1 Spacesuit Needed

I try to consistently uphold my position on making yokes:  It's a necessary evil.  Somewhere, someone must enjoy doing it.  Some sick, demented soul, deprived of conventional entertainment (i.e.- sunsets, lemonade, root canals) could come to love the process, but I never have. 

If it wasn't for pride and vanity, along with a small helping of frugality, I'd just buy yokes.  As it is, I've made all of my own -with the exceptions being an 8" yoke I purchased used when it came across my radar and a "new" 6" one that was given to me.  

The bigger they get, though, the less fun they are.  Shaping a timber the size of a Buick requires a bit of a self-pep talk.  So it was that last Saturday the weather was just nice enough that it seemed like a good idea to carve away on the 11" elm beam that is my current nemesis.  

I had a nice, sharp Lancelot blade in "Ye Olde Angle Grinder," a face shield, earmuffs, coveralls, boots tucked inside the coveralls, a hat and gloves.

The result inside my coveralls.

So what.

The best, smoothest cut with the Lancelot wheel is a skimming, shearing cut.  Done right, it is a rip cut (along, rather than across the grain).  This makes for long, fluffy shavings that eject straight up into the still January air.  They float gently down and - guided by thermodynamics and a dose of Murphy's law- come to rest just inside the collar of said coveralls.  

Long story short: The yoke is finally roughed out and I had shavings INSIDE my socks when it was done.  Maybe there's a used spacesuit for sale on Ebay. . .