In the last milling episode, my board was now flat on three sides. I needed to rip it to its final width of 2.5 inches. First, I scribed a line around the cut with my marking gauge, then pulled out my now-functional ripsaw. I took the cut a little slowly, not really knowing what to expect. The saw did its job perfectly, guiding itself with the kerf and never wandering:

To get the final surface on the edge, I had two choices with my jointer plane: use a shooting board or try it freehand. Since I don’t have a shooting board, and I didn’t want to cobble together some lame setup again, I opted for the freehand method. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

That little Lee Valley double square is really handy for checking the edge.

There’s just one thing left to do: saw the end square to final length and plane it smooth. But for the rest of today, I’m going to clean and wax a few tools that seriously need it (like that jointer plane, ugh).