The tale of a Travisher 2: This time it's personalThe courier arrived mid morning and picked up the bat destined for Australia. I was happy to see the package leave as it'd been sitting in the hallway bugging me, but quite sad at the same time to see it go. It seems every bat I make ends up being the "best one I've made so far", whether it is or not is up for debate but in my eyes it becomes the new favourite.
With my views on the travisher committed in writing, I thought this morning to myself "Why don't I make a new front mouth for it?"
I've been in the process of making a bat width gauge for someone, for weeks. They wanted something similar to one I made a month or so ago...
I've had 3 attempts at making another and 3 failures. I therefore have some scrap bits of maple needing to be used. So I set about rejuvenating a tool destined for the "big toolbox in the sky".
In my last post I mentioned that the bevel up blade presentation and the angle that you have to present the tool makes for an awkward cutting action.
Firstly I had to mark out what I was going to remove. In hindsight, chopping off the whole front would have been easier to do than cutting out a strip but you live and learn.
I make a pencil line and then use a chisel to chop into that line all the way across.
Paring out a small bit of wood lets your saw fall into place and makes it easier to make an accurate cut
Not turning back...
Needs some cleaning up with a chisel.
Slowly looking better.
Getting the joint right was quite difficult, which is why I probably should have chopped the whole front off. Eventually I get there and it was a nice little project for the afternoon. I'm currently trying to find some suitable wood for a mallet so I thought I have a go at this in the meantime. I almost got stuck into a wooden plane I'd made as I'll be converting that into a round bottom plane.
All glued up, we'll see how it looks in the morning.