What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

A common question asked of children is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s almost like a game, and most children enthusiastically play along. It’s an imaginative game, and since there’s no pressure attached, they feel free to let their thoughts run and let their answers fly. We often hear the expected answers like “fireman” or “ballerina” or “singer”. But occasionally a child will think for a while and then respond with an “mmmm … I don’t know”. Maybe they truly don’t know, but I suspect that if they’re like I was, they just don’t want to say. I think some people realize at an early age that the lives they dream about don’t quite fit the expected pattern. I think they may somehow understand that the things they dream about would probably sound impractical or even irresponsible to most other people.

When I was about 10 or so, one of my aunts signed me up for a subscription to Boy’s Life magazine. Every issue of that magazine described boys doing things I could only dream of – adventures, new skills, learning outdoor things like tying knots, sailing a boat, making things out of sticks like whistles and slingshots, building a fire, raising a tent, hiking, swimming. Those boys were not like me, stuck at home all summer with nothing to do. They went to summer camps and had exciting fun-filled days doing neat things.

Then there was the series of boy’s adventure books, the name of which I can’t recall, that I found on our hallway bookshelf. The boys in these books were not like any of the boys I knew, not even like the boys in the magazine. These boys lived lives of constant high adventure. They were always hiking or canoeing hundreds of miles through the untouched forests of Maine or Canada or somewhere, finding excitement and danger around every turn. Man, that’s what I wanted to do. Nothing sounded finer.

The most enduring boyhood fantasy of mine was that of the eighteenth century American frontiersman. For some reason it was the perfect fantasy. I loved the whole idea of leaving home with a long rifle in my hand and a dog by my side, wearing buckskin leggins and a coon-skin cap, and heading off toward the western frontier territory of Kantukee. Leaving home and friends and walking into the “howling wilderness”. My daydreams never included much about fighting the Indians whose home I was invading … I just assumed I would live so much like them that we would become friends and learn from each other. I wanted to walk along animal paths under a canopy of hardwood trees, discovering waterfalls and hidden pastures dotted with grazing elk and buffalo that had never seen a man. I wanted to climb high into the Appalachian Mountains and peer far into the smoky distance. I wanted to follow creeks to their source, gather food from nature’s bounty, and hunt animals when necessary. I wanted to live like the natives, but never stay long in one place. I wanted to see everything unspoiled. I wanted to be away from factories and cars and planes and trains and schools and stores and houses. I wanted to lie awake at night and hear the whippoorwill and the panther. I wanted to discover where the animals live freely and without fear, to swim in undiscovered pools and drink from secret mountain springs. I simply wanted to be part of the world as it was meant to be.

Router

If you like woodworking, and you like tools, what better project for a weekend than making a woodworking tool? One specialty plane that I’ve been wanting is a router plane. These planes are used to level the bottom surface of grooves and dadoes which have been cut using a chisel or other tool. The planes come in various sizes and construction types. Most commercial ones are (were) made with a metal body, while most craftsman made routers (and a few manufactured ones) have wooden bodies.

Over this past weekend I made a router plane using John Wilson’s excellent instructions in the August 2005 edition of Popular Woodworking magazine. His photos and text made for a quick an simple project.

I formed the wooden body of the plane from a well-seasoned plank of white oak a friend had given me several years ago. Since I’m not a metalworker, making the right-angle cutter and the holder to attach it to the wooden body was obviously the most challenging task. I I did an ok job shaping and grinding the cutter and holder, and they do work, but I think some fine-tuning is in order.

I did find it humorous that I used an electric router to round over the edges of my new manual router. In fact, all the operations in making this hand tool were done with power tools … bandsaw, drill press, belt sander, drum sander, and router.

Post Haste

Ok, so I finished the trestle desk yesterday and asked my sweet wife to take a couple of pictures of it for me. In fact, I'm using the desk now as I write, and I must report that it completely fulfills its requirement of being a sturdy horizontal surface.

I think I'm supposed to write a whole bunch more now about how great it feels to be finished with the project, about all the things I learned, all the mistakes and problems I had to overcome, and my plans for the next project. Nah. Maybe later.

Resisting Temptation, and How Flat Is Flat?

I’m nearly finished except for the finishing.

What I mean is, I’ve nearly completed the woodworking portion of the Shaker Trestle Desk, and I’m almost ready to begin putting the finish on it. I think I’ll paint the support a nice dark green, and finish the top with a stain and a clear poly.

Last night I performed that ancient rite of passage into galoot-dom … the hand planing of a tabletop. I’d done quite a bit of surface planing before, but nothing is quite as satisfying as watching (and performing) the transformation of three common pine boards into a smooth, level tabletop. Considering the fact that I was using 4/4 pine from the local building supply center, the edge jointing and gluing resulted in a pretty level surface. The misalignment of the individual boards did not exceed 1/32 of an inch in the worst places.

I did all of the planing with a jack plane. My attempts to improve the surface with my old wooden coffin smoother were disappointing. The plane felt and acted like it’s bottom had gone convex since the last time I used it. I also tried a few strokes with an ancient No. 3, but it seemed only to want to gouge and catch. ( Looks like I have some tuning up of planes to do before my next project.) So, after rounding the edges with a block plane, I removed the few remaining plane marks on the top with a good helping of hand sanding. I’ll sand again with a couple higher grits tonight, then it’s out of the cold garage and into the warm kitchen for a little finishing.

There were a couple of times during this project when I really thought about rolling out a power tool. Like when I needed to drill a couple of ½ inch draw-bore holes for the pegs in the leg joinery. I seriously considered using the drill press because I didn’t want to mess up the framework that far into the project. In the end, I carefully used a brace and bit. Then there was the temptation to use my bandsaw to form the large leg tenons. But I used a backsaw with a bench hook, and cleaned them up with a shoulder plane. Easy.

This project feels like it’s taking a long time. But then, I’m only working on it a couple hours a day, a couple days a week. I don’t think the choice to use only hand tools had much impact on the time. I know from experience that setting up a power tool and running several test cuts can really chew up valuable shop time. Sometimes I think “designing on the fly” is what actually takes up the majority of my time. Now that the design and construction details are complete, I’m sure building a second one would take less than half the time of the first.