Clay Dowling's blog

Just ordered myself a new Konica Minolta printer. These printers aren't very fast, but they're inexpensive and super compatible with everything. A friend bought a similar model a few years ago, and the print quality is amazing. The compatibility is the biggest thing for me though.

Currently I'm sharpening my planes and chisels with sandpaper. And that's fine as far as it goes. But I've got a set of cheap diamond stones, and they're a lot faster at cutting the metal, even in finer grits, and they don't make a mess of loosened abrasive like I get with the finer grit papers.

Scraper Close UpA while back I bought a cabinet scraper, because I'd seen them used on TV, and I wanted to try it out on my bathroom vanity. The experiment succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

Thought I would share that with everybody, because it's my favorite of Allison's senior pictures. Allison is my cousin's daughter, and is beautiful in these pictures. And this will probably embarrass her, but she looks like her mother.

I put Batch 9, my honey-wheat beer, into the keg today. It's wicked-clear and very dry. Initial gravity of 1.062, final gravity of 1.002, for a final strength of 8.3% alcohol. That's light for a mead, but strong for a wheat.

New Stanley No. 5 Plane I bought this plane off ebay last week.I was a little apprehensive about buying a plane without seeing it, but when it arrived it was in nearly perfect condition. The only thing it needed was to be sharpened.

I reground the bevel and put a nice edge on it tonight (well, a nice edge for me). I wanted to put a fairly aggressive curve on it to use it as a scrub plane, but I couldn't get a curve. I did manage to take the edge off enough that it didn't leave tracks when I went after the flat side on a 2x4.

Powermatic Model 90I bought a new toy at a steal of a price. $190 for a Powermatic Model 90. With, at least in theory, a working 220 volt, single phase motor.

I'm working on a picnic table for my friend Cher, and I discovered that some of my lumber was pretty rough. I could have spent forever trying to sand it down, but that didn't look like a lot of fun. Fortunately I've been reading about surfacing wood with a hand plane, and I discovered that one of the planes my dad gave me had the round corners you need for a surfacing plane.

My car's low oil light came on tonight, which was weird, in light of the fact that it was only about 4000 miles since the last change and my car doesn't burn oil (or didn't), and there aren't any oil leaks. I'll be either changing my own oil or finding a new place, currently leaning to changing it myself (it's easy, and then I know it was done right).

Two weekends ago (August 2nd, for those keeping track), I rewove the seat on my post and rung stool. Friday morning I tested it out, and it held my weight without sagging. In other words: I can now make decent shaker style chairs, hopefully for sale. The seat still needs to be finished, and that could be its own excitement, but looks pretty straight forward.

The chief differences from my previous attempt at putting a splint seat in a chair:

1. I used six foot splints instead of four foot. That makes fewer joints that can stretch and fail.