THE TOP PART 2

The first lamination was taken out of the clamps on Saturday morning - amid much anticipation. I then proceeded to attempt to flatten the top, and must say that I didn't do too badly. The corners still need a little work, but the surface (on the whole) has been flattened reasonably well.

I proceeded by cutting a pair of winding sticks, and used them to sight down the lamination to determine whether it was "in wind" or not. I also used a winding stick to check for surface flatness by dragging it along the top and marking areas where the stick did not touch the entire surface. All the time I was doing this, I continually checked for squareness.

Once I had an idea of what I was up against, I went at the surface with my Record No 6 Jointer Plane. I took overlapping strokes diagonally across the surface. Once the plane was making shavings along the full length of the cut, I presumed I had a somewhat flat surface. I then (using the jointer) took cuts down the length of the lamination, and then proceeded to take a final cut with a Stanley No 4 smoother.

My final checks with the winding sticks and a straight edge confirmed that I still have some work to do. That said however, the bulk of the work has been done thus far.

My idea is to get one side as near flat as possible, and then put the lamination through the thicknesser to ensure the opposite surface is equally flat.

The next four boards for the second lamination were the focus of my attention today. These were ripped to width on the table saw rather than the band saw, as I did with the first lamination. This proved to be a much better approach. I believe I will have a lot less planing to do when the clamps come off this lamination!

One final lamination awaits (the loose boards on the left)! The boards for this one will have to be very carefully thicknessed in order to get to my final width. When I measured the first two laminations, I noted that I'm around 20mm narrower than I anticipated. This is primarily due to having to remove more material when thicknessing than I anticipated. This should not be a major issue - it just means preparing another board for the third lamination.




Construction will now have to take a back seat for a week or two, whilst other more important porojects are tackled. Although somewhat repetitive and labour intensive, they can be tackled in the evenings which should (hopefully!) leave the weekends free to continue with Le Roubo. All that needs to happen is for me to clear some space to work in...!