TOOL TOYS

A few exciting things (for me, anyway) happened in my garage last month. Building a japanese hand plane has always been a fun project that I wanted to attempt, but I never really had a reason to make one,  and so worked on other, more important things. I finally got my chance, though, when I realized that my workbench top had cupped pretty severely from humidity changes. If I was going to flatten it, I would need a giant hand plane. I finally had my excuse!

Here is the end result. Technically, this is called a jointer plane.... The plane has a 2" iron that I stole from my jack plane, and is pretty close to 2 feet long. I made the whole body from purple heart, so this thing should last me a lifetime! It cuts like a charm, and before I knew it, I had an entire trash barrel full of thin wood shavings, and a very flat workbench. This tool could easily cost over 200 dollars in a store, and I was able to make it from things I already had in my garage, free of charge :)

        

Here is a side view. The metal iron is held in place by a wedge. The plane body, which is perfectly flat,  rides across the humps and bumps in wood, and shaves a thin slice off the high spots, leaving a flat surface behind after a few passes. If you've ever used a mandolin in the kitchen, then you've pretty much used a very crude, upside down hand plane....

Once I was done with my hand plane and workbench, my pile of drill bits started to irritate me, so I made this drill bit organizer. I drilled a hole with every single bit, and now they all fit perfectly in their own spot. This only took a couple hours to make, and has already saved me from lots of frustration, and also made my work a little better, since I can easily find the exact bit that I need.

And finally, the most exciting thing to happen to my garage in a long, long time... here's my new band saw. After using it for a few weeks, I couldn't be happier with it. It makes my life much much easier and allows me to easily do things that would be impossible or dangerous on the table saw.