Battari Shōgi 14

Not much to post today, picture-wise. I have completed finish planing of the pieces and they are now in stage 2 of the oiling process. I should be able to assemble the frame in a couple of days, and then it will need a round of tenon trimming and followed by a final oiling session.

As far as the planing went, I found that my Funahiro 70mm smoother, which has a slightly steeper bedding angle and blade bevel, stood up quite a bit better to the Wenge than my Ichihiro 70 mm smoother, which has a more acute blade bevel. In either case, the sub-blade seemed unnecessary as the shavings I get are quite short with this wood. Another curiosity was that Wenge seems to plane with greater ease, by far, on edge grain than on face grain. And end grain planing? I didn’t even attempt it! (shudder!)

Here’s the last couple of photos of the planing process, here on edge grain of the main frame rails:

I had to drive down to Connecticut today to retrieve the garden lantern and Black Walnut Vanity (detailed in previous posts from last year) from a gallery. The pieces sat there over the Christmas period, and while there was apparently a fair amount of interest in the pieces, no one puled the trigger. Well, I guess it was better that they got some exposure in a gallery over the past 6 weeks instead of in my house, where the viewing audience is rather limited to say the least. Anyway, while I was driving I was thinking about the hinge pin assembly for this project. I’m not totally happy with the way it came out – the Lignum Vitae is more of a contrast with the Wenge than I had anticipated, and not in an attractive way, and I’m not exactly enthralled with the final shape of the piece either. I feel that they stick out like sore thumbs – in fact they look a little bit like sore thumbs!:

So I have decided to revise that piece of the puzzle. I will re-machine the hinge pieces to as to turn them into floating pins like I used on the main bench hinges, and then mortise these pins into some Wenge stock (an extra foot of which I will have to buy, as I have done this entire project with no extra material whatsoever). That way the hinges will look virtually identical to the pine ones in the original (which they are replacing), and have the benefit of the Lignum Vitae for the critical wear area of each hinge, and I won’t have to alter any other parts of the bench. A little extra work, but it won’t take too long and I think it will improve the piece a fair bit. All I have to do now is call my friend George and see if I can beg/buy a little more time on his old lathe.

In other news, I have a presentation coming up at the Boston Children’s Museum this coming Sunday, as part of their Japanese New Year’s festivities (O-Shogatsu), and I will be spending a bit of time over the next couple of days getting ready for that.

All for today, and thanks for dropping by. Post 15 to follow.