Celebrating shavings

 

A few weeks ago, I read an entry on the Popular Woodworking Editors’ blog by Bob Lang, where he noted how some woodworkers are more concerned with shavings, the waste material, than they are with the finished product. I tend to be one of those woodworkers. I have made tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of shavings, and I still marvel at them. Thick ones, fluffy ones, ones you can read a newspaper through; I like them all, but my favorite are the ones made when planing inlay bandings, which make beautiful geometric shavings. 

The living history farm, where I volunteer has an Independence Day celebration. I wanted to demonstrate woodworking, celebrate the holiday, and make a shaving the project and not the waste. To do that, I glued up a stack, of the following:

2 layers of red dyed veneer

1 layer of holly veneer

2 layers of blue dyed veneer

1 layer of 1/16” holly veneer

2 layers of blue dyed veneer 

1 layer of holly veneer

2 layers of red dyed veneer.

The stack was glued together with white glue between boards covered in packing tape, using plenty of clamps to ensure a good bond. I used extra glue, so the clamping pressure would impregnate the veneer with glue, giving it a more homogenous nature. I also oriented the veneer so the grain in all the layers were running in the same direction to facilitate planing.  When dry, one edge of the stack was planed and glued to a piece of scrap, so the piece can be clamped in the vise and get the maximum yield out of the stack.

Planing the shavings calls for a perfectly sharp blade, a steady hand and a bit of trial and error in setting the chip breaker and cutting depth. If the chip breaker is set too close to the cutting edge, the shaving will be fractured and too delicate. Set too far back and it will not form a nice curl. The depth, needs to strike a balance between being so thin that the layers tend to separate and so thick the shaving won’t withstand being manipulated. The shaving is planed off and worked into a nice spiral shape. The 2" wide stack, yielded over 250 shavings.

Most adults and many children have seen plane shavings, but very few have seen multi-colored ones, which made for a fun day handing them out and demonstrating how they were made. 

Comments

[Jeff]

Just a note to say that I have missed your blog. We have a plethora of blogs about tools and very few about actually making furniture.

[Rob Millard]

Jeff,

I'm sorry I haven't posted in quite a while. I need to update far more frequently. Over the Christmas break, I'm going to revamp my website and combine it with a blog using WordPress. I'm going to post on subjects ranging from book reviews, unusual period construction details, to a few tool related subjects (sorry).
I appreciate your taking the time to read what I written so far. The next entry in the breakfront saga will be posted within a week.
Thanks
Rob Millard

[Al]

Lovely effect! Have you any other ideas about how to use the shavings, other than as part of the fun day?

[Svenoaks Furniture]

Lovely! Thanks a lot for sharing this in here.. It's definitely worth the read!