I’ll get right to it – you should have been there. If you were there, lucky you. The news is that we’ve folded up our Plymouth CRAFT tent and it will come to life in a different form. The new program under development now—the Plymouth CRAFT Experience at the Plymouth (Massachusetts) Public Library — will carry on much of our core mission in a different format, and, we fervently hope, expose new audiences to a wider world of traditional craft than our former incarnation allowed.
Two things that struck us almost immediately from our Plymouth CRAFT experience; one is that there was a great interest in our work, a desire to connect through craft. The other is that we found such a great, supportive audience – they found us, I guess. But we were always so taken with the audience’s overwhelming response to what we had to offer. And we continue to be appreciative of that fact. It was the greatest, thanks to all who made it happen.
I’ve posted several new entries over on the new blog, https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/ up to 5 posts there now. But here’s one that hasn’t got there yet. I have a new log of near-perfect red oak (technically black oak, quercus velutina). The first things I need to get from this log are a slew of thin wide boards for drawer bottoms, soffit boards and the floor to the upper case of the cupboard I’m making. I had the bottom section of the log cut to just over 2 feet long and split that into 1/16ths to get it home.
wide bolts for panels
Then I take these one at a time and split, hew & plane what I can get out of it. The trick sometimes is getting the most out of each bolt. In this case, it wanted to be split in thirds. Not always easy to do, often quite difficult. Perfect straight-grained stock helps. This log had a lot of sapwood – I split it off first thing. Firewood.
On the end of the bolt, I measure the spacing into thirds. Do this on both ends. In this case, the spacing at the narrow edge was 5/16″ or so. At the wider edge nearly 2″. Then score across those lines by whacking the froe gently into the end grain. I barely want a split to start this way.
layout
Then ease thin wedges into the split – I use 2 at a time. Don’t strike them hard, just coax them into place.
Once those splits begin showing up down the sides of the bolt, stop. Knock those wedges out and flip the thing over & repeat.
splits begun
Once a crack has started from each end, then I work the wider end first and drive the wedges in eventually splitting off one-third. Here the last action was a wedge driven in the thin edge to connect the dots.
success
From there it’s easy, just riving the leftover section in half. These boards were about 9″ to 9 1/2″ wide at one end, a little more than 8″ at the other.
the easy part
I’ve only had good results splitting into thirds with dead-straight stock and fairly short lengths. It was Drew Langsner who first showed me that it’s even possible. Takes some extra care, hurrying doesn’t work. But in this case, that wide clear oak is worth every minute you spend to get it. These boards are rough-planed just over 1/2″ thick at the outer edge. They’ll be stacked & stickered and dried for a month or so. Then re-planed to final dimensions and installed.
I’ve been following Chris Schwarz’ new blog The American Peasant https://christopherschwarz.substack.com/ and seeing how that’s been going I decided to join the fray. Frankly, it’s ultimately a chance for me to (hopefully) earn some income from writing these posts.
There’s lots of reasons I’ve written this blog since 2008, but it does require a chunk of time for each post. Between shooting photos, writing, putting it together – I’m not complaining, just pointing out one reason there’s not as many posts as there once was.
moldings for the cupboard
From what I can see, there’s two layers to things there. One is subscriptions – you sign up and get all the posts emailed to you. The free setting equals fewer posts. To begin with, there’s no charge – so people can see if they like it. Those of you who’ve been reading here for any length of time – what you’ll see there will be much like here. My aim is to post the longer, more detailed things there, shorter stuff here. And we’ll see how that goes.
This blog won’t go away no matter what. There’s over 1,500 posts here. So lots of free stuff to read here. If you can stand it.
I don’t deal with deadlines. It’s a good thing, too. Today, in between other things, I was planing some molding to set on the deep drawer’s front. The first task is to make some beveled oak framing – just about 2″ wide x 3/8″ thick. Tapering down to about 1/8″ on its thin edge. So I planed a bunch of it and then started mitering it to make the frames.
deep drawer front decoration underway
They surround this drawer front – to mimic two side-by-side drawers perhaps. And they cover the exposed through dovetails on this drawer.
through joinery no more
But the last long piece was too thin. And I was too tired to make another. Thus, tomorrow’s another day. Here’s where the drawer front stands now – after I get that last outer framing done, there’s a small 5/8″ wide molding cut to go around the inside of these two frames.
one more to go, then 20 more after that
The small triangular bits are maple, as is the center vertical rectangle. In this case, figured maple. I don’t usually use figured wood – it’s just not my bag. I bought this board over 10 years ago at the local home center (the one with blue stuff, not the one with orange stuff). Saw it there and my then-young son was with me. I explained to him that this wood is not my usual thing, but I was buying it because it shouldn’t have been there to begin with. I was afraid it would go to waste. So over the last ten years I’ve managed to use up some small bits of it here & there. This cupboard has small sections of maple on three of the four drawers and a few pieces in the upper case too. I’ll still have lots of it leftover.
figured maple
Here’s my previous take on this drawer, in progress – all it has left are the two most difficult pieces to cut & fit. So that’s what’s ahead of me for this drawer. Then some turnings.
PETER FOLLANSBEE: JOINER’S NOTES 
