When the cats away the mice will play.
My wife and 3 year old daughter are off to Italy for a month, so it’s time to make a mess!
I’ve started shaping my bonzer and it’s going great. I just had to talk/write to someone about it. For me, a once a year shaper, it’s almost as much fun as being on a good wave. Makes me want to hoot. Awooooo!
Pics will follow if someone can explain to me how to post them. The last few times I tried they (you, Mr. Swaylock) had reduced the max file size and all I could get uploaded were tiny, grainy thumbnails- not even worth it.
So I got my paulownia on Ebay from some guy in Jersey. It came in 8 foot strips, 3"-4" wide by 1/8" thick, rough sawn. Four were bookmatched. Four were just random. And there were five strips of really white wood with little grain. If I had only gotten the white wood I’d have been bummed. After much shuffling I found the ideal bookmatch pattern. (pics soon?).
I shaped the bottom contours into 1 lb. EPS on a top rocker table. I have to say, as I was feeling those double concaves the word “sexy” and “sensuous” kept coming to mind. Some thing about smooth bumps that come in pairs.
I bagged on the bottom skin (standard stuff for you swalockian compsanders). I was stoked to see the wood suck into the concaves.
Now the thing that got me practically hooting was sanding the concaves on the paulownia when it came out of the bag. IT WAS LIKE THE GRAIN WAS TELLING ME EXACTLY WHERE TO PUT THE CONCAVES!
There was one big “dart” of grain right where the single went (basically under the front foot in the middle of the board. There were two more “darts” of grain right where the doubles start about a third of the way up from the tail. And then there are like “tiger stripes” right where the doubles deepen and go through the fins.
The wood also made it easy th shape the concaves in a slow and very controlled way. The only bad thing so far has been the raising of the grain, when I sand. Could be a problem if it telegraphs through the hot coat.
You guys who make boards for a living are really lucky.
Anyways, sorry to bore y’all. Wait til you see the photos.