The woes of Maple

Working with Quilted Maple has been a challenge. Sometimes maddening, but always rewarding. It resists every attempt at making it conform to the shape of the forms. I will conquer this unwilling participant, by beveling and twisting it into submission. It requires very sharp tools. The test of my plane blade is whether I can shave my arm hairs, alter honing it with a 6000 grit stone.

My first attempt at accent strips failed  miserably. As promised, I will elaborate on the "new" process I came up with to create some accents. I had been holding onto some really dark Western Red Cedar strips that were squirreled away from the last build. After gluing the strips to one of Maple, I cut them down into two separate pieces. I could then plane a subtle taper into the Maple, that was otherwise impossible to achieve with a table saw. I could then saw the much softer Cedar to a very thin line. All glued in place, they look pretty nice.

My book matching efforts are starting to pay off. Seeing the pattern in the grain re-emerge, after the board was hacked into strips, is pretty cool. Every strip added, makes the effort used to keep them in order, more worthwhile. A very long and careful sanding session will be required to smooth out the surface of the Maple.

I've got an opportunity to do some really cool fabricating for John's Proa rig, starting next week. Progress will slow down on the Petrel, but I will be sure to post pictures of the new project. It involves molding some one-off carbon fiber parts, from scratch. Stay tuned...