What's on my bench he asks

*You go to Knock on Wood, and discover yourself surrounded by Aluminum and
Plastic* said someone once,

MLW (My Lovely Wife) got in the habit of knocking on wood in commute
traffic, and asked for a block of something nice to sit on the dash of the
old Volvo wagon.  A piece of lacewood, cut to fit the little dash shelf
under the radio has served.

Now that we've upgraded to a vehicle made in this century, I got the chance
to do the same for the new Camry.

A bit of very figured, 3/4  white oak was cross cut oversized in the
Langdon Miter Box, then marked for a fat 1/4 inch thickness with a Marples
rosewood cutting gauge. Resaw duties fell to a Disston backsaw for the
corners, followed by a now mis remembered panel rip saw to free the blank.

http://galootcentral.com/component/option,com_copperminevis/Itemid,2/place,
displayimage/album,lastup/cat,0/pos,0/

the still oversized blank was butted up against a batten, that was in turn
butted up against a the benchstop, with the batten held in place by a shop
forged holdfast. Took down the saw marks with an old GalootAClaus gift, a
MF plane in the 4.5 size (is that a MF#10?) but once I got past the saw
marks, the tearout began, even with that heavy plane.

Boring, produced by the millions #80 scraper plane to the rescue. I've
owned, used and left sitting on the shelf the fancier, rosewood soled and
such scrapers, always finding a bone stock #80 to really get the job done.

Gentle block planing down to the final shape (a barely noticeable
trapezoid) and finished with my favorite combo for figured wood, 50/50
BLO/linseed oil followed by spray shellac (Gasp??!!) and the shine taken
down by 0000 steel wool.

and now a new bit of wood in a sea of offgassing plastics to keep MLW safe
in traffic.

-- 
Michael