By the pricking of my thumbs

Ach, this getting ridiculous; yes, it's The Thumbs again. Am I kidding myself? How can I think neanderthal if I can't do neanderthal...? Oh well, don't mind me, just needed a small moan.

I did manage about 15-20 minutes work on the arm shaping yesterday before having to retire defeated - I very much fear I shall have to resort to sanding considerably earlier than I could desire. If only the wind'd die down a bit I could do it outside and at least cut back on how much mess I make all over the w'shop. In the meantime I turned my attention towards a little jig making in anticipation of the whole arm drilling thing. Getting ahead of myself..? What do you mean...? Anyway, as the rest of the thing seems to be turning into some sort of bastard child, er, I mean highly developed hybrid of John Brown's and Drew Langsner's techniques, with a dash of PWW tips 'n' cheats for good measure, I figured I might as well continue the theme for the arm-boring skyhooks. Thus I have a Langsner-esque rear boring fixture to support the back of the arm...

... and a Brownian front support built on similar lines to the Forth Bridge... JB seemed to favour boring the back stick holes seperately by eye, so only needed some support for the arms as the rear sticks held up the back. I didn't do the Langsner-esque side supports because I thought they'd be hard to make, but as it turned out making the rear one was a breeze so I could just have easily done it. Heigh ho. I may still have to if the Forth Bridge turns out to be no good - as it is I shall have to lengthen the slots down a bit to make leeway in order to pad up the top bar to allow for the slight backwards tilt of the arm. Does that make any sense? Well I know what I mean anyway, which is slightly surprising...

Of course all this is so much waste of time because boring for the sticks in situ like this is a no go if I can't get hold of an auger bit extension...