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The Process
I love the process of creating and crafting things as much as I love the finished product. Some people hate the monotony of sanding. I like it. Sanding is quiet work though dirty, but a good honest kind of dirty. I simply shake off my clothes outside at the end of the day to get them clean (relatively clean that is).
Sculpting balsa boards with multiple stringers requires the use of a hand plane over what seems to be miles of wood. There are also seemingly acres to sand. The challenge comes from the fact that when you sand the surface, the softer fibers of the balsa sand down much more quickly than the harder redwood stringers. As a result, the balsa becomes concave between the parallel stringers of harder denser wood.
The solution is to use a block plane specially sharpened to a razor’s edge with a very slight convex shape to level the redwood stringers just below the adjacent surface of the balsa. Next, the surface is sanded just to the point where you feel the sandpaper begin to hit the stringers. At that point, you plane again, then sand again. This process is repeated again, and again, and again. The goal is a flat surface where the stringers don’t stand up proud of the balsa surface. It’s long and laborious, but I enjoy it outside in the boardroom with the fresh air off the sea, the birds, and the palms. Life near the beach is life richly blessed.
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