We have blizzard conditions today: 10°F, and the wind chill factor is -9°F, snow falling to the point we cannot see the end of the driveway 150 feet away.

Edit at 10:02 PM, to add: The local news confirmed we had blizzard conditions for two hours today.

The shop temperature was set to 60°, and the thermostat registered 62°F. Perfect conditions in the shop to start milling the boards for the cabinet door frames, and let them acclimate for a few days.

I selected one narrow black cherry board with nice, straight grain. Don’t want the frames competing with the nice spalted maple I will use for the panels in the cabinet doors. With the jig saw to cut the board into three pieces, keeping track of where each piece belonged, to make sure I could get some continuity in the frames. Then on to the jointer, to quickly flatten one face, and one edge on each board.

I started to systematically remove covers from gears, and manually rotating parts. Everything was nice and smooth. The blades were nice and sharp. The pressure rollers felt a little grimy – to be expected, but I patiently took the time to clean them until no more stuff came off. Sooooo… What now?

As I concentrated on the hardware stuff too much, I failed to realize the table was not very slick. In fact, the table was just not allowing my hand to glide on the surface. I suspected that the last time we made toys for the Christmas charity event, and I ran some pine through the planer, some pitch got on the table.

Out came the paste wax, and the table felt a whole lot better in just a few minutes. I continued to look around the machine innards, and nothing stood out. The chip chute was clean, no obstructions anywhere. I was very reluctant to run the planer with all the gears exposed, so I assembled it, and tried it one more time.

Now the boards glided through the planer as nicely as when I first assembled it years ago. The table needed a wax job!

Moral of the story: January IS the month my machines need attention – no wonder they have all been cranky lately. They have just been feeling neglected. Routine maintenance for me is always in January, as we start the year.

SUGGESTION: I suggest you take a good, thorough once-over at your machines at least on a yearly basis, and do all the routine maintenance in January. OR, pick YOUR time to do it. But always try to do it on the same month, and as needed.

I love my planer again! But it does require normal, routine care.

The DW735 is available
through my Amazon Store

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the shop to fiddle with my square, saw and pricker.— Christopher Schwarz, Jan. 26, 2008

And so signs off Chris his latest entry, “Fascination with Fore Planes“, which appeared today on his personal blog at Lost Art Press: Blog. From his entry I learned a new word, one that I will start using right away, too – it is both respectable, and fashionable: Pricker. And I love it!

“The smoothing plane marked B 4. must have its iron set very fine, because its office is to smooth the work from those irregularities the fore plane made.”

Joseph Moxon’s “Mechnick Exercises” – 1678 (reviewed by Christopher Schwarz)

This one made my day. I was so happy to learn that 330 years ago no one seemed to worry about making gossamer shavings with a smoothing plane! So, I have quit worrying about it; but I will definitely make it my objective to get better with my hand tools, all of them, including the fore plane, the smoother and yes, the pricker.

Long story, short: I left Chris a Comment, thanking him for making my day with his review of this old book. After all, if they did not worry about thin shavings in 1678, why should I worry about it today? I will simply set my B 4. iron very fine… I can already see a much larger duty for my scrapers on a daily basis from now on… and maybe even my drum sander, followed by the scraper. I agree: It is an obsession with these large tools!