Third time lucky...

The Bank Holiday weekend has come and gone and I seem to have spent most of it finishing off the big review for F&C, which can safely be revealed now as 'the Big Chisel Test', last done by John Lloyd about five or six years ago. There have been a few surprises along the way which I certainly didn't expect...all I can give away at this point is that the 'Best on Test' and 'Best Value for Money' don't originate in Sheffield!
I've also made a bit of progress, or not, as the case may be, on the Frame Saw project. If you recollect, I started to make the original out of some beech which in theory is ideal, but having a numpty session in the 'shop a while back, I managed to completely bugger up the material...

...so I machined up a few more identical pieces in mahogany. Fine you might think.

But you know though, when you've done something that's not quite right, and you've got the tiniest, eansiest, weensiest little feeling about it in the back of your mind that keeps on gnawing and won't go away?..you know something's not kosher but you can't quite put your finger on it. Such was the case with the mahogany. The more I looked at it, the more I felt it twern't the right material, mainly 'cos the grain was slightly on the bias, and not dead straight.
The two main uprights of a frame saw come under a lot of tension when the butterfly nut on the studding is wound up and I just had the nagging feeling that under the load, the mahogany would've given way...the centre rail is under compression, so that's still fine to be in beech as in the original.
The mahogany has now been consigned to the 'off-cuts' drawer under my bench and I've sorted out some really good, straight grained ash for the uprights and handles, so here's hoping that after three attempts at trying to find the correct material, I've finally cracked it.

Don't hold your breath though...