by Argus » 24 May 2021, 12:45
Some 20-odd years ago I began making rocking chairs....... basically Windsor-type construction with a pair of curved rockers on the legs.
They sold very well despite the extravagance of cutting the curved rocker sections out of a solid piece. At that time I obtained a record No 020. I think that it was a refugee from a closed down school or college, judging by the prominent initials inscribed on the body.
So, I'd rough out the rockers on a band saw, glue them together in twos or fours with newspaper glue-webbing between each and the idea was to refine the shape both inside and outside with the Compass plane, removing the saw marks and refining the sides to the next stage which, after knocking the glue-paper joint apart, was the shaping and free-hand spoke-shaving.
That was the idea, anyway.
I must fess-up to spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get the thing to work..... down each side to the centre point of the curve, traveling with the grain. Ignoring the fact that the plane likes a circular shape if it has a choice, my rockers were a sort of free-hand ellipse. As for the occasional bit of wild grain..... the plane always threw a wobbly and dug in.
Anyway, I gave up and went to it with a home-made roughing contraption, half scraper, half spoke-shave.
The Record No: 020 sat on the shelf for many years until it was joined by another, almost identical which was given to me as a shed-rescue-clear-out, with the words,
"you do a bit of carpentry, don't you? Can you find a use for this? It's very valuable!"
I seldom make many rockers any more, but fast forward a bit, (about 10 years ago) and I acquired a Stanley No: 82 Scraper - basically because the owner had no use for it - not as a scraper, anyway.
Stanley 82 Scraper. This is probably the most brilliant bit of kit that Stanley never sold in the UK, in my opinion.
Rare as Rocking-Horse poo, over here but plentiful over there. It is capable of attacking all sorts of concave and convex curves regardless of shape changes if you're prepared to experiment with a couple of spare No: 80 scraper blades and varying degrees of set. In short, it will do everything that a compass plane will do with far less gambling involved, because, good as the Record No: 020 is.... I couldn't get on with it.
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