Perfect Board--Part 1Last Saturday, Jim Budlong introduced the Perfect Board exercise. This is a slow, tortuous process that begins with taking a piece of wood, ripping it with a bandsaw, and then using only the handplanes we just made, we must flatten and square the edges for a perfect fit. Initially this didn't sound so difficult but after a couple of hours of planing, well mostly tuning up our planes, most of us were beginning to realize just how challenging this exercise really was.
Monday. It was Laura Mays' turn to put up with my fussiness regarding my board. I was hoping the "new" teacher on the block would be easier than Jim. Not a chance. It took me another 4 hours before I finally got her approval.And this was only the first step to making a perfect board......
During a Chris Schwarz class, we had a 'perfect board' contest (it was using the planes we'd brought, though, not planes we'd made).
ReplyDeleteIt was, as you said, harder than I thought it would be. But I learned a lot about my planes in the process.
I had some aspirations of making a small memento box out of the board with smiley faces on each face, indicating they'd passed his inspection. But I still just have a board with smiley faces on it. Maybe it's better that way...
I'm still working on the faces of my board and would give anything to have one of those smiley faces. But, you're right, I'm learning more than I ever thought I would about my planes.
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