20 March 2009

In the frame

I'm coming up to the point very shorty with the cherry table when I'll need that lump of burr stuff to go into the recesses machined last weekend, but as I won't be able to get hold of some until early April, another small project is looming.
Some time ago F&C's ed, Michael Huntley came round to my place for a natter and a brew (he also dropped me off some stuff for review, of which more later) and amongst the many and varied topics that we rambled on about was the ongoing series about the Barnsley 'shop and the sort of stuff that the lads get up to. Particularly interesting was something that's appeared now in a couple of issues and that's the use by the apprentices of a large continental style frame saw to cut curves (apparently the head honcho doesn't allow them to use a bandsaw in the early stages) and ever up for a bit a challenge...
...I volunteered to make one! Michael had mentioned that he'd asked a few of the boys if they'd fancy having a go at making one (to go into the mag as an article) but his suggestions fell on stony ground, so yours truly is going to have a go. The first thing I've got to do is to source some decent blades for the project but as luck would have it, I may be getting a couple of offcuts in the post next week from the now defunct Dragon saws, who by all accounts, make the best bandsaw blades in the UK.
Also in the course of the conversation that evening, we mentioned a small article in the current mag on the construction of those fiendishly difficult Far Eastern joints that don't use glue but rely on mechanical dovetails to hold everything together.
Give yourself a treat and have an extra biscuit to dunk in your tea if you can guess who's going to have a go at making one?

Better make that a whole packet...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those large frame saws always look rather unwieldly but Frank Klausz seems to use them very effectively, even on small stuff. Look forward to seeing it.

Cheers ;-)

Paul Chapman

Anonymous said...

You have probably been reading Bob Easton's blog on resawing by hand. Sounds like he has good advice on saw blades.
http://www.bob-easton.com/blog/?p=475