When you cut a piece of olive wood, and it is fresh and green, it will crack and
split. Most woods will.

Try boiling the next piece an hour for each inch of thickness, then wrap it in a
bunch of newspapers and wait a few months.

On Jan 24, 2015, at 4:32 PM, Mike Lietzow  wrote:

> GGs,
> 
> In celebration of the List's new beginning (you da man Chris, mucho
> thanks!), I thought I'd come out from under the Porch (I know I had a
> job to do down there but, sorry, the spittoon's still as grungy as
> ever) and test our new home with a long-winded post about pretty much
> nothing.  Hopefully the links don't sink Da List.
> 
> A month or so ago I picked up the seasons 1-10 boxed set of the
> Woodwright's Shop.  Boy, what a treat.  The first episode I remember
> seeing from the original airing back in the stone ages of the 1980's
> was Roy making a lathe, so I must of missed at least the first several
> episodes.  Well, as most of you know, Roy can motivate even the
> laziest couch potato to want to go out and hack on some wood with any
> edge tool at hand and, as luck would have it, I had a small olive tree
> topple over in the recent winds.  Game on but where to start? Well,
> why not just follow Roy's plan from episode one and whip out maul and
> a few gluts to get things rolling.
> 
> Now this olive tree was nothing to write home about with just four
> 4-6" trunks crookedly bending towards the sky; but it should suffice
> for this project. It'd been quite some time since I messed around in
> my gara-shop but I knew I should be able to round up the necessary
> tools..... if I could just remember where I'd put them.  Since the
> tree was resting on my roof, step one is to cut the tree free from its
> roots.  Then I could buck a piece to usable length. I'd picked this
> overkill crosscut saw up at a garage sale (boot sale Jeff) several
> years ago and it worked like a dream, even without the accessory
> handle; but my desk job shoulders felt pretty exhausted nonetheless so
> that was it for day one.
> 
> http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media/7ce70d1d-acfe-48fe-b7
06-611e1565ca5a-1.jpg.html">http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media
/7ce70d1d-acfe-48fe-b706-611e1565ca5a-1.jpg.html
> 
> http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media/20150106_123228.jpg.h
tml">http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media/20150106_123228.jpg.html
> 
> http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media/20150106_123200-1.jpg
.html">http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media/20150106_123200-1.jpg.htm
l
> 
> Next it was on to rough shaping the maul. After some searching, I
> found an old hatchet I'd stashed away that seemed a far cry from Roy's
> "sharp as a razor" recommendation.  Some time I ago I heard this old
> adage:  when it comes to sharpening, there are two kinds of people,
> those who can and those who can't.  I'm unfortunately among the latter
> group but I'm not gonna let that deter me so off I went to find a mill
> file. I've got a roll of miscellaneous files safely tucked away
> somewhere but I sure don't remember where so I pull the file out of a
> new-fangled scraper jointer/burnisher I'd picked up somewhere, clamp
> the hatchet up in my bench, and get to work.
> 
> After a lot of file work, I decided the curve of the edge didn't look
> right.  A quick look at a hatchet in Drew Langsner's Country Woodcraft
> book proved me right so off to the e!e@t... grinder to fix it more
> betterer. Then back to the file and eventually on to an oil stone (by
> now I shouldn't have to tell you that it took some searching to find
> one; even though I have several of them......somewhere).  I doubt I
> ever got the hatchet anywhere near razor sharp but it's better than a
> butter knife so it'll have to do.
> 
> Finally, on to the chopping.  Roy roughed out his maul in about 5 or
> so minutes so I figured I'd be done in 15 minutes top. Not a chance.
> I did make enough progress to start worrying about chopping too far so
> I figured it was time to move onto a more refined tool.  Surprisingly,
> I quickly found an unused (by me) drawknife that seemed reasonably
> sharp (at least relative to that dull a$$ed hatchet) so off I went.
> As you all know, "it takes two hands to handle a drawknife" (lame joke
> based on an equally lame USA burger chain commercial Jeff) so how will
> I hold the work piece? I tried holding it with my feet with moderate
> success and then had the brilliant idea to strap it to my Workmutt
> (questionably utilitarian portable workbench Jeff).  As you might have
> guessed that worked even worse than using one as a planing bench.
> After a lot of fumbling around I got the maul's handle close to final
> size (hey, I have biggish hands so three inches diameter (about 10.2
> cm Jeff) should be fine; shouldn't it?).
> 
> It was still pretty rough so it needed even more refined toolery.  I
> have a box of spokeshaves somewhere but I know that none of them are
> sharp and I haven't a clue on how to set one up so why not try a jack
> plane.  Several years ago I sharpened up one of the half-dozen or so I
> have laying around but which one?  I finally find one that appears to
> have been used in this century and give it a try.  Same problem as the
> draw knife; a two handed tool leaves no hands to hold the work.  So
> off to find a block plane.  I recall sharpening a cheapo Stanley 220
> (run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen, fixed-mouth block plane Jeff)  and
> found it relatively quickly.  Hey! This works nice!  One hand on the
> plane and another on the maul.  It was painfully sloooooow work but
> satisfying nonetheless.
> 
> After a million or so strokes, I'd finally finished my masterpiece.
> 
> http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media/0ee5cd1f-293e-
4ee0-9e12-8a20dfb75257.jpg.html">http://s295.photobucket.com/user/mlietzow/media
/0ee5cd1f-293e-4ee0-9e12-8a20dfb75257.jpg.html
> 
> I was exhausted so glut production will have to wait for another
> weekend. But I felt a small glimmer of accomplishment.
> 
> A few days later I went out to the gara-shop to admire my work  Darn,
> it checked all over the place.  Back to square one.
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