Thread: Fijian Mahogany for tote and knob

I would be stoked with them. Nice work, MA!

Very nice.
Tom

Thanks John and Tom. I quite like the contrast with my other darker handles.

I think you're getting the idea, MA...

Nice, actually, the mahogany should hand-polish with use & will darken up a bit over tine, but if the Fijian mahogany I've used is any guide, it won't reach that dark "mahogany" colour of the old stuff in 18thC furniture. But who cares? The nice shaping & a good feel in the hand are what really matters for a working tool.

Cheers,
Ian

Thanks Ian. This was the last plane that I felt needed handles replaced and I'm glad to have them turn out nicely. I didn't bother with the bead in the base of the knob and it probably looks better without it. This particular plane gets a bit of use on the lathe. I use it to make long plain spindles even, the wider base travels better across the high spots. Probably cheating but it's effective.

Beautiful work, MA!

Cheers,
Andy

Thanks Andy. Have you finished the tool cupboard yet? Any more updates coming?

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

This particular plane gets a bit of use on the lathe.

And here I was thinking that I'm the only cowboy that does that!
I can always feel Vic Wood frowning on me from above.

In my defense P. I saw the idea in an old woodworking book

They look real good to me also! I wouldn’t worry about the “missing bead”; that was a Record thing and never appeared on the Stanley high knobs; only the very early low knobs.

Somewhere in one of my plane books is a picture of a barrel being smoothed using essentially a big-arsed lathe with a metal smoothing plane hanging off of a rod so there’s definitely a precedent for using a plane on a lathe

Thanks CT. I have put the bead on in the past just "because I can". Maybe choosing not to do it shows I am maturing as a woodturner.

MA

I have a single Lie-Nielsen hand plane and your FM looks almost identical in colour to whatever Thomas uses.

Your plane has come up very well.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

...I have a single Lie-Nielsen hand plane and your FM looks almost identical in colour to whatever Thomas uses.....

Paul, until recently, at least, L-N used American cherry (Prunus serotina) for their woodwork. It's a lovely wood, and reasonably stable, but doesn't match rosewood & the like for tactile qualities in my view. Cherry starts out a different colour when fresh, but often looks more like mahogany as it ages.

MA, using a plane to create a straight cylinder has been touted in several books & magazine articles I've seen over the last 50 years. Not "cheating" at all, it's getting the job done the most efficient way you can!

It takes a bit of practice to be able to plane a near-perfect cylinder with a skew - I used to be able to do it fairly reliably when I did a lot of turning, but I seem to have lost the knack now that I turn sporadically. A few days ago I had to turn a 1.5" cylinder about 750mm long & I really struggled. It didn't help that the wood is highly-figured Qld Maple and the variations in hardness as it was spinning caused chatter that I found impossible to completely control, even with the sharpest of skews, the lightest of cuts & carefully supporting the work at the contact point. I got it there after a lot of sweat and a bit of strong language, and it's fit for purpose, but definitely not perfect. It didn't help that my anxiety levels were raised because it was the last piece of QM that I had large enough for the job & it has to match the rest of the item (a music stand).

I started out with plenty to spare, I thought, but the chunk of wood turned out to have a large bark inclusion in an awkward spot, and some scattered areas of rot so by the time I avoided all the defects there was only just enough for the job. Unusual for QM, but the wood came from an old fencerow tree that had suffered a few slings & arrows over the years & finally blew over in a big storm...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Paul, until recently, at least, L-N used American cherry (Prunus serotina) for their woodwork. It's a lovely wood, and reasonably stable, but doesn't match rosewood & the like for tactile qualities in my view. Cherry starts out a different colour when fresh, but often looks more like mahogany as it ages.

Cheers,

Ian

I had to dig deep in the L-N website as they seem a tad secretive about their timbers, but they say they use Cherry, Maple, Hickory and Hornbeam. This is mine:


P1080371 (Medium).JPGP1080370 (Medium).JPG

Sorry about the paraphenalia in the background. There was nowhere on my bench to put even that minature plane of yours. The timber has certainly darkened a little with age, but most timbers seem to do that in varying degrees.

Regards
Paul