My wife asked if I could make an extra-long shoehorn because she’s having some knee trouble. So I knocked out this project in an evening and it was a lot of fun.

I grabbed a scrap of cherry and roughly cut it to size using a rip saw and a spokeshave. Then it was mostly an exercise in filing.

I had a small shoehorn (store bought) to use as a reference. It occurred to me that this is kind of like spoon carving, but easier because there is no “front spoon edge” (so to speak) to a shoe horn, so I could just file it right down to get the desired shape. I had my significant other test it out several times to ensure I got the shape just right. The hardest part was ensuring it was as thin as possible at the edges of the “spoon,” but still strong.

I shaped the handle with block plane.

And finished it off with some Osmo wood wax, then wrapped the handle with blue waxed cord. I also added a loop to the end to hang it up out of the way. The lovely cherry wood grain was a happy accident. I had no idea that beautiful grain was hidden in that scrap of wood.

Wading up a river while fly fishing offers up interesting views. Imagine the raging waters over the years that led to this pile-up.

So I went on vacation after my last post about the bench build, and this weekend I finally got around to flattening the funky boards. I used my scrub plane for the rough work, which made it bearable. Next step: come up with an actual plan to make a bench…

Strawberry moon over Frederick, Maryland.

I’m starting a new project to do something interesting with two warped and oddly cut walnut slabs I acquired … of unknown age and provenance. They must have been rejects from some long ago project and then shelved in a barn?

Here’s an edge-view:

And laid flat to get a sense of how NOT FLAT these boards are:

I have never worked with wood that is this funky, so it’s going to be a challenge to flatten them. So far, I have cut each to length, getting rid of the worst (most warped) parts of each slab. I have started flattening one of them. It’s going to take time, clearly.

I started with a scrub plane to get rid of the worst of the peaks:

And moved on to a #6 fore plane:

That’s as far as I got this evening. Time to sharpen blades before I continue. I plan to have two flattened boards and a plan to make a bench within the next couple of days. Details are still being worked out.