tannic acid, iron & moisture

a bad combo

We’ve hit a windy & cold snap here in southeastern Massachusetts - not frigid but cold enough. My shop time was a bit shorter today than normal, it took a while to get the room warm enough. But I had some physical work to do so that helped too. The shop work today was hewing and planing some green red oak boards - destined for carved boxes. The cold makes splitting the boards even easier than usual.

These bolts have a bit of twist in them when split out - so they need some axe work before I can plane them. Hanging around outside hewing them was a little uncomfortable, so I chose to hew them one at a time so I could go in and warm up.

the shaving’s great for photos, but wreaks havoc on the iron

Planing them was pretty straightforward. Scrub plane diagonally across the twisted corners, then cleanup with a jointer plane. I got a few of the wide ones (9”-10”) done and one leftover piece about 4” x 26”. I wasn’t planning on writing about today’s work, so shot no photos of the work.

a nice session of planing

Then when I got to cleaning up it hit me - that’s what I need to shoot - the mess that green oak makes with the plane irons.

it’s like a chemistry experiment