Resawing

Time to put the bench to the test, and for posting about something other than that bench. Remember the extremely large board I split late last year? It was time to split it again. When I did it by myself last time it tirned out a bit wavy and uneven in the cut. But I enlisted my brother to hold the other end of the frame saw, and in the pic here he can be seen working the kerfing plane to make the slot around the edge to guide the blade. 

I usually go at it from the corners, but with assistance I found out that going perpendicular to the grain was better and produced a straighter cut. At least in mahogany, more below about another species. 



You can see here I needed to scrub plane the first bit where we did move in from the corners, we got a hump in the middle there but the rest was a great success. The middle piece that was uneven from earlier got a couple of holes but will give me a one piece rim, and top and bottom for at least one soprano. The good board in the pic will yield much more. 



Then I moved on to a piece of cherry that could give me material for two piccolos. First I sliced off two rims on the table saw, then I worked the kerfing plane around the edges. Cherry is hard to resaw with the frame saw as the blade tends to veer off on acount of the fibres. Also you can see my laziness beard, I am off work you know. 



I used the smaller frame saw but would maybe have had greater success with the huge one. Not in the pic is my brother who once again came to my aid holding the far end of the saw. 



Here’s where I ended up: the two rims at the back, then the lump to the right will become necks. In the foreground are the two larger slices that will give me the backs and tops, and the leftover chunk beneath them could become a few traveller blanks. Loads of fun, as always!