A grooving/drawer bottom plane

With the chair project on hold for now, I'm going to focus on some other projects. I have a number of furniture items I'd like to build, and I'd really like to increase the amount of hand tool work that goes into each project. So I've decided to build a number of tools that I can use in the shop.
First on the list is a drawer bottom/grooving plane. This is sort of a poor man's plow plane, that cuts a groove of a fixed width. Some people (such as Matt Kenney) make these with now adjustability at all. I think I'd like to at least be able to adjust the distance of the groove from an edge, so I'm going to model my plane on the one in this photo, which uses a fence similar to that on a moving fillister plane.
The first step was to obtain an iron. I contacted Josh Clark of Hyperkitten, who sold me a 1/4" plow plane iron for $5. Next, I ground the sides of the blade so that it was a consistent width (I was originally going to "sneck" the blade at the top, but abandoned that idea).

 

Making the plane was very straightforward. I used some walnut I had on hand, and laminated it to a center section of true lignum vitae. Here's the finished plane:

 

To cut a groove, just adjust the fence with two screws in the bottom, then let 'er rip. The plane works beautifully--the chips spiral out in lovely little curls.

A finished test groove, in soft maple:

Legs and stretchers

Well, the legs and stretchers are more or less done, for now. As with the spindles, the legs and stretchers are left slightly oversize, then finished after they've dried. I don't have a kiln, so I'll probably let these dry until next summer. Thus, the chair project will be on hold for many months…but I'll be working on some other fun projects in the meantime. Below are the rough turnings for one chair.

A toolrest for chair legs

To turn the legs and stretchers, I had to haul my old Craftsman lathe out of mothballs. I think I paid $75 for this lathe, about 15 years ago, and I haven't used it in nearly that long. After mounting it on a shopmade stand, and hooking up the ancient motor, I was thrilled to find that it still works! Ah, they don't make 'em like they used to. The next task was to make a proper toolrest. The stock toolrest on this, or really any lathe, is about 12 inches long--not nearly big enough for chair work. I got some good ideas from blog posts by Caleb James and Tim Manney, then designed my own version.
As the pictures below show, I made two riser blocks that straddle the tube. I installed 1/4-20 threaded inserts in each, then screwed on a straight, flat 2 x 4 that is slotted (so it can be adjusted closer/farther from the turning axis). Last, I bolted a piece of 1 1/2 steel angle on top. The tool rest on the edge of the angle. This is a very simple rest, and is not height-adjustable, but it works great for the task at hand. I found that it helped a lot to file the edge of the steel angle flat and smooth, so that the tool does not catch as it moves back and forth.

Shaving spindles

Over the last couple weeks, I've been shaping the spindles for my chairs. It's been slow going, partly because of work etc., but also because the process itself is time consuming.
I began by drawknifing the spindle blanks so they are square in cross section.

You can probably see that the spindle is a bit crooked. This is intentional: The idea is to rigorously follow the grain, even when it curves, so that the strength of the piece is not compromised. If necessary, the spindle can be bent later.

The drawknife is very aggressive, and makes a lot of shavings. My wife suggests that I display this as a piece of installation art:

Next, the spindles are tapered, and the edges chamfered to form octagons.

Now the spindles go up into the attic to dry for a couple months. It's good and hot up there, and I've  installed a duct fan for ventilation, effectively turning the attic into a low temperature kiln. Time to turn (no pun intended) my attention to fixing up my old Craftsman lathe, so I can rough-turn the legs and stretchers.

Riving

This week, I'm splitting and riving the parts to rough dimensions. I don't have a chainsaw, and there's no safe way to crosscut the log quarters with any of the powered saws I have. Fortunately, my turn of the century Disston no. 7 is up to the job.

It takes about three minutes for each crosscut. Hard work, but pleasant on a nice sunny day.

Next, I lay out the spindles on the end, and split the quarters into two or three pieces:

Once the pieces are small enough, I switch from splitting to riving.
First, I needed a froe. They're expensive, so I made my own, with a little help from the local machine shop. They welded a piece of 5/16" by 2" steel bar to a piece of piece of pipe with a 1 1/2" inside diameter. I shaped the bevel with an angle grinder, and made a handle:

I also needed a riving brake. The one I made was as quick and dirty as possible: two pieces of black iron pipe, jammed through holes in a couple of scrounged pine rafters from a demolished shed:

The basic idea of riving is that you use the froe as a lever, always pulling it down. The split will tend to run out towards the bottom, so if you are splitting the piece unequally, you always turn it so the thinner side faces up. If the split starts to run out too much, simply flip the piece around.  Here are a few shots:

One thing I learned the hard way: don't rive on the grass. The hardest part is driving the thick froe blade into the wood, and you need a hard surface or the mallet will just bounce (it would probably help if I had a real wooden maul, but whatever).

There's a lot of waste in this process. After the riving was done, this is all that remains of my log:

Got me a log

Welcome to the first post of my blog. I've been a woodworker, sometimes professional, sometimes amateur, for almost 20 years, but I'm just now hopping on the blog bandwagon.
My big project at the moment is a contemporary take on the Windsor chair. So, the first step was to get a log.

I got this one from my local sawmill. It's white oak, about 14" diameter. The sawyer chainsawed it in half for me, which was very helpful, since the log weighed about 600 lbs!

Next, I split the pieces into quarters with a maul, steel wedges, and wooden "gluts" (big wooden wedges used to hold the crack open). Here's the result, zealously guarded by Benny (this blog's namesake):

That was definitely a hard day's work! Next, I'll be splitting and riving the parts.