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

[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.