Listing a little more

Having recovered from that heady foray into yer akshull wood butchery, chipping away at the To Do List continues on. First up, you may recall my fortuitous finding of a possible wheel to fix the Millers Falls #2 wheel brace? And the rather botched temporary installation of same.

Well it's still a trifle botched - apparently a guaranteed way to drill a hole in the centre of a circle is to actually want to drill it off-centre and it aims for the centre like a missile homing system... Anyway, it's better, and it seems to work okay. I may get picky and have another shot at it some time, but somehow I doubt it.

While still on a finicky metalwork high, I dug through the box of largely unidentifiable assorted fixings, but they may come in someday. You know the sort of motley collection of "bits and bobs"; bet most of you have one. Well one of the screws did come in someday, and it was this day. The thread isn't strictly correct - Marples helpfully used a Stanley-esque odd-ball thread - but close enough to work. Had to file the head down almost to the slot (and recut same) to get it small enough, but 'tis done.

May not look like much to you, but that spur cutter has been floating around loose in a bag for years, always in danger of being lost forever. So that's a weight off my mind. Trouble is, it now makes the Marples 100% more qualified as a candidate for another loving home, given that I have approximately 700% more rebate planes than I have the hands to use them with. But it's always, inexplicably, been a favourite of mine.

Yes, it's the oft-derided single fence rod garden variety 78-a-like, and there's a wee crack where the fence rod screws in. But it works. It doesn't care how little love it gets, it just ploughs on. Or rebates on... in that ridiculously loud and shameless red outfit.

It's funny really, which tools capture your heart. It's often not the ones you expect it to be.