Timber Teaze?

A little more progress has been made on the current job, but because of the convoluted method of construction, it's proving a lot more tricky to get the damn thing together, but it's coming...slowly.  The main issue is the corner styles, set in at 45deg which have compounded the build no end, added to which is the little sticky-up bit which is making life considerably more complicated that it need be, but I hope (fingers and every thing else crossed) that it'll all work out in the end.

In the pic below, the flat on the corner style to accommodate the top and bottom is:


















... being chiseled flat with a nice sharp Japanese paring chisel and is shown:


















...above finished.

These wretched corner styles have to be planed with a small radius, easily done with the Veritas LA jack, but not so easy to hold the frame, until I realised that many moons ago, when I built the bench, I also:

...had the unimaginable and utterly brilliant foresight (which you'll have to agree is about as rare as bloody hens teeth!) to have a section of the bench well that was removable.  This means of course, that you can use a cramp from both sides of the top.

Sometimes, my undoubted genius is enough to make my head spin...had I been recruited to work at Cern, the Higgs-Boson would have had to be renamed as the Bloke-Boson!

With a lot of care, the basic carcase went together quite well:

...though it's not quite square, so I'm hoping (fingers and all other appendages crossed...again) that the top and bottom will eventually pull it into alignment.

On a completely different note, Fujiyasu-san (the Swordsmith) gave me a couple of bits of timber.  The first, shown below is quite heavy and is called 'haze' (pronounced 'haazeh') but the...

...second, shown below, is a complete mystery.  It's hard, heavy and wonderfully figured, but I haven't a clue what it is.

If anyone can throw some illumination on the problem I'd be quite happy to cancel your subscription the the Blokeblog!