Conference noted::woodworking_and_tools

    Just to close out on a previous discussion, the bookcase is about done.
    I put the flame birch away and bought maple after some frustration
    planing the figured birch. 
    
    Half of the project time has been spent tuning planes and scrapers. I now 
    have 3 Stanley scrapers, an #80, a rosewood bottomed #81, and a #12 1/2. 
    They do a wonderful job and I've got so comfortable using them that I 
    re-did to top of the bookcase in curly hard maple. I'm confident I could 
    work the flame birch using the scrapers with a bit of work.
    
    Haven't had to reach for the belt sander or random orbital yet.
    
    ~jeff    

    I was just reading an article in FWW magazine on testing they did on
    a bunch of planes.  This test was different they actually tested a
    couple of very old Stanely planes too.  What they found was with the
    exception of Lie Nielsen plane all others had to be hand tuned, the
    record, stanely (new) and bailey all needed some kind of hand
    intervention.  The older Stanelys did not require tuneups.  So I guess
    the point is to get good planing results means you have to take the
    time to make sure you plane is dead on.  The only thing I did not like
    was they used the jointer bed as a flat surface to sand the plates flat
    to.  They did that by spaying the back of the wet/dry sandpaper with
    adhesive then sticking it to the jointer bed.  Then they wet the paper
    and ground the plate flat.  I could just see the mess that would make
    out of my cast iron joiner bed.
    
    Brian