thriving vallejo series: yeah!// remedial work.

[duccio]

I noticed that my workbench maple top has warped over the years. It's only a problem when I do big work. I got an order for 9 big pieces, so it was time to straighten things out. Standing at the workbench, the front right corner had come up about 3/16", so I got out a plane and started reducing the surface. It took about an hour. Some of the glue build up I had to cut off using a small adze. The bench is heavily scarred from all the stuff I have made on it, except where I planed all that away last night.

There must have been some stress in the maple counter top I had purchased in 1975 to make my workbench, and soon a crack developed on the right side, which I fixed with a large butterfly cut from hard osage orange wood. The stress continued on to eventually warp the whole top. There's my new plane, and my very old Opinel knife - precious because 40 years ago when I got it, the blades were high carbon steel and hold a very sharp edge. I trued things up with my long straight edge, and I'm ready to go, although my shoulders feel the exertion from all the planing.

I mentioned I wanted to show some more workshop pictures, so here are some:

Comments

[nanila]

I could spend ages looking at (and running my hands over) that surface.

My grandparents' kitchen table was scarred all over. My mum and my aunt did all their homework at it when they were children, and so if anyone had cared to decipher the table they could have put together a record of their early education.

[duccio]

I like that kind of thing and often make drawings on papers that I had previously made notes about something or other. I haven't done it on paintings, yet, but I am sure I will. I suppose such non related messages dilute the "idea" of a drawing or painting, or confuse the focus of a viewer on "the subject"... which I gotta say, sounds like a good thing to do! Things in life truly, are confusing, and disjointedly unrelated - f'rinstance: driving from place to place with kids in the car on Monday, er, I mean Tuesday... no, Monday. Know what I mean?

Show me the table top.