Saturday, December 09, 2006

Sweating....


First up, please welcome back to the world of woodworking..........ME!

Managed to get a wee bit done today. The bathroom is nearly done, just two doors to finish. And I've run out of 6mm MDF to make the veneered panels so that can wait til tomorrow.

So I've been doing some work on the thumb plane.

Texts read like this. "Sweat the steel sole onto the casting." Easy then? Just sweat it on?

So what the heck does that mean??

Cue me, a spare hour, some solder and a Mapp gun.

After a few tries I have succesfully soldered the steel sole onto the bronze casting. It wasn't particular difficult it was just getting the right approach. Tin both pieces then heat and apply solder. Then put the sole onto the body and apply heat. Solder starts to melt, great. Except you really need to apply pressure to ensure a minimal film of solder. Oh, and to make sure the sole stays where it should be.

So a little filing remains to clean up the sole and then we can move onto nicer stuff.

Tomorrow on eof the UK Workshop members is popping by the workshop for the first time. Wish him well :)

Cheers
Philly

2 comments:

Alf said...

Ooo, you're a braver woodworker than me, Gunga Din; I sweat just thinking about it. Like the charred look to the MDF btw... ;)

Philly said...

Hah! I certainly know ahy they call it "sweating", Al!
Cheers
Phil