Thursday, April 12, 2018

Shop Countdown!

I rent a neighbour's garage to keep my large planer and jointer in.

The neighbour told me a while ago that I need to be out of there by the end of June. I will be selling the planer and probably the jointer as well. So before that happens I thought I had better get some of the slabs in there cleaned up, once the planer is gone it'll be a problem to flatten large slabs.

I have milled a lot of elm over the years, but there was one log in particular that really struck me. I gave several pieces of it away over the years, but still had three in my inventory. I cleaned this one up because it was the narrowest, the other two are too wide for the planer. I'm hoping to use this as a wall decoration in the house.



I also have a beautiful piece of figured Douglas Fir that was given to me a few years ago by my dad's cousin. He rescued it from a bonfire many years ago, I'm guessing in the 50's or 60's it still had burn marks on it when I got it! I was initially thinking I would resaw it up into panels and make a screen out of it. But once I cleaned it up I saw it had a lot of cracks in it, so still deciding what to do with it.


Probably my greatest treasure is four thick slabs of arbutus I milled up on Thetis Island several years ago. I had milled arbutus there previously, but the slabs I cut that first time were too thin. So these I milled at close to 4". Also, I had a ferry to catch that day so cutting thicker meant taking more wood home!

No immediate plans for this wood. It seems very stable compared to the previous arbutus I milled. Will continue to store it until the right inspiration strikes me!

This one I planed up several years ago, but I need to run it through again to take care of the lower left corner




This is a narrower piece that I mostly cleaned up today. Still needs another couple of passes to finish up. In comparison to the above piece, this one is quite a bit lighter. Shows how the arbutus will darken up with time.