Brian Boggs at Charlotte Show

[rbdoby]

I took my recently built wooden hand plane to the Hand Tool Rodeo at the Charlotte Woodworking Show on Friday. I was the only person to show up for the last class Brian Boggs taught that day so I had some great one on one time with him.

Brian has a lot of knowledge and answered all my dumb questions. He gave me several ideas on how to improve my design. He touched up the iron, flattened the sole, hollowed the sole in front of and behind the iron to reduce friction and explained how to position the chip breaker and explained it's importance. He did all this in about 30 minutes, I was impressed.

By the way, the chairs he builds are very comfortable.

Bought a few toys at the show (thanks Dan) and met some other NCWW's. Brian Boggs convinced me to build a plough plane instead of buying one, another project to research. This years show was smaller but I had more fun meeting people and getting ideas.

Rick Doby

 

[WoodWrangler]

Brian had a few full demos on Saturday, so I'd say you picked a good time to get him to tune up your plane! haha

As for the showing ... Friday must have been light. On Saturday I actually felt like the show was the same size, if not a little larger, than previous years and I'm sure the crowd on Saturday was larger than last year on the same day.

 

[McRabbet]

I was at the show on Friday, but I didn't get to see Brian Boggs at work. But I did have a chance to meet Rick Doby in person for the first time, even though we have exchanged e-mails in the past. It was Rick who was kind enough to produce the medallions I use to sign my best projects and commission work. I use it for my Profile picture. It was nice to meet you Rick, and again thanks for your creativity!

 

[SSuther]

I went to the show Saturday afternoon and attended a couple of Brian Boggs' sessions. I picked up some good pointers, especially on modifying low angle block planes to act at scraper planes- better for flat applications than card scrapers.

Brian is in Asheville now and will be doing some classes there. Hope I can attend some.

 

[LeeNC]

This post is a little on the late side but I will throw it out there any way. Last weekend I was able to attend the Wood Working Show in Charlotte, NC. There were 3 highlights of the show for me. First was getting together with some of the NC Woodworker members. It was a pleasure to get a chance to talk with some the great people from here in person. Second was sitting in on 3 of Brian Boggs’ hand tool sessions. Third was getting to spend an extended amount of time drooling over the hand tools in the Veritas/ Lee Valley tool booth. It was very informative to actually get to hold many of the tools that I covet.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting Brian, he was very easy to talk with and did a great job answering every ones questions. He will definitely be on my short list for instructors to take a class with. If you have not already, you should check out the chairs he makes at his website www.brianboggschairs.com.

There were several points from Brian’s classes that I thought would be worth sharing here. Some of this has probably been covered in other posts but this info was new to me. First was the use of a hardwood block with green rouge as a strop. It was his experience that the harder wood surface rounded over the edge less than a leather strop or buffing wheel. He also used the end grain at a corner of the block to completely remove the wire edge after stropping. To do this he pulled the edge of the blade through the end grain corner of the block. It is his experience that the blade stays sharper longer when he does this. I will be giving it a try.

Second was that he like to use his LABU jack and block planes as scraper planes. It was his contention that the blade was less likely to chatter that a standard scraper plane due to the edge being better supported. I watched him set up a blade and use it as a scraper in a couple of minutes. I like the idea as it gives me yet one more use for my BU planes.

Some of the technical details were as follows.
1. The secondary bevel was ground and honed at 78 deg. This combined with a 12 deg bed angle results in a 90 deg angle on the unburnished blade.
2. He felt that A2 held up to the burnishing better than O1.
3. When burnishing the blade, he would lightly oil the burnishing rod and use several light strokes at approximately 6 deg off of the bottom of the blade to draw out a burr.
Brian keeps a blade set up this way for use in his LA jack and block planes. I will definitely give this a try next time I need to scrape a flat surface.

LeeNC