Cheap Therapy

Not getting to work in my shop for a week, and I turn into my friend, Scott.....grumpy.

So today, Independence Day, I get some shop time. Next step in the sawbuck table project is to build the table top. I ran out of curly cherry, but have a huge stack of stickered and rough-sawn plain cherry in my garage. The boards are gorgeous and will darken quickly.

However, yours truly, while having spent a great deal of time and care stickering & stacking the boards to allow them to dry (I bought them 2 years ago, freshly-sawn), forgot to put weights on the top boards. That resulted in twisted and cupped boards.

So far, shop time is making me grumpier.

The boards are too wide to face plane on my 6" jointer, so I reached for a plane that gets little use, but sure comes in handy when you need it.....a scrub plane.

Scrub planes have curved irons that quickly remove deep, scalloped chunks of wood, enabling you to knock down high spots and correct twists in boards with little effort. After which, you can run the boards through your planer or switch to a less agressive plane.

An added benefit: you can deflate your bad mood. Plowing through wood and seeing thick chips fly out of the plane's mouth is a real tension-reliever.

And I'm happy to report—the grump has left the building.