Resawing shelves, continued

Back at the cottage with some time to spare, so I soldiered on with the kerfing plane. In this pic you can see the mini bench or table vise from Sjöbergs, makers of the fantastic workbenches. I have it mounted on the veranda with machine screw inserts so it fairly rigid, at least as rigid as the quite rickety house. 

One more pic to show you the surroundings. Even in bleak November weather, there is no place as beautiful as this archipelago. 



To make the kerfs in the ends of the board I needed a bigger vise so I relocated to the workshop where my bench and shopmade wooden vise resides. 



Once the board was slotted all around I enlisted my wife Ann to help me wrangle the humongous frame saw. It rips like crazy, and works especially well in dry mahogany. Walnut and cherry tend to steer the blade with the longer fibers but today the blade followed the kerfs just as intended. 



And the first slice is off the board. It took us around 40 minutes and we are still married so I count that as a total success. Maybe we’ll attack the next slice tomorrow, after hunting seafowl in the morning. 

Old guitar in for repair

My friend bought this ancient guitar at an auction, and I’ll have a look at it to try to fix some more or less obvious issues. It’s at least 100 years old so I will tread carefully. 

The brand is ”Nya Musikinstrumentfabriken Göteborg” and the instrument is very similar to the parlour guitars from Levin. 



Issue 1. A crack in the top with the accompanying loose brace. The top is on the thicker side and the crack is fairly tight so pretty easy [in theory].



Issue 2. The bridge. Not only is it lifting, it has the fret wire saddle and the peg holes are worn. Plus it might be in the wrong place, I haven’t measured it yet. Maybe it can be fixed, maybe I’ll make a new bridge. 



Issue 3. A crack in the headstock, plus the tuners are wonky and mismatched. Might need to change them. 



Issue 4. The neck most likely needs to be reset. I’ve done this to a couple of cheapos but need to stock up on better equipment to do a clean job. 



Issue 5. The back of the neck has been… run over by a lawnmower? Used to parry sword blows? We’ll becer know but it will have to be at least sanded but probably carved. Then stained and lacquered. 



This’ll be fun. I will use it as an excuse to learn how to work with hide glue, and I will rewatch all Woodford’s vids on youtube. 

I’m alive, and the Apa is Arg!

Hell-o my friendly readers. Please forgive me for being absent for four months. As you may remember the workshop is packed in crates (and heaps) and other stuff is going on. We’ve moved to a new apartment, one of those bog standard ones with no workshop, and we’re building a new house nay an entire homestead. 

But when packing stuff away earlier this summer I stumbled upon that fine mahogany bookcase I got from a friend, and I’ve been longing to start working on it. So I chose two pieces with fine grain and cut the edges and ends square. Then I set the kerfing plane and started. 

First pic. Remember the frame saws? I built the wee one myself with a blade from Badaxe Toolworks. The huge one I bought at a flea market. 

Here you can see the grain. The length of the boards makes it possible to make one piece rims for sopranos, that is my preference these days. Tops and backs will of cöurse be one piece. 



Slicing off the bead at the front edge…



… and cutting the ends square. 



My shopmade kerfing plane takes a while to set up. I want to slice these into three pieces. 



The outer pieces will be 4 mm, the middle piece slightly thicker. This will give me some wiggle room. 



The cuts will go around all four edges to steer the frame saw blade, I will continue next time I’m at the cottage. 



And the homestead project then: