Transitional That Works
| I
have had a fantasy for a while now. The fantasy goes, since you really
can't move the frog on a transitional plane, how would it be if the frog
and blade bedding were permanently lined up. Then a thick blade (yet to
come) and a small throat. Oh yeah, pretty wood, not that there's anything
wrong with beech. What could be wrong with that? A good woodie with
a blade adjuster.
I like small stuff anyway, so I thought I'd start there. Only, Stanley #21's don't grow on trees except the kind already covered with money and there aren't any of those growing in my yard. I had to wait. Eventually, just the thing came up on, er, uh, the scarcely mentionable place none of us wants to admit hanging around, but most do anyway. It had a broken frame. It had an unsalvageably abused body and blade. The price was right. Did you know it's possible to weld cast iron with ordinary methods? I took some skinny (1/16") sticks of 5010 very soft rod, turned the uh, not coal fired welding apparatus down to about 40 amps. After air cooling I laid it across my knee and gave it what for with both hands and, still OK. Next came regular baked japanning (thank you Bill and Nathan). Here comes the first question: A couple of years ago my mom gave me a piece of ebony (gotta love her) and a piece of something sold to her as rosewood for Christmas. The alleged rosewood is near heavy enough and hard and smells faintly rosy when cut, but is much lighter in color. I tried to get as close to the color as I could in the pic following this. Anyone have any idea what this stuff is? |
| If
your mind has jumped ahead you already know I used the roseish wood for
a body.
Here's the next question:
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