Clutter

As I labour on semi-successfully in the vineyard (aka The Workshop) I briefly dallied with the idea of maybe cleaning up the god-awful mess on the workbench to make things run a tad smoother. A little more production, a little less "Where's the blank-blank-blankety-blank chisel gone now? I only put it down a moment ago" if you will. Then I remembered I was going to need some brass and thought it just as well I hadn't tidied up.

After all, where there's muck there's brass...

I know, terrible innit? That's why this blog is called musings from the workbench, and not profound thoughts. Arguably it should be changed to musings & terrible puns from the workbench... Actually it's not the mess on the bench that's the problem, it's remembering where I keep things. The less-than-unified method of tool storage employed by yours truly is coming back to bite me in a big way just now. Yesterday I spent ten minutes trying to remember where the hell I kept my screwdrivers. Still haven't the faintest idea; had to resort to fetching one from the house. Oh deary me.

Workshop Miscalculation

So I bethought me to sign up for the UK Workshop forum Hand Tool Secret Santa, right? 'Cos a deadline by which I'd have had to get in the workshop and make something can be nothing but a Good Thing, right? And it's worked; I've made shavings. And firewood and lots of mistakes... But I made one miscalculation, didn't I? By the nature of the thing I can't blog about what I'm doing. D'oh.

Actually maybe it's just as well. The woodworking gods are taking revenge on me for my neglect with one damn thing after another. The most annoying being that I managed to walk right into the protruding metal angles that the bandsaw fence run on. Result; a deep and painful bruise on my arm which is slowing me up even more. Heigh ho.

Meanwhile the UPS man has called with a pre-production example of the Veritas Skew Block plane. This is an unusual case in that the existence and appearance of this plane is out in the public domain already, so just for once I can say what I'm getting to play with - er, rigourously test. Unfortunately I still have to remember not to say what I think about it! Grrr. Should be an interesting weekend though...

Handy Tool

Is it me, or are Veritas tools getting smaller and smaller? It's either that or I've eaten the wrong side of the mushroom again...

Yes, it really works, honest. Even the adjuster. Click on the thumbnails for a larger pic.

Postal strike

Do I speak of the Royal Mail's approaching industrial action? I do not. Nope, I pun. Viz: I have posted on UK Workshop again. All for the entirely selfish reason of trying to prompt the woodworking juices to flow once more, and ya know, it may already be starting to work. Shhh, now - don't frighten it away...