more knitting

'Cello 2 part 2

The 'cello is coming along well. I have the profile cut out and being smoothed with lots of planing and scraping

 The finger board is almost cone except the concave hollow at the end.

The bridge is also coming along, the blank has been cut out of a split and dried maple billet (piece of firewood) and I am slowly bringing it to final thickness.

A slightly blurry but closer look at the birds-eye grain on the finger board

Compass plane

This little project turned out much better than I thought it would. First off, it was only 8 hours between cutting out the tool and the tools first cut. including glue drying time. Secondly, it works great. Thirdly, It replaces a $40 tool for only $3 which was the cost of the cheap trimming plane that i used for the blade and cap iron

I am aiming to repeat this on different types of planes using circular saw blades cut up to make blades, and tapped scrap steel as cap irons.
It cuts well even in birds-eye maple, which is also what is made of. I would like to get a few coats of shellac on it, except I'm always using it.

Goals for next plane; a narrower, even mouth and more camber.

'cello 2, part 1

Electric cello number 2 is already under way. It's going to be a 5 string. I've cut 3 profiles out of 1.5" birdseye maple which was a breeze thanks to my new band-saw .

 

I then laminated the 3 sections and cut the neck and tail profiles

I also have the fingerboard cut and shaped, more pictures to follow 

gouge

This gouge is one of the first things I made in my forge It took me a few months to really getting around to sharpening and setting it in a handle. Now it works alright in tight curves. It is almost a bowl gouge in terms of angle

 the handle was really hastily made just a dowel with a slot cut in it with polyurethane glue and sawdust mixed to fill around the tool .

Again my first attempt at forging and blacksmithing so not so pretty results

Draw knife

In order to make my tool collection more complete without spending much money I have been trying my hand at tool making 

 First off is a simple small draw knife. It is a piece of flat stock twisted with a vice and blow torch then hardened in my charcoal forge to martensite then tempered slightly

 It holds an amazingly sharp edge I can slice quite easily into soft woods almost an inch and the small handles give good close control

And of course I  made a leather sheath for it

bike trailer

I built a bike trailer a year and a half ago. Using an old bed-frame and a sawzall, hacksaw and an arc welder. it fits standard bike front wheels in all diameters.
the original incarnation had very simple wooden sides and a hand made universal joint attached to the seat-post as a hitch.

 

 I was able to haul 4 sheets of plywood through a muddy two track with it on a single speed road bike. once you got off the bike it would eventualy lift the bike off the ground.

I eventually added a tailgate to make it more sturdy and less likely to lose small objects. I replaced the universal joint with an old socket u-joint my home built one worked fine but rattled and squeaked endlessly at the same time I also replaced the aluminium clamp with a steel shaft clamp.

After a year of this set up (including 2 months with skis in place of wheels) I decided to upgrade the bed with a beefier, bigger one