Sunday, June 5, 2016

Things on the go AKA get busy

When you are going thru a bout of depression... Get busy!

It's the best way I know to get thru it, been there done that. Lost a few good brother in arms thru the years, never easy, but you carry on, because that's what you have to do to survive...

Losing a love one dying slowly under your eyes is lot harder, but i'll get thru it.
I have two wonderful kids, a small doggy companion and lots of friends counting on me so Keep calm and carry on we shall.

Anyway, all this to say, I'm trying to kick up a notch my level of distractions.
And if anyone is wondering, yes, blogging help.

This past winter we did not had much snow, but lots of strong winds and freezing rain. A bad combination for trees.
I lost a tree and quite a few branches here and there.

That small cherry tree by the shed lost two trunks

Right across from my driveway, the neighbor lost a pine tree

That was in February, hence the snow, but it was not until mid April that I finally cut the broken trunks down...

I needed to clear the path in front of the shed 
in order  to get to the deck furniture.

That was quite a sizable wound and I'm worry 
about the remainder trunks, they lost a great deal of strength

  
So weeks later, I decided that the tree should come down.
That call for a chainsaw. I maybe a Galoot, but I know when to use "assistant" gas powered or otherwise :-)

My "tailed assistant'' :-)

View after cutting off all the trunks. As you see it grew
 from numerous small trunks that grew into one.
Not a very strong "main trunk" 

This is the small pile of stuff I keep

Hoping to get some good small pieces out of it

Surely there are at least a few good pen blanks in there :-)

Rudy directing where all the branches and etc should go.
Wow look at the size of some of those twigs Dad!

Good job Rudy you deserve a treat!

That was at the end of Apr, that I finally reduce the tree to a pile of branches.
I cut the grass once before, around it, but now it is grand time to clean up so I can mow the grass properly around the shed. Also needed to go thru my pile of salvaged wood, run some thru the bandsaw and stack it to dry properly.
It is a lot easier to resaw green wood than dry.

As I was typing that this morning, it dawn on me that my wood pile has been drying for a good month by now, so much for green wood...
So may as well get off my computer chair and finish that job...

Last load of branches and twigs

The wood I'm keeping is now piled on dry cement, better than in the grass.

You can really see how much it has dried already. 
Notice how it is drying from outside-in?

Rudy has declared that pile of sticks 'HIS'
by marking it. Beware other animals, that pile is mine, all mine.

Enough yard work for now, but soon, I'll tackle resawing some to see what I can get from it. Some would be turned, carved or perhaps made into small lumber pieces?? I kept a bunch of forks, not sure why yet, but :-)

You may remember that another of my shop reorganization project is to built a proper bottom cabinet for my antique joiner chest.

That small chest currently resides on a Rubbermaid container 

After banging my toes on a small chest in the basement, that we once used as a coffee table, I realized as I was hopping around on one foot cursing it, that it would probably do the job nicely.
So I dragged it down to the shop to try it. Dragged you said? Well yes, it currently is holding my vinyl collection of LP records I keep, like my original Beatles albums and etc. Heavy thing...
One of these day, I shall hook up my fancy turntable with a moving coil cartridge and a pre-pre-amp...ahhh, but I digress and my toe is still making its presence known. And I need new (old) amp and speakers, sigh!

Look at lot more dignified for that small tool chest

It is currently sitting about an inch lower than on the Rubbermaid container, but for now that will do. I'm going to experiment by putting a wheeled platform under the bottom chest and check various height till I find my ideal ''Pain free'' height. It will also let me experiment with my final dimensions.

Meanwhile I received in the mail the No 8 lever cap that Ralph sent me.
Then there was that strange sound in the background...

Pieces of bubble wrap are strewed all over the carpet

Following the traces back we find... a clue to whom may be the culprit??

Somebody left a clue behind...

My Stanley No 8, did not came with the proper lever cap and blade. It has a Record blade and a Stanley No 7 lever cap.

Record No 8 blade

No 7 versus No 8 lever cap

No 7 lever cap

Proper No 8 lever cap, much better fit.
Thanks a lot Ralph...

