Originally Posted by
Daddles
Well, I've done it.
Piccies shown below.
Planing the rectangular shape isn't so hard although the bit of wood I had was a good cm oversize and that needed planing down.
The difficulty is in making the triangular section.
I did this by nailing some sticks to the bench and using these as a rest - visible in the photos. For the first side, I had the stem piece sitting flat on the bench and this worked well. To do the other cut though, I found that no only was the plane too far tilted, the angle of the planing pressures tended to flick the stem out ... so I added a couple more props to make the planing surface more or less horizontal. This supported the stem to enable me to do the second cut, all done with the plane.
Initially, the rear support was shorter than the stem and I found this allowed the stem to flick out as soon as you started planing - adding the second piece to make that back support full length cured that problem.
The underneath supports for the second cut would have been better full length too but I didn't have another stick long enough. You do want them to support the stem right out near the tip, otherwise you'll find yourself flicking the stem out - I planed a corner off my piece of scrap so that the stem was resting flat upon it.
The best solution would be to have a purpose built triangular rest for the stem to sit in but I wasn't going to make something like that for this job.
Anyways, it's been done. My stem is a mm or two undersized at the top unfortunately but if you lot promise not to tell Mik, he won't lose any sleep over it :rolleyes:
Richard
and a quick look tells me that these posts were about an hour apart - in that time, I planed the bevels on the stem, uploaded the photos and made this post, plus was distracted by Jan turning up for a chat - the job is scary rather than long :D