Just couldn't assemble any more units. Had to get out to the old wood shop. I decided to look over my *hunk a walnut*. Damn, what a gnarly piece. Once you start to cut to rough size, you can immediately tell. I'd just bought a new blade for my table saw, squared everything up and ripped away. Nowadays, I'm being smart. I cut to about 1/8 large in thickness and width, then head over to my thickness planer.
A thickness planer is a stationary planing machine that I use in furniture making on every project. It will gradually bring piece of stock to an exact thickness. It may takes quite a few passes, so you wanna get it close with the table saw first, then plane down to get an exact flat width and thickness. This consistency this achieves is what makes it all come together easily in the end. I've roughed out enough for about 12 units. Once the first half of batch 7 goes, I'm diving in. It's a gnarly batch, so who knows how progress will go. Looking forward to this gnarly, kind of marbly looking stuff.
Once batch seven, phase one ships, look for walnut porn.
Some Wild Ideas
Who knows if some of the stuff I'm thinking of will every come to pass, but it must be the confidence in the performance and reliability of the unit that my mind wanders to some different configurations (Timber) or cosmetic embellishments.
So, as far as cosmetic embellishments, I can only turn to what I know, building tables. Sometimes, on a leg or apron, I'll add a bead. There are router bits that do this, but it looks routed. Years ago, it was *scratched* with a very specific bit, self made. It's not too complicated to take a piece of a hack saw blade, grind / file a small concave edge, and mount it at a right angle in a small piece of wood. It's now a matter of running the bit along the edge, guided by the wood mount, until a nice round bead appears on the edge. I was wondering how small this can be done on cherry. It could be done to a longer board before cutting up, or per unit. It would go on the front two corners instead of just a 3/8 rounded edge. Basically, you're scratching a groove near the edge so it creates a bead from top to bottom. - Just an idea, might try on some scrap Lil' Buds... Who knows what'll happen when we head down this road.
One Last Thing
I haven't been speaking about hemp fiber, and here's why. I achieved all the pros and no of the cons from a simple back off of about 1/4 inch, maybe 3/8, of the basket screen up the stem. Maybe it's the coil in the foil with the switch, but I was't having as good results as these previously, when setting the screen far away. The problem always was it would gum up faster if not close. Now that is not happening, I'm way back, no fiber, and taste city. Also long ass sessions again, and I do hate to keep loading.