We absolutely have to get this memorial candle rack delivered to SMHH&H's Newport office today so they can get it to their Morristown office for a service this evening.  Therefore I was out before dawn to wrap and load it into the truck so Marie could take it with her when she goes to work this morning.

I received confirmation later in the morning that the hand-off went well and it was on it's way to Morristown.  I always feel better when a piece arrives safely.

I got right to work on those cherry wall hung stopper racks.  I selected the lumber and passed it over to the shop ghost for jointing.  He made one face and one edge smooth and flat and square to one another.

All the lumber we use comes in the door as rough sawn, log run lumber.  Rough sawn is, just as the name implies: rough lumber.  This board was cupped and the part in the middle planed down to smooth wood, I took this shot so you can see the difference between rough and dressed lumber.  The rough lumber is fuzzy, often has ridges and swirls from the saw blade and makes it pretty difficult to see the color and pattern of the wood below.  It is also eager to poke splinters into your skin, gloves are recommended.

After dressing the lumber (jointing one face and one edge, then surface planing the second face) I cut the lumber into parts blanks, working from the jointed edge so the rough edge gets cut off and discarded.  Shop scraps too small or ugly to use in the shop go into the firewood pile.

I need two dimensions of lumber for this project: the thick side pieces and thin stock for the shelves and skirt.  These boards are thick enough that I can resaw them and get one of each from the same board, wasting much less wood than I would if I simply planed the thick lumber down to reach the sides dimensions.  I like to reduce waste wherever I can.

If you've been following along you know that the big Grizzly surface planer chewed up a drive shaft key and is convalescing.  I've been using an old Delta planer as a stand-in, but that too has been making some ugly noises.  Today it popped a circuit breaker and smelled of melted electrical insulation.  I think it's done-for.

Parts for the Grizzly have been ordered but until they arrive I'm pretty much sitting on my thumbs.  I can't dress rough lumber without a surface planer.

Fortunately I did get all of my heavy surfacing work done before the Delta died.  I was working on the resawn pieces when it croaked.

The longer pieces were side/shelf parts and need only a little wood removed to dress them out nicely.  The shorter pieces were split in half to make two shelf blanks and they need to have about 1/8" taken off.  How can I keep working?

My Jet 16-32 drum sander can serve as a thickness planer, but it will only take a few thousandths of an inch off with each pass.  The other tools use cutter heads with knives in them, this uses sand paper.  However, if I take most of the excess off the short pieces with the jointer, I can then run them through the sander to take off the last bit and make the second face parallel to the face I originally jointed.

The jointer will remove excess wood and smooth the second face, but would do nothing toward making sure the piece is a consistent thickness throughout the piece.  Since the shelves mount in grooves cut in the side pieces making them precisely the right thickness and a consistent thickness is very important.

Thanks for watching, I'll see you tomorrow!