I like to joke that Liz is the brains AND the muscle behind Cape Falcon Kayak. Beyond her miraculous ability turn my nearly illegible scribblings into professional looking boat plans, and make me look slightly less dumb on camera, she often steps up to do the hardest physical work that I can’t due to...
"Liz tackles the oar build"Continue readingCategory: Tool Notes
I LOVE this old machine but knife changes really suck
I LOVE this old machine but knife changes really suck. Every stick of bending oak we use or sell starts out by getting planed down by this 1940s direct drive 12 inch Parks planer. With that workload steel knives only make it about three months before they need to be re-sharpened, which isn’t terribly...
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Video: Oar building, part 4
A basic theme to all of my paddle and oar building is to do all the work on any given work surface before un-clamping and moving on. This saves a surprising amount of time on changeovers. Another way to speed things up is to get organized and work methodically through the abrasives. Before I...
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Video: Oar building, part 3
After a lifetime of building solid wood oars last year I switched to laminating and haven’t looked back. Laminating makes for a more economical use of the wood, it lets you double check the shaft for straightness before you get deeply committed into shaping that oar, it makes it easier to shape the shaft...
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This clever little tool is called a Slickplane
This clever little tool is called a Slickplane. Technically a radius plane, it rides the corner of a piece of wood and breaks the edge. Truthfully these are poorly manufactured and fussy to get running cleanly, (hence the video outtake) but they also aren’t that expensive and make the tedious job of rounding stringers...
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Video: Running bending oak through the 1940s Parks planer
When I first started buying bending Oak from Ben Deumling of Zena Forest Products there was no amount of money I could pay him to run this tough wet wood through his planer. The issue is that green white oak is just dripping with tannic acid which is pretty brutal on tools that would...
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Just to be 1000% clear, I am in no way endorsing this madness. But it does work….
Just to be 1000% clear, I am in no way endorsing this madness. But it does work.......
New carbide knives for the planer
In theory these carbide-tipped planer knives should save me a lot of time, and therefore money, on blade changes. This is of course assuming that I can break the bad habit of running nails through the planer. We shall see......
Video: The Parks planer devouring some reclaimed fir
With a steady diet of silica and tannic acid working with bending Oak and reclaimed Douglas Fir is a mouthful for any planer. This direct drive 1942 Parks planer chows down....
Do I really need that many clamps?
Back in the shop, laminating boards for the gunwales for a new set of canoes. People always ask if they really need to buy that many clamps. The answer is yes, buy the clamps. They’re a buck apiece at the big box stores, and good clamping makes all the difference in a successful lamination....
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