ground zero present

title> Freedom Tower Site
source> My Flickr

Part of the perks of my job is getting to work on or next to interesting projects. I was recently working on a building adjacent to ground zero and got to snap some pictures of it from above. As you can see, they've started quite a bit of work on the new freedom tower site. I just thought I'd share since it's such a symbol.

dreams will be dreams?

title> Sampling of Hardware
material> various
source> My Flickr

It's an ongoing dream of mine to attend The North Bennett Street School in Boston, MA. It is a trades school that has quite a reputation. They recently had their annual open house, so I decided to go and check it out, again. This was the second time I've gone there and everytime I go I just yearn more and more to attend. I believe that one day, I'll be in a position to at least take classes there but that day is not today so it's kind of a moot point. Anyway, It was very nice to get to talk to people in all of the programs. I'm particularly interested in the Preservation Carpentry program and Furnituremaking/Cabinetmaking program, go figure. The focus of this school is fine craftsmanship and it is absolutely apparent when you walk into every classroom. Workbenches are filled with objects of beauty and attention to detail. You can tell they spend a lot of time going over handskills and technique.


title> Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
source> My Flickr

While in Boston I also went to see the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum. If you are ever in Boston I think it's probably one of my top 3 things to go see. Bascially its a retired mansion turned museum filled with perfectly preserved books, antiques, and art masterpieces. You would never know of all the treasures that hid inside from the outside of the building but that's part of the awesomeness.

yosegi

my latest research obsession has been Yosegi (japanese mosaic style) and Himitsu-Baku (japanese puzzle boxes). Ironically, the first time I saw one of these boxes was in Epcot Center at Walt Disney World. I guess that's why I love disney world so much, it always suprises me. Anyway, I spent a long time playing with it and figuring it out. I couldn't believe how precise all the joints were and the mosaic work. Not to mention if all the box did was just sit there that would be beautiful enough. There is not a whole lot of information that I could find on making these boxes but I did find a little bit about them. You can click here if you want to read more about the art of yosegi.


title> Himitsu-Baku Japanese Puzzle Box
style> Yosegi
material> wood and mosaic wood
source> Yosegi.net and Yosegipuzzlebox.com

work meetings

title> Trinity Building Lobby in Manhattan
style> Gothic I believe
material> Wood, Stained Glass, Awesomeness
source> my flickr> blog photos

I happened to have a meeting in the trinity building in manhattan this week. Managed to get some not so stellar photographs. But it was one of the most amazingly beautiful building i've been to in a while. The exterior is really exquisite too but I didn't take a picture of it.

plane progress

title> Masking before the painting
source> my flickr> blog photos

title> Still a ways to go but look how shiny it is!
source> my flickr> blog photos

title> Not a bad start
source> my flickr> blog photos

My plane restoration is coming along slowly mostly because my time is limited. But anyway I thought I'd post some pictures. I started with cleaning up the body. I used some naval jelly to eat the rust and then I gave it a nice fresh coat of rust-begone-leum. Mostly I've just been lapping the sole. go figure. started with 100 grit and decided that I'd be better starting off with a lower grit. we shall see how that goes. At least things are starting to look nice. Maybe I'll take a break from lapping and sand the handles.

hand plane anatomy

title> Anatomy of a Hand Plane
style> diagram
source> Taunton Press> Using Bench Planes Article

Like most beginner woodworkers everything I'm doing is self-taught. As well, this will be my first time of tuning up a hand plane. I thought that it might be useful to post some of the resources that I've found to figure out how to do this. Also, I decided it wouldn't hurt to just post a diagram of all the plane parts since every article talks about specific plane parts and it would be pretty hard to understand what they're talking about it you don't have a diagram.

As for hand plane restoration here are some videos and websites that I've read/watched through to mix and match a method for restoring my new-old planes:

Woodtreks's Website> Tune-Up and Restore Your Hand Plane Video
Folding Rule Show Blog> Stanley Hand Plane Restoration Parts I, II, and III
Major Panic's Website> Hand Plane Restoration Images (I'm mostly using this as my guide)

restoring my hand planes

title> ebay special handplanes
style> old
source> my Flickr>l Handplane Restoration

So I've been busy restoring my old-new planes. They finally arrived in the mail after some mailing issues. I purchased a #4 and #5 Stanley-Bailey handplane from ebay a while ago. I got them for about $20 each. The list price for the #4 is $64.99 and #5 is $74.99. I'm curious to see how much time/money it will take to restore them compared to the cost of a new one. They actually didn't look too bad when I opened the box. The bottoms are pretty flat already which is the biggest deal when buying a handplane. I think the irons are pretty salvagable as well. All the parts are there and none of the screws are broken or rusted through. The only thing that was not so nice that I'll probably replace is the handle on the #4. Looks like the previous owner tried to make their own replacement and did a bad job fitting it. There is a bit of rust but that was expected and I'll be dealing with that in the restoration. There will be more pictures to come following my process.