Southeast Michigan Woodworkers

Well, due to a bit of luck and logistical convenience coupled with increasing gas prices, I now get to carpool 4 days per week.  This means that I get a little time almost every morning to spend in my shop waiting for my ride to arrive.  This morning I was able to spend some time using some new-old hand planes on some curly maple.  While there was a little tearout, it still looked really nice.  Thank’s to Jim Crammond for providing some great planes to start learning with.  I have noticed that I favor tilting the plane towards myself, which causes less than perpendicular edges.  I was able to rectify that a little bit by skewing the plane as I pushed forward.  I think, at least on edge grain this tends to allow the plane to balance a bit more on the thin side of the board.  After about 30 minutes of plane work last night, I can see why Rob Cosman from LN is built like an English Bulldog.  I was sweating profusely.  Anyway, I guess the moral for the day is that a good tool gets you interested enough to continue to hone a skill while a bad tool can keep you from even trying.