Roubo bandwagon

I have received my copy of the third tome of 1977 edition of "L'art du menuisier ebeniste". Now I will slowly start looking for the previous 2 tomes in the same edition. I may look into obtaining the antique editions down the road.

I quickly read a few pages and apart for the antique units, I can read it no problem. The nice thing is that now I know the exact specs of the monster resawing frame saw: a blade at least 4" wide and less than 1/12th of an inch thick at the teeth, tapering towards the back with no set... the blade should be filed rip at about 2 TPI (points 5/12th to 6/12th apart).

TIL: antique French units

A ligne is an antique measurement equal to a 12th of an inch. The ligne itself was composed of 12 points and it took 12 inches to make a foot. Up to this point (har har), it's logical albeit duodecimal. After that, it gets messy... 6 feet to the toise, 3 toises to the perche-du-roi, 20 feet to the "perche ordinaire" and 22 feet to the "perche d'arpent".

French cathedral builders used a measuring system based on 5 numbers from the fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987...

Their measuring stick was called the "king's cane". That cane measured a total of 555 lignes (around 125cm)

It was subdivided in five different measures, each connected through the addition of the previous two measures.

34 lignes in a hand (palmus minor)

55 lignes in a palm (palmus major)

89 lignes in a span ( a hand + a palm)

144 lignes in a foot ( a span + a palm)

233 lignes in a cubit (a foot + a span)

That may be a fun easy project to make with a large piece of scrap wood.

For you imperial lot, the reason the cane doesn't seem to add up is that the French inch of Roubo's time was a smidge above 17/16th of an English inch (1.06575)... to make it easy. :)

Dutch tool chest done

I finally put the last touches to the dutch tool chest the weekend before last. It now only needs painting. Unfortunately, as usual, I had underestimated the amount of molding planes in my workshop! The bottom compartment can't even fit them all. That means I'll have to build the larger version one of these days.

In the meantime, I had some fun doing a pair of Wierix squares using scrap wood I had close to the bench. The larger one has been nicknamed "Flederhausmann" and the smaller one "Wanderdrossel". I will probably make some more out of oak or beech at some point.

The stack of beech logs has been inspected again to get straight grain blanks for more Hollow and Round blanks. I am planning to make a full set based on the dutch pattern ones I bought a few weeks ago. They will have a perpendicular bead on top of the toe, a curved notch for the thumb just behind that and a cove all along the hand-hold. First I'll need to make a bed/breast gauge.