The not-at-all-Kenyon-like saw I rehandled and sharpened following Mike's advice did a bootiful hot-knife-through-butter impression, cutting away all the dross and the couple of places where nails still lingered. Then it was just a case of considerable travelling to and fro through across the planer and through the thicknesser (or over the jointer and through the planer if you're reading this in North America) to make it look a lot more welcoming as a usable material.
As long as you don't look too closely...
I'll let it sit for a bit to see if it really as stable as it ought to be after numerous years - and to make sure all the evil beasties have long gone - but it's a start. Only downside was the tape measure dying a horrible death. Not sure what make of tape the fashionable woodworker favours these days?
Oh and I've heard the Bad News about the shipping charges. Ouch...
Bummer about the tape.
ReplyDeleteThere was nice wood hiding in those seats--and yep, hopefully the critters are a thing of the past.
Take care, Mike
For some reason I can't see the pics on this. Perhaps my workplace is blocking the link?
ReplyDeleteAh, could have been the convoluted lengths I had to go to last night 'cos Blogger wasn't accepting images - I've loaded them up to Blogger now so see if that's better :)
ReplyDeleteWorks perfectly. I was having trouble uploading images to blogger last night too...
ReplyDeleteReally like that Methodist church wood. It's a tough call whether to saw off the holes or leave them as witness to history (and to the bugs' holy calling).
ReplyDeleteThe tape measure....Really think lever-lock is the way to go, where the tape holds still when it is pulled out. The 12-foot x 1/2" ones. Now, is this allowed in England: you go down to the hardware store, and there you find six or a dozen 12-foot/0.5" tapes on a hook. And the issue is--which one is accurate? So you reach up on the hardware store wall and get down a 2-foot steel rule--one that looks like it oughta be right. Then test every single tape measure against that rule for inside and outside measure (inside measure requires you use their counter), pick the best one, and put the rest of em back. If they're stocked up, usually there's one good one. I like those 30' Fat Max ones too, because you can reach a good 8 feet to get a mark unassisted.
Wiley
Alf 'n all... 'shipping charges'? Sadly I missed the root of this.
ReplyDeleteThis is a summary of what it cost me to ship / import tools from Canada (well known monger) to Munich:
The german customs valued the tools at 205.98 $Canadian; a mistake (to my advantage)... the correct value was 205.98 $US.
The german customs valued the UPS charge at 120.35 $Canadian; I have to pay customs on the freight costs! If I did not have to pay this, then my bill would reduce by 25%! Btw... had the package been explicitly insured, then I would have had to pay customs on that also!
They converted these ammounts (205.98 $Canadian + 120.35 $Canadian) to 197.62EURO.
They charged 3.7% (humane) customs on this; this is 7.31EURO.
Then they dumped 16% VAT on 197.62EURO + 7.31EURO; this is 36.72EURO. From Jan 1st 2007, VAT has increased to 19%!
The means that the customs want a total of 44.03EURO.
UPS charge 10.00EURO for processing the package through the customs... plus, of course, 1.60EURO VAT.
This leaves me with a bill for 55.63EURO... which is 39.6% of the value of the tools! The bill would have been significantly higher had the customs not made a mistake with Canadian / US currency!
Excellent tools though!
Flippin' 'eck, Gerard, I'm glad you didn't tell me all that before hand...
ReplyDeleteWiley, given all the nail and screw holes as well, I think the bug burrows aren't going to notice much so I doubt I'll go out of my way to remove them. Good tip on choosing the tape too - just need to find somewhere that a) stocks them, and b) has a decent 2' steel rule too! :)