Mix and Match (III)

Moving right along with post 3 in the series. I’m building something, using joinery and mis-matched bits of wood. A hack job really, but I’m having fun.

I ran out of the Jatoba so for the next bits I needed to dredge up some more material from my wood rack. Looking amongst the choices, which were hardly extensive, I decided that Ipe would be sound punishment for past transgressions. After a round of jointing and planing, I got out the small kebiki to mark out tenon shoulders:

Then I started to rough out the tenons with the router table:

For my own amusement, I decided it would be fun to do quintuple through tenons. Once roughed out, I pared the end grain to the line:

Another view-  narrow side:

The completed tenons:

The Ipe seems like a combination of teak and lignum vitae in its working qualities. Not as hard as Lignum V, and not as abrasive as teak. It seems to have long cells and is quite elastic. It has fluorescent green dust in its pores, which reminds me a bit of Honduran Mahongany and the dust that that wood has in its pores. I wonder what the green dust is? Is it the missing ingredient in some sort of haute cuisine? Could I make big money off it?

So far so good with the Ipe, It machines cleanly and it will be interesting to see how it hand planes tomorrow.

I had time to get some mortising done too. I considered using my hollow chisel mortiser for this, but decided that the router was going to enable a more precise result. Here are the mortises roughed out in the four posts:

I’ll pare those tomorrow and should be able to fir the parts together. A fair bit of mortise and tenon work to come yet.

All for today. With the writing work I have for the carpentry study group, along with other design work, I am only getting in half-days at the shop. The space is unheated and daylight limited, so it is just as well.  ➼ on to post IV