Planing some red oak

with a video and some bluebirds

atmospheric, but not much for details

Most days in the shop lately include some rough-planing of very green oak - continuing to process a log I got back in December. Today I was making the stiles for some joined stools that I’m making for a client. The stiles finish at 2” square and about 24” long. I plane them twice, once now while they’re easiest to work. Then several weeks from now I’ll re-plane them to their final dimension.

While I was doing that work I shot a couple of photos - but for me to get good photos I need to block the bright sunshine coming in the windows over the bench. And on a cold winter day like this - I’m reluctant to block out the sun. With the sunshine, I get photos like the one at the top of this post - it’s all atmospheric, but useless for seeing any thing.

Here’s one of the riven blanks I started with. It’s so close to perfect that it barely needs planing.

I wish they all grew like this

When I have stock like this - dead-straight and narrow - I go right to the jointer plane. No need for hewing, scrub or fore plane - none of that. I use two jointers - one set to take a heavy shaving - used on the radial faces and the other a bit lighter shaving for the tangential or growth ring faces. Why those two surfaces work differently is beyond me - but it’s particularly noticeable.

That stile worked up so easily - it was great fun for a few minutes. The log is pretty large, so I could split two rows of these stiles between the bark and the inner part of the tree. But the inside stiles needed a little more work that those from out near the bark. This one had a wiggle in it - not enough to discard it, but a little more planning and effort when working it.

bump

The wood took a wavy path around a knot in the middle of the log. The top of that bump where my plane iron is had to be cut down first before I could shave the whole length of the stile. They can’t all be perfect. This one took a few extra minutes but came out just fine.