Third Meeting of the Molding Plane Working Group

[Mark Maleski]

On Saturday 27 August, we will meet at Bert and Kathy Bleckwenn’s workshop for the third meeting of the Molding Plane Working Group (sponsored by the Chesapeake Chapter and open to any SAPFM member).  This session will be focused on the design, layout and execution of actual molding profiles with participants bringing their own molding planes to try out. Several shooting boards will be available for participants to try techniques and develop basic skills and knowledge in sticking their own moldings.

Fred Walker will be our workshop leader.  Fred previously established and led our Benjamin Randolph Chair working group from his home shop; he demonstrated and taught eleven of us the techniques and procedures to build an elegant chair with ball & claw feet, pierced and carved back splat, and custom-molded elements on the rails and shoe.  We’re excited to have him leading this session of our molding working group

What you should bring:

·         $20 to cover costs of food.
·         Any functioning molding planes from your collection
·         3 hardwood boards for sticking (3’ to 4’ long, at least 1” square)
·          (optional) Plane hammer (if you have one)
·         (desired/optional) Sharpening stones & slips, strop


Make sure to mark and label any tools or supplies that you bring.

Instructions for joining us on 27 August:
1) You must be a current member of SAPFM
2) You must register by sending an email to:  [email protected] and [email protected]

We're limited to about 15 participants, due to space constraints.  Members in our region should have already received an email with detailed instructions for registering (including address and start/stop times).

We're anticipating that by this point everyone has planes that are ready for these exercises, but we'll maintain a secondary focus on the continued restoration of our user planes. 

Hope to see you there!
Mark Maleski & Charlie Driggs

 

[Mark Maleski]

We had another interesting, valuable meeting this past Saturday at Bert and Kathy Bleckwenn's workshop. Fred Walker led a group of us through the a morning discussion on moldings: their function on various styles of furniture, the different elements that comprise most moldings (fillets, coves, etc), and some examples of good vs. bad moldings.  He discussed his preference for sticking a molding on a wide board and then sawing it free, obviating the need for sticking boards.  Fred stressed the importance of making sufficient lengths of molding to wrap-around the finished piece, and provided examples from his extensive portfolio of furniture.

We next moved to the workshop where Bert & Kathy had setup 5 sticking boards for those of us with narrow stock (others simply clamped their boards as Fred suggested.  After watching Fred demonstrate his technique for sticking a molding, we each individually went to our stations to reproduce the molding.  Here's the catch: not everyone will have a complete set of molding planes at this point.  We resolved this constraint by pooling our resources; by sharing the planes we have, everyone was able to complete the same molding (a fairly basic ovolo with fillet) that Fred had demonstrated.  Thus the session ended successfully, and we concluded by discussing next steps: we will either do another session focused on making a basic molding (since several members were out of town and unable to attend) or shift to focusing on a group project build that depends heavily on moldings.  We'll survey our membership to determine next steps.  

 

[Mark Maleski]

Here's a photo of Fred demonstrating for the rest of the group.

 

[Mark Maleski]

Here is Adam Zahorchak repeating the molding.

 

[Mark Maleski]

Here's a group shot of Kathy, Bert, and Drew Dunn at their stations.

 

[Mark Maleski]

Here's (one of) the results.