A colleague I met at work makes electric guitars. Cool. Even cooler, he found an ancient house in the area that was getting rid of some ancient, wide chestnut floorboards. That he wanted to turn into a the body of a small travel electric guitar.
Turns out, said colleague doesn't have a whole lot of tools. Not cool. But he's going to let me work on his board, his one-of-a-kind chestnut board. That's cool.
So after some discussion at an East 4th restaurant (imagine the waitress' eyes when she sees this board on her table!), we decide that I'll make some cuts, here and there and clean them up with a handplane. Sweet.
Well, one thing led to another and I didn't get to it for a couple of weeks. And then I lost confidence that I knew anymore where I was to make these cuts.
I had a rough idea of where the lines would be and so taped them to show my colleague and sent him some pictures. He approved and I ran the board through the bandsaw, leaving just a little bit proud of the line.
Here's where the handplane comes in.
I have a collection of them that I like to use. A #4, a couple of #5s, a really nice #6 bastard and a #7. That doesn't count the various block planes I've made, purchased, collected, etc.
OK, so you get it that I like handplanes.
If you're not familiar with the sound that a plane makes taking off a full-width, gossamer shaving of chestnut, I doubt I'll be able to reproduce it for you. There's just a satisfying ssshhwwshht as the plane glides along the edge. That sound, the lack of earplugs, the resulting curlyshavings and the satisfaction of moving your upper body muscles in tune with a 50-year old tool on well-over 100-year old wood.
That's why I pretend to be a woodworker. That's real satisfaction. Forget the spreadsheets and change records. Give me a board and a sharp tool.
