The next Third Saturday Project will be on Saturday November 20th at the boat shop and will we will be making plane makers floats.
From Lie-Nielsen Toolworks:
Floats are traditional tools used to cut, flatten, and smooth the critical surfaces of a wooden plane, such as the bedding of the blade, the mouth, and the wedge abutment. They are capable of extremely precise work.
Floats are also useful around the woodshop for lots of jobs besides plane making, and if you have never used one you will be amazed at how quickly they will produce an accurate, smooth surface. Try one for flattening, chamfering, smoothing flat and curved surfaces.
Our floats will be made from O-1 tool steel, hardened and tempered to Rc 50-52 for edge life and resharpening ability. To learn more about plane makers floats go to http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?cat=534 or http://www.planemaker.com/planemakers_floats.html.
The kits to make two floats will be $25.00 for members and $30.00 for non-members. You may sign up here: Pattern Makers Floats Signup.
Information on our Third Saturday Projects is here.
On October 16th there will be a Oar Finishing session at the boat shop starting at 9:00 AM. Students and instructors from the Oar Making class will be finishing their oars. There will be no charge for the session but there may be a charge for any supplies you might use. There will be a leathering demonstration and leather available for purchase to make your own oar leathers. If you want to finish or refinish your oars, you should bring your own finish, brushes, paper towels and rags. Daly’s makes two excellent finishes for oars, oil based SeaFin Superspar varnish and water based AquaSpar varnish both are available from Woodcrafters in Portland.
Alaskan Yellow Cedar oar blanks will be available for sale. Alaskan Yellow Cedar is a moderately strong wood, stiff for its weight and with good shock resistance. It works easily and takes a good finish with both hand and machine tools. Like Port Orford cedar it is noted for its resistance to decay.
The Oar Making class 
concluded on Sunday with four pairs of Oars in various stages of completion. All of the oar makers were very happy with the class and with the new skills they learned. “Just learning how to sharpen and use my tools was worth the class” Russell Smith was quoted. Students learned how to sharpen their block planes and spoke shaves and how to use them. The shop band saw was used to rough out the oar, the final shaping was done with block planes and spoke shaves. 
The students learned how to make and use an 8 side gauge also called a spar gauge. The skills to round over the loom of the oar are the small skills used in making spars. The Alaskan Yellow Cedar that was used for the oars also makes beautiful spars.
Two of the clubs oars were fitted with leathers as part of the oar making class. Using a baseball or herringbone stick the leathers were quickly attached to the oars. 
The first session 
of the oar making class got off to a great start last Saturday with bright blue sky and I5 north bound stop and go over the Columbia. The first order of business was sharpening our plane and spoke shave irons. Using the scary sharp method, we flattened the backs of the irons and then set the bevels. We glued up our oar blanks out of Alaskan Yellow Cedar using epoxy thickened with Colloidal Silica.
Next Saturday we will be back at the boat shop cutting out and shaping our oars. There will also be a demonstration on how to apply leathers to oars using some of the clubs oars.
