A year ago, teaching at Roy Underhill’s school, a student was struggling to get his rocker bottoms beveled so they would touch the floor evenly. I said half-joking, “We need to add a outrigger onto the plane to ride on the other rocker.”
I was teaching in Portland last month, lazily sitting and watching a student bevel his rockers with a wooden spokeshave. Suddenly it hit me. You could easily attach a long, long handle to a wooden spokeshave! I made just such a bottomer as soon as I got home. Two students got try the bottomer out last week:
Jim bottoming.
Just two boards, the bottom one mortised to receive the spokeshave handle and keep the spokeshave bottom flush with the bottom board.
The spokeshave has to be reversed (the opposite handle of the spokeshave inserted into the bottomer) so it can cut with the grain on the sawn rocker bottoms (try it – you’ll see).
The boards pinch the handle in place. The screw was cut out of a junky Pony clamp I had laying around, but a bolt with a wooden handle would work just as well.
Bill is happy!
It’s been a year since I started this blog and now I’d like to get your feedback via this short survey. Tell me what you like about the blog – and more importantly, what you don’t like. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to fill out. Thanks!
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