Juggling two projects

Life is slowly coming back to some sort of normalcy, crisis averted!
My wife was earlier diagnosed for cancer, and she recently underwent surgery

Today, did not made it to the shop, except for showings to people who dropped by
for my wife.
But I did got to play with my new lawn care toy. A lawn sweeper. Worked pretty good, too good! I got the catch basket overflowing in no time. My first clue was that it was getting harder to go up the hills :-)

So I figured out also that it is a lot easier to transfer the load to the trailer before attempting to dump it. Minor annoyance but sooooo much easier, trust me! :-)

 It does a good job of picking up everything, which is why it can get overfill pretty fast.
Besides cleaning up the rocks from snow blowing my driveway, it picks up oak acorns, golf balls, pine needles, twigs.  I have to make many pass in some spots but it is still faster than hand sweeping my large lawn.

So we now go back to our regular woodworking in progress...
The plane till number two, is what I am now going to do. While we were in the city for the operation, I managed to pick up a few things at my local Lee-Valley in Halifax for my sharpening board.

Yes, I'm the very first customer, awaiting their 0900 opening, 

then it's back to the hospital :-)

. 

Among the few things I picked up, I got a replacement for my side clamping Eclipse style honing guide.
My old one was made in Japan, this one, very similar looking, is made in Taiwan. If  I get the same 20 plus years out of it, like I got from the old one, I will be very happy.

First thing I noticed is that the new one appears to open wider.

Out of the package, I crank both max open

Definitively longer rods and screws

Crank them close

The top part meet in the middle of one curved side, the other being straight.

But the side opening also look different. The new one has the correct angles for holding bevel chisels

Sure enough, the old one had a straight side on the vertical side and an angled one.

Also it is a real bitch to hold smaller bevel chisels, it is fine for firmer or mortise chisels

Well that's interesting, it addressed my only two beef with my old jig. 

1- It did not open wide enough for a Stanley No 8 plane iron, and

2- It was a pain trying to hold a small chisel, like says 1/8 straight, in both plans.

Curious to give it a try, but I got other pressing priorities to attend to.

Bob, juggling the sharpening board project and the plane till No deux.