Thread: Blue Gum Slab Desk

Originally Posted by Basilg

I have a blade I use for planing cranky stuff such as NGR or Brigalow, which has a back bevel of around 10 degrees and this produces a surface that only requires a quick lick of 400 grit paper before finishing. I suggest trying this with a 10 degree back bevel which only needs to be a very narrow bevel of 0.5 mm or less so & you can then easily increase the angle if need be. The force you will need to push a # 4 1/2 will be much greater and will increase as you increase the back bevel angle, so take only very fine cuts.

Regards

Basil, I gave this a try on the weekend. Works a treat Thanks.
I put a 10° back bevel on an old Stanley 4½ blade. I tried it on a piece of offcut which has the transition from sapwood to heartwood and is impossible to plane. Thought I might as well try 'worst case'. It needed a bit of work to overcome the horrible surface but once I got down to reasonably flat timber it started to tame it with little or no tear out. I gave it a quick run over on a section of the desk top and it cleaned the tearout up beautifully. I'll use it to work on the top when I finish the frame.

Originally Posted by Chief012

Looking good Tony,...I like the 93!!

Thanks Cam, you need one I reckon In fact everyboby needs a shoulder plane.

Funny you say that Tony, have been looking at them on the net!

Great work, that desk will be a thing of beauty when done.Just curious, how many hours spent planing so far? And a piece of string question....how many more to be done on the slab? Ta Dean

NC

I have an M2 blade with a 10 degree back bevel in a 5 1/2 which I use as both a jointer and smoother & unless the wood is really bad I can often go from the plane straight to applying a finish.

Regards

Originally Posted by Dean M

Great work, that desk will be a thing of beauty when done.Just curious, how many hours spent planing so far? And a piece of string question....how many more to be done on the slab? Ta Dean

I've probably spent around 12 hrs planing so far, maybe a bit more, but it was a rough sawn slab with a bit of a twist. I'll probably plane for a couple more hours before I get sick of it and say 'that'll do'. It's pretty good now but I want to get rid of a bit of tear out.

Originally Posted by Basilg

NC

I have an M2 blade with a 10 degree back bevel in a 5 1/2 which I use as both a jointer and smoother & unless the wood is really bad I can often go from the plane straight to applying a finish.

Regards

Hmmm....I have a 5½ with a M2 blade. But that M2 is so hard it would take me hours to grind it out again. I'll just stick with the old Stanley blade

Thanks for replying, looks fantastic. Table tops will be on my to do list when the timbre is ready that i have started slabbing. The logs i have are mostly redgum logs and I was interested in the man hours involved in getting them flat. Thanks Dean

A small amount of progress to report.
I have machined and cut the aprons/rails and the stretcher to final dimensions and cut tennons on the ends of them all.
I drilled and cut most of the mating mortises on the side pieces and adjusted the tennons to fit. Still have to cut the mortises for the front apron and fit the tennons.
In retrospect, I should have haunched the upper section of the tennon but I will deal with that if it looks like being a problem.
The tennons will be wedged and left 4 or 5 mm proud of the surface. I will probably make the upper wedge on the aprons for show only and not put too much pressure on the too thin mortise side.
Once the two remaining mortises are finished I will draw bore the sides together and give them a tidy up.
While sitting at my current desk (more than likely reading a fascinating and helpful post on Woodwork Forums) I shuffled the stack of bills around to make room for something else and I had a flash of genius. I'm using the piece I cut off the back for a matching monitor stand. Why not make use of the area under the stand and install some pigeon holes Pure genius I tell you.

Lookin' the goods already

Originally Posted by NCArcher;1413833...

Pure genius I tell you.

Can't argue with that

Lokking awesome,..it's going to be a heavy sucker!

Even though I've had two weeks off, there hasn't been a lot of shed time .
A couple of hours today and a little bit of progress. The mortises have been tapered to accept the wedged tennons and I have made the wedges. I had to knock up a quick jig to cut the wedges on the table saw (pic 1) which worked well. Squared up and cut in half with the hand saw and bench hook (pic 2) I'll plane them to size when I'm ready for the dry fit which will hopefully be tomorrow.
I also sanded the frame components ready to assemble. I have a Bosch sander whose orbital motion is powered by the air from the attached vacuum.(pic 3) It doesn't do too bad a job for finish sanding but I really like the no dust aspect. I picked this up pretty cheap a few years ago and while it works well it has a limited dust capacity as you can see. (pic 4) It turns out one of the fittings supplied with the sander fits nicely in this 2½ hose. A couple of turns of masking tape made it air tight (pic 5) The sander is now connected to this. (pic 6 - Thanks Chris ) Works great and I can sand all day and not lose suction.

So you haven't just been chatting and eating Christmas cake. Ooops hope your other half didn't hear that wouldn't want to get into trouble Ok stop playing with the toys and back to work. After all, you have all that travel time you can use for woodworking now.

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