BobSmalser

Sure...have country-store coffee every morning with a group that includes a retired weldor from the logging equipment trade who can weld anything...and have some skill to offer in return. Seriously, that hour a day building relationships saves me severalfold the money I'd make working that hour. But actually, I misspoke and thanks for pointing it out...I'd braze it, not weld it. Welding would require to bring the entire casting sometimes to 1200 degrees...enuf to warp it. Brazing in bronze would only require 350 degrees of preheating. I use Templac paint temperature indicators. For your application, you can use NIROD (nickle-based rod), and you can try doing it with a cold casting using a half-inch bead at a time, chipping and allowing the weld to dissipate its heat into the casting for 3 or so minutes before another half-inch bead is done. You can email me more details and I'll take it to my neighbor for advice, if you like...when it comes to welding, I'm a pretty good farmer.

12" and still snowing.

Who

Then holders are fashioned and a coat of Birchwood Casey Truoil varnish mixed with a couple drops of art store Cobalt Drier is applied. The heavy metal drier is useful because the new finish has to amalgamate chemically with both the old finish and remaining Refinisher residue

After curing, the shape is traced from another tote and cut on the band or fret saw. Note that I

After removal of the black oxide residue, all metal visible on the outside of the plane is buffed with stitched muslin wheel and Knifemaker

I was in the market for a large framing chisel on Ebay and wound up with a package deal for 30 bucks

I put on 4 coats of Truoil in a day, heating the handles with the heat gun to hasten drying. Each coat is rubbed with 0000 wool all the way back to the wood surface to insure the grain is fully filled and the finish surface is perfectly smooth. While the last coat of finish is curing, I buff the steel with Knifemaker

Well, big brothers...I couldn't hold my tongue on that one, as there were exactly 25 posts of mediocre to good advice but absolutely the wrong answers before I just couldn't stand it any more: Of course...as an end result...our friend fixed the immediate gross problem but probably didn't even check any of the others so long as he could make the cuts he needed... ...so there's little doubt in my mind that saw still cuts poorly.

The finishing materials I

"Terebrin" being what I'm calling "turpentine" or "turps", eh?

Next I rough out my handle stock. There are better choices for handles that occasionally will be struck, but I have some Honduras Mahogany left over from a boat project and will use that. I rip a 2

I was in the market for a large framing chisel on Ebay and wound up with a package deal for 30 bucks

Sure...fabric needs a tight weave and hard finish is all.

Actually, that 11' high, 16' wide gate has 8" X 12" tarred cedar posts encapsulated in concrete only 24" deep...but 24" in diameter, too...hasn't moved a 16th in two winters.

Yeah, I know

Takes a jackhammer or the full swing of a big backhoe to get thru that glacial hardpan at 24"....an inch at a time, too. The answer is to make them wider instead, as they're already sitting on Mama Nature's best concrete short of bedrock..

Neat find there, Dave...funny...the $250k asking price doesn't say anything about the fish hold, most recent survey, or how the old Detroit Screamer is holding up.

Here's a good place to begin learning about edge tools. A "high-end", well-tuned Stanley 60 1/2 that works like a dream...and it was free when I acquired it 30 years ago, and would cost mere pocket change today. Note the odd mouth adjusting knob...it's the elevation wheel from another junk block plane. The Stanley was missing mouth plate and knob and was free...I merely filed out another one, brazed on a stud to mount it and affixed it with the old wheel I happened to have on hand. The end result was a tad shy of perfect flush with the sole, so I built the bearing surfaces up with a tad more braze, seen as a bright spots in the pic. It remains my only block plane to this day.

I use Arkansas stones because I have them...but if I were starting from scratch I'd have a glass vendor make me a half dozen plates of quarter inch, and use alum oxide wet-or-dry paper stuck on with spray adhesive and lubed with WD-40. It's called "scary-sharp" these days, but it is hardly new....many cabinet makers have been doing it that way for almost a century. MDF works, too...but plate glass is better...float glass is the best but expensive and really unnecessary. Make one big enuf to flatten your plane soles, too. It don't really matter how you do it so long as you get the bevels right and the secondary bevel sharp enuf to shave hair like this: Dont forget your chip breaker irons honed to match the blade interface angle exactly (merely lay them flat on the stone): And the most common blade bevel is 25 degrees with final honing on your finest stone done at 30 degrees....all after you flatten that blade's back on your stones, of course. You don't need a jig....measure those angles with a protractor and memorize the look and feel....if you rock it a bit and wind up with some convex surface on your bevel, it's no big deal...the wood won't know the difference...just strive to do better at the next sharpening as you'll get plenty of practice. And I can't get excited about 1000-grit sandpapers....600 grit is plenty if you strop your blades carefully on a stitched muslin wheel with some Knifemaker's Green rouge...not a blade here, but you get my drift: And while I do have a grinding jig for the grinding wheels...I never use it as I don't like the hollow-ground they make....the belt sander mounted upside down in the Workmate with a bucket of water and bevel gage and machinist's square to check my progress works just dandy. Be sure to use lots of water....turn that edge blue from heat and you've ruined it and need to grind anew.

Look under the "articles": http://www.woodcentral.com/newforum/msgset.shtml Do a search here on "sharpening": http://host65.ipowerweb.com/~traditi2/forum/index.php And here's a recent discussion about it: http://www.woodworking.org/Exchange/Forum2/HTML/011366.html

Dave Fleming will likely jump on his errant laddie-buck here, but I've used 10" and 14" Unisaws and Powermatics professionally and semi-professionally for most of my life...the big, honking 3-phase iron. With a good, narrow-kerf blade like a Freud and decent adjustments on a basic contractor's saw, you aren't missing anything... ...unless you are ripping heavy stock all day, every day year in and year out. Look for Freud or Forrest blades on Ebay, true your arbor and fence adjustments occasionally and let your work speak for itself. Much of the noise I hear on the woodworking forums is from folks who still think it's the tool's fault.

If your soil is like 99pct of NW Glacial Till, drainrock in the bottom of the hole won't drain anything...the 2' of loose soil is supersaturated all winter long above the hardpan. So if you hit hardpan at 2-3' with your post hole digger, then consider my method. I use WRC heartwood...stable enuf that it won't crack the concrete...treat it with Jasco 25 pct copper napthenate...let dry...then coat the below-ground with roofing tar. I like the solvent-based Henry brand. Then I completely encapsulate in concrete and slope the top of the concrete for drainage, adding caulk or tar at the wood-concrete seam and also thickly atop the concrete so water runs off. If the wood does crack the concrete, the tar will seep into the crack at the first hot weather. Under no circumstances allow soil or organic debris to touch the wood. That and a cold climate should give you 30 years....and the thicker the post, the longer it remains structurally sound as it gradually rots off at the base. Same with the topsides...scupper and cap everything so's water drains rather than settles.'

And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Sprague Pond Wildlife Refuge. Bob, Betty, Jacob, Aaron, Erin.