Replies

1. 
   joinerswork | Dec 31, 2004 05:20pm | #1

   Jose,

   I'd recommend the use of a foreplane (scrub plane) to  achieve the effect you are looking for, rather than an adze, especially a hand adze.  The foreplane's iron is ground slightly convex, and will give the pattern of shallow waves or  undulations you are looking for.  It will not be as prone to tearout as an adze, and is easier to control, too!

   Regards,

   Ray

1. 
   user-310309 | Dec 31, 2004 08:53pm | #2

   Since I don't have a scrub plane I suppose what I should do is form the blade on my #4 in convex fashion..?

   Thank you kindly

1. 
   lwj2 | Dec 31, 2004 10:19pm | #3

   Pick up a second blade, that way you can just swap them out.Alternatively, pick up a used plane somewhere and grind the blade on that one for scrub work. If you're using it for scrub, you don't have to worry about the sole being dead flat or the mouth being a little off as you're not doing fine surface planing.Leon Jester

1. 
   macalex | Jan 01, 2005 03:25am | #4

   But why would you!?

   There's a famous British furniture maker (the Mouseman, Thompson) who adzes some surfaces, but a kitchen table? I dunno. I'm in the process of making an office table that will have inserts (and 'exserts - bits that project above the surface) and some low relief sculpture ... but a kitchen table?

   A more constructive suggestion - do some learning first. Adzing well is a hard skill to get just right, and you wouldn't want to join up a big slab of choice wood for a top and then destroy it while you learn to adze!

   MalcolmNew Zealand | New Thinking

1. 
   Manchild | Jan 03, 2005 06:53am | #8

   There was an article on him (Thomson) and his work in FWW. I can't remember where though. He was standing on the table top he was adzing. Amazing!!!

   By far the most beautiful new hardwood floor I've ever seen was sculpted using a sanding process. I didn't see it done, but the way the soft grain was sanded while the hard grain was left proud was incredible. They stained it white also.

   Most people want it as flat as possible. Boring!

2. 
   joinerswork | Jan 02, 2005 12:18am | #5

   Jose,

   That will work, or buy another blade as Leon suggests, so you don't have to keep regrinding.

   Good luck,

   Ray

1. 
   macalex | Jan 02, 2005 04:21am | #6

   A scrub plane doesn't produce the same effect. I've seen (but not tried to produce) adzed surfaces, and the effect is a series of very shallor, clean-cut, scoops out of the surface. The skill lies in producing scoops of regular size and very similar depth. Hard to describe, but even a non woodworker observer can tell that the resulting surface is an interesting mix of primitive hand tooling and sophisticated expertise.

   Good luck

   MalcolmNew Zealand | New Thinking

1. 
   tms | Jan 03, 2005 12:27am | #7

   Getting clean and repeated cuts with a ship (long) adze takes a good deal of practice and not a little adjustment of the adze head angle. When you get your adze, you will notice that the head seems to fit too loosely on the handle. This is by design. Depending on your personal ergonomics, and the situation in which you will use the adze, you will need to adjust the angle of the head to the handle, using small wedges, until the head fits tightly and the cut is clean.The adze can be used along the grain, as in cleaning up after a broad axe, or cross grain as in fairing the garboard (first plank) of a ship's hull to the keel.One other thing,our local shipwrights all wear steel toed boots and the heavy ankle protectors that masons and hod carriers wear, when swinging the adze. Tom

2. 
   bigfootnampa | Jan 03, 2005 09:16am | #9

   I can see how the adz might be used to make some heavy rugged textures that would be appealing but I have usually found it too unrefined for tables and counters.  I prefer to use a carving gouge.  I have a much wider selection of radii in gouges and I can also control depth and tearout more successfully.  I guess it might take a little more time but a sharp gouge worked with a wrist-twisting motion will cover ground surprisingly fast.  I hold them with my hand gripping the blade, the cutting edge toward me, and make quick cuts pulling the gouge with a twist of my wrist that arcs the gouge into and out of the surface.  I stop to rehone when the gouge begins to drag and cut very carefully across grain in the difficult transition areas of mixed grain direction.

1. 
   user-310309 | Jan 03, 2005 09:32am | #10

   Ok, just got in from my garage workshop and these are the results so far:

   1. I re-ground a blade in convex fashion and practiced on some scrap oak from a previous project.  The effect is not quite what I'm after.  The short scallops that I'm after are difficult if at all possible to produce with this tool.  The only sure effect is with cuts across the grain.  Though I really appreciate the suggestion this is not the look I'm after.

   2. I tried my adze again, I find that very shallow and controlled cuts gives me the best results--but I can't imagine such control over the surface of a kitchen table.  Has anyone done such a thing?

   3. I will try the gouge chisel method next.

   In the meantime I'll do a search on "the Mouseman, Thompson" to see what I  can get.  Now I'm hooked on the idea.  I was at a very old church some time ago and bored as I usually get when I'm at just about any religious service I started to enjoy the architecture and design of the church.  The rafters of the church were surfaced using the adze.  Of course the adze used must have surely been a much larger one than the one I own.  Mine is the approximate size of a regular carpenters hammer.  In any case, the effect is beautiful.

   Thanks

1. 
   macalex | Jan 03, 2005 01:30pm | #11

   Adzing is one of those trade skills that takes years to get just right, and I'll bet that the guys who do it professionally do it almost all the time. It's not something you can pick up for a one-off, or a weekend project, and there's no easy way to reproduce or copy the effect.

   One of the attractions about working wood is that the major difference between a professional and a part-timer is time - a good part-timer can, with patience and practice, produce work every bit as good as the pro, but not at commercial speed. Except for a few areas where only years of practice can yield an acceptable result. Adzing falls into that category, I reckon.

   MalcolmNew Zealand | New Thinking

3. 
   RickL | Jan 03, 2005 04:37pm | #12

   We do faux adzing with a makita portable planer and custom curved knives also using a Arbortech carving disc on an angle grinder with special custom pivot base we made.

1. 
   macalex | Jan 05, 2005 02:33pm | #13

    "... and there's no easy way to reproduce or copy the effect."

   I just knew when I typed those words I was taking a risk! Cheez. Who'd ever think you'd want to (or have a demand for) manufactured adzing!?New Zealand | New Thinking

1. 
   RickL | Jan 05, 2005 05:45pm | #14

   Faux finishing is nothing new. Early 1900's had a lot of fake graining to duplicate burls and oak grains on plain wood pieces. Ypu think the fake adze is something. We did faux lightening split panels for a condo in NY city. We actually split 3" thick spruce panels with a paper knife and used our fork lift and a few thousands pounds of wood to split it.