For years I carried around a quote by Franz Kafka in my wallet. “In the struggle between you and the world, back the world”. It was given to me by my best professor in undergrad, Dr. Herbert Stern. Over the years it became to tattered and worn to carry. Apparently I’ve become optimistic in my thirties – or just a bit forgetful. Somehow, I forgot to transpose Kafka’s warning into a DIY context – into “In the struggle between Wyatt and the house, side with the house”. If I managed that transposition, I wouldn’t have been surprised when my new Rigid planer sniped the ends of the cherry wood destined to become my kitchen shelves.

Now, you might ask, “Why the hell didn’t you test it first?”

Well, I did. I cleaned up the test piece that Kelly and I used when trying to adjust my old planer. I cleaned up perfectly. What was once a ratty piece of 2×4 is now a perfectly square 1×4. No snipe.

The longer, wider cherry pieces were not so lucky. In fact, I would say that in one case, it was more of a gouge that snipe. And there ridges showing length wise when I put the wood in at a certain position. Pretty lame.

So I made some adjustments, and I retested. A bit better – but what I really found was that the Rigid planer worked pretty well when taking off close to it’s maximum depth, but was an absolute menace a shallower settings. I’m pretty much over having my fridge in the living room, so I kept at it. The result? I managed to get all of my wood planed and jointed, essentially ready for assembly. I’m so psyched.

It’s not perfect, but the under-shelf support beams boards should cover most of the problems. I’m just happy to have made some headway, and to have adapted to the problems at hand. So this week, I’m going to:

• Putty and stain the boards already on the wall.
• Cut the support beams to fit the finished planks
• Add two pieces of trim to the walls
• Assemble the shelves

Hopefully, this will allow me to hang the shelves next weekend. By then, I’ll have some pics of the progress, and maybe a short vid.

One final thought – my Grizzly planer may be ugly, but it worked really well. A very solid little box. There customer service is really fantastic, and I’ll be ordering a replacement pad this week. One of the two planers will end up as a gift for my kid sis.