Then I still have the boring till on the go and a lot of tools awaiting their turns to be restored.
The beam boring machine is still in parts on my bench, that Langdon miter box I picked up the other day will need total dis-assembly and clean up. Probably a good candidate for a paint job.

I got the swing arm to move freely, phew!
Yeah for Liquid Wrench!

That is an interesting feature, which I believed only shows up on MF-Langdon miter box, an adjustable width between the front post and the fence

Roughly 2 extra inches. Nice touch...
But you better have lots of rigidity in that adjustment. 

Those No 12 Breast drills don't have much japanning left, I'm thinking maybe I ll try a repaint job. It is not something I normally do, but I want to try a complete restoration job. Depending on my results I will either do a few more or send my failed attempts to Wiktor Kuc for a real good make over job :-)

So that should keep me occupied until...Squirrel! 
Oh yeah, almost forgot. This being the month of June, I'm supposed to participate in the world famous Brian Eve's build a chair in the month of June-ish on line extravaganza. So I better start giving it some thoughts.

Probably some sort of shop chair, with built-in WiFi, beer holder, 8 way power adjust with lumbar support and etc.
Hummm do I still need two seats up front in my Lincoln?

Bob, doing some therapy blogging :-)



9 comments:

  1. Is there anything that you don't collect? Vinyl is making a come back supposedly. And old tube amps are way better than the stuff made today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Huh, me a collector?? :-)
    I so much agreed with you on tube sound, man I miss that. When we last left NS in 2002 Heather made me get rid of my old bachelor stereo boat anchor equipment. We compromise, I kept the turntable and its pre-pre-amp :-)
    Im itching to hook it back up for my ongoing Man cave project, an offshot of my currently happening shop re-org... But times march on and priorities changes...Still one day I'll get to it.

    Bob, reminiscing his state of the art audiophile equipment from the early 80s :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds like you've got more than enough to keep you busy. I bought a new tube amp about 15 years ago because I heard good things about them. Never really could tell a difference in sound. Got rid of it because it didn't play well with my other components.

    ReplyDelete
  4. HI Matt
    I will confess that the difference in sound between tube versus solid state is small but its is due mainly to the background noise being different caused mostly by the electrons travelling thru a vacuum or a solid. Similarly the sound from a vinyl album and a CD are different, largely by the artifacts produced. But in the end, these subtil sound differences are the stuff of audiophiles and really no two people hear the same so, there is a lot of mystics and voodoo black magic it would seems among audiophiles arguments :-)

    Nonetheless, having grew up with and learn to service tube equipment first, I do "hear" a difference in the sound, albeit subjective...
    What did you bought a MacKintosh?

    Bob, yearning for his turntable

    ReplyDelete
  5. Superb post Bob, really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to see how you approach the breast drill restoration, as I am considering the same for my Goodell Pratt no. 5 1/2B. Will take those photos of my Langdon mitre box' undercarriage on the weekend and send them through.
    Regards
    Gerhard

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Gerhard
    Thank you. Don't know yet when I will get around to it, but will post it once on the go. And thanks for the upcomming pics.

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Bob,
    great post. Rudy seems to be a little rascal. But he has to work on his practical jokes. Leaving traces.....ts ts ts!
    Blogging keeps one busy. Thinking about what to write, doing something, making pictures, gather information, typing it, review it and so on and so on.
    It's my kind of distraction too. If the business around me is going to be too stressful and being not fun anymore, that's the point when I dive into the topics I would like to write about.
    So, there is a lot of stuff to do on your side.
    As you mentioned "Keep calm and carry on".

    Talk soon.

    Stefan, still being amused about all the shirts Rudy has got.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Stefan. indeed blogging takes up a lot of attention :-)
    Rudy can be a handful at time, he has is own personality and still going thru his chewing phase...
    For that reason I have not take him down into the shop yet, too much stuff for him to get in trouble... Once he is more mature, ill introduce him to it and he will become my full fledged shop dog.

    Cheers
    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  9. Woodworking is great if you have all the right tools with you at your workshop. By the way Rudy looks great.

    ReplyDelete