using the technique for gluing stack laminations I learned in the foundry pattern shop 45 years ago I employed screws to temporarily clamp the two planks together, this time using 4″ decking screws with fender washers underneath each screw head.  The clamping power of this system is impressive, as you can tell from the squeeze-out.  I left them overnight then removed all the screws and washers.

Since the compression divots and the screw holes are all on the underside of the beam they are of no consequence.

Time to true the beam.