RichardA

Ya done good young'un, now get a pic with one of the butterflies landed on your nose!

I always knew shellac was insect derived, but this is the first time I ever saw the process. Thank you Ross!

Ya done good!

It depends on the topcoat. It doesn't affect Poly, and some others.

I've used crayons in the way Ross has suggested.

Now that is some drop dead beautiful maple, and you worked it perfectly.

That makes me wish, I'd seen that thirty or forty years ago! Beautifully done and extremely useful and productive. Ya done good young'un!

I don't know how much I remember about it, other than the body was made by contract prisoners from the Ohio State Prison, in a building close to the Scioto River that runs through Columbus Ohio. They were contracted from 1848 to 1853, and all they were allowed to make were the wooden parts, the body and wedge. Ohio Tool had the blades and cap irons, and listed the plane as a #2 and the #1 was a body made by a civilian contractor, who had access to the blades and cap irons. If you're interested in a little more info about the plane and how I aquired it go to the woodtalkonline search box and type in Scioto Works #3, and it'll give you a tad more info. By the way I saw a old page from a catalog from back then and the #1 sold for $1.75 and the #2 sold for $0.75. I guess prison beech wasn't as good as civilian beech. Or maybe all those bad guys gave a good tool a bad name. By the way, the #1 had Ohio Tool stamped on the nose of the planes just as Scioto Works did on the nose of theirs.

Enjoy them young'un.!

There were up to half a dozen block planes in my shop, I couldn't work without them, but my go-to was my 4 1/2. That could be do to my size 6'2" 220#. Each of us is different and work differently. It takes time and practice to find what works for you when working in hand tools. And I agree Paul Sellers is a highly qualified teacher for hand tool work!

I have an older Stanley 4 1/2 that I've probably put a couple hundred miles on. It's all original. I don't know what you can find down under as used. But they new 4 1/2's that are expensive are well worth looking into. Is there a place that sells new woodworking tools available to you? Would they allow you a test run on a couple of sizes and that way you can have a better feel for what your looking for? Having little to no experience with a certain tool, and buying one that you've never held in your hand, makes it instantly "used" and harder to sell if you don't like the way it fits or feels. So if there is such a place available to you, take advantage of it. Or you can buy one blind and if it doesn't work for you, then you have just become a collector. Good luck. My beer in the shop became warm most of the time so I waited til I was done playing with sharp objects.

Hand planes take time to learn and "understand". They can drive a person to drink, I know I've been a drunk many times when planing pieces that require just a simple touch up. A 5 is a good size, if your wood is kinda large in one direction or another. You say you make mostly small gifts, so you wood wouldn't be to large. I'd think a 4 or a 4 1/2 would be a better problem solver for your smaller lumber. Personally I use to prefer a 4 1/2 for about 75% of any planing I needed to do, but I'd built a bunch of years understanding what it wants to do and what it will do. As with any hand tool, your whole body is involved, so you need to learn some of that, and you will as you practice more and more. I wish you luck with your new experience, and don't take anyone's advise to seriously. Try their help, but make it your own. I'm a retired woodworker do to shaking hands and eye problems and age 81 so take this post for what it's worth.

Seems to me to be a better way than lifting up your jointer to run across the edge of a piece, especially when yo have a small router available. It was a slick idea.

The weather folks are sayin that here in middle Tennessee we're gonna see snow Sunday night and all day Monday, which here means a couple inches, then Monday and Tuesday temps will be in the single digits at night and between 10 and 20 for those two or three days . Not bad for a Southern state. We've had worse. Not like Iowa though.

The only problem with Elder with that coloring is that in 5 or 6 years all that beautiful red, will be brown. I have a piece in my what use to be my shop that was like fire. A ton of flames, it's now brown fire. Oh well!