Monday, November 3, 2014

Ripping

It's been a while, sorry about that, but there was not much saw sharpening going on.

I've been ripping a lot of stock. Some ash legs for a table in dumpster wood, resawing some spruce for a lid, and more ash I'm cutting quarter sawn for some marquetry idea I have. Hint: desert and swiss painter.

Anyway, here a mock up of the table. I ran out of glue so cannot yet finish the inlay.


The legs are ash from a piece I bought when I arrived to Graz. I bought it in a tischlerei, and they charged me twice the market price of ash.


This is directly from the saw.  I used nice steel (295mm) to cut this one. 

For the other piece I'm quarter sawing, I decided to try the smaller ryoba I got from Sakura pink. I touched the rip side. Take note: first the vertical side, then the bevel. 

I mark by hand a line, and start cutting from the 4 sides, trying to meet in the middle. 



This is the angle I like for ripping. The sound of the saw must be soft and high pitched. Not the rak rak rak of each teeth, but a continuous sound. When you change the angle, the sound changes too. Find your flow, don't press too much, go fast. Enjoy the saw dust flight out of the groove.  


 An indiscreet shot.

Could be straighter.

But after all, it was not so bad.


I should have cut more lengthwise to avoid the cupping in the middle.

After that, it goes to the plane:


Yes, I'm using a japanese plane. I must concede, Jason, that it is lighter than my No 4. This expensive ash didn't only have worms, it's also a pain in neck to plane. Raising grain all over the place, that's why I plane perpendicular to the grain.


I'm using a pseudo-Tanaka workbench. A piece of rosewood in the tail vice is my plane stop.


Close up to the shavings.


And that was tonight. I'm thinking of something along these lines. Marquetry, squares, colours.


Oh, and I forgot to say that it's a really good exercise. Ripping some 40x40cm feels like 10 minutes light running. For the legs of the table I even managed to sweat a tad.


Edit: teeth for ripping hard wood

2 comments:

  1. The wood may have been expensive, but that will matter little in the long run. With all of that beautiful "fleck" in the grain, it's not surprising that tear-out is a concern..... But so nice to see!

    Your workshop is looking very comfortable, and more lived in by the day. Are you familiar with Mafe@lumberjocks? Perhaps it is the European angle, but I can't help but wonder if your workshop will rival his, someday. So many nice tools. Nice kanna BTW!

    Jason

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  2. Thanks a lot for the compliment. I really like Mafe's stuff. Before moving here he was one of the few amateur japanese woodworkers I knew of. Lots of inspiration taken from him.

    I guess it's the white walls and the european bench. I'm gonna miss my little entrance hall workshop.

    And yep, the grain is really nice. I hope I can make something nice out of it.

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