Tuck

Good news - I was sleeping sound and undisturbed at 2am this morning.

Unfortunately it only meant I woke up at 4am instead. D'oh. Oh well, not too bad, although this is definitely an "off" day. But not a dead loss; I used the Power of the Internet to do a little Christmas shopping that can't be accomplished by workshop time. I must say there's a helluva a lot to be said for sitting in the comfort of your own home with a mug of tea as compared to slogging round the pitiful excuse for a shopping experience that is Truro City Centre. Although I admit I got a little side-tracked into coffee creams and a whole world of on-line sweet shops ('Murricanism - candy stores?). I confess I was thoroughly mugged in Memory Lane as details of Rhubarb & Custards and Rosie Apples flashed before my eyes. Sigh. Even I can remember when you used to get your sweets by the quarter from a jar as a matter of course. Nowadays it's cause for remark when you see a proper sweet shop. Golly, how about this one? Wowsers. About 20 years ago I had a tuck box that would have welcomed that with open arms and no mistake. And chocolate cigarettes forsooth! I thought they must have been outlawed as encouraging bad habits in the young, although the only bad habit I acquired was a love of chocolate, which was probably on the cards anyway.

Ack, I'm off to further wallow in nostalgia and try very hard not to order anything...

Hatched

So today was the "on" day, and by some miracle I did actually make a teeny bit more progress, even unto having two completed items. Well three, but one was the first attempt and went rather horribly wrong... But hey, whoohoo, eh? Mind you, after Saturday's efforts I woke up in the early hours of Sunday and really thought I'd done it this time; I could barely stagger to my feet at all, never mind the 8 laps of the kitchen table necessary for the Heating Of The Wheat Bag. Just a bit scary actually. A small offering to the tool gods maybe in order so as not to repeat the experience at about 2am tomorrow...

Asise from doing a creditable impression of The Wreck of the Hesperus, today we actually remembered it was PJ's hatch day - nine whole years since this planet was first cursed with his feathered ego. Hard to believe he's 9 really, even though he's only been here for 6 1/2, being "pre-owned". The trouble is, how ever many years pass, he'll always act like a delinquent 3 year old.

Plasticine tools

So I seem to be running into a sort of one-day-on/one-day-off pattern of woodworking at the mo'. Well I say a pattern, but does it count after only three days...? Never mind, a tiny bit of additional progress has been made and all I need is enough tiny bits to add up (in time) and Everything's Under Control. The key is not to prevaricate about the bush, which as long-time readers know is not my strongest suite.

You may detect one or two Wallace-isms creeping in there; I've been on a bit of a Nick Park binge having finally got round to transferring the earlier stuff to DVD so I can watch it again. You know there are quite a few tools - and hand tools what's more - in Mr Park's work when you're on the look out for them. Okay, so the saw in A Grand Day Out isn't exactly a Wenzloff but judging by the lack of depth under the handle it must be a favourite of Wallace's. Well that could be the reason it looks like that, couldn't it...? The chickens in Chicken Run use lots and lots of tools of course, including planing a beam with a wooden jack by the simple technique of having the beam on the tilt and sitting on the plane and riding it down the wood. Sigh, not being the size of a chicken I can't try that out, but it looks like fun. Unless, perhaps, you hit a knot...

December's back again

Tsk, here we are at December already; I don't know where this year's gone, I really don't. But hey, November was signed off in style with a flurry-ette of activity in the workshop aimed towards breaking the back of the Christmas Present Problem. Trouble is that demands batch production, so while I did make progress there's still nothing in an actual finished state. Bum. I did at least get a disc sanding arrangement rigged up without too much hassle, which had been giving me some cause to worry. Not usually a disc sanding kind of gal but it was required in this case so I saved some time by using the table from my old combi disc/belt sander that I used once, hated and consigned to oblivion. The disc part that is; the belt sander bit gets used quite a bit for tool-related stuff. That and an MDF disc on the lathe faceplate and behold, a variable speed disc sander. Even had one of the adhesive discs I got with the original sander handy; must be all of 8 years old and waiting for its moment of triumph. Amazed I could find it when I needed it.



Yeah, okay, so I need to work on the dust extraction a little more...

Mind you, it's still very much touch and go as to whether I'll meet the deadline. What with one thing and another, mainly a bad back (again), I reckon I've lost at least one solid month of workshop time in this run-up to Crimbo. One Solid Month. That's not a case of "not much workshop time" but actual "not making anything in the workshop at all". The last couple of weeks haven't seen me darken its doors - and then to my horror when I did get in there I found this on the Maxi:



Okay, so if had been on practically anything else but the Maxi then I'd be really upset, but as it is it's something I could do without. Still not entirely sure whether it was dripping condensation or something worse. We have had some really fearsome driving rain and winds lately...

Anyway, did at least do something. Or maybe that should more accurately be over-did something. I figured if I was to take advantage of any workshop time I'd better go big and do as much as possible, and oh brother, has my back been telling me all about it. I don't know if the readership are familiar with wheat bags you heat up in the microwave and apply as localised warmth to aches and pains e.g. bad backs? Blessed invention. None of the stress of hot water bottles and worrying if you've finally perished the rubber and are going to be scalded by a dose of escaping hot water. I must have re-heated my wheat bag at least a dozen times last night; two minutes at 750w. Funny how two minutes can seem like a long time though, when you're desperate for it to be over. I could hardly even bear to stand still last night, so I was doing laps of the kitchen table while I waited. Averaged 15 seconds a lap, although curiously I was slightly faster going clockwise than counter-clockwise. At the time I found that interesting - which probably tells you all you need to know about my state of mind at 3 in the morning when I'm going "ow".

And finally, I've made the switch from Blogger to BloggerBeta, so if you come across any hitches give a yell. Seems I've got to start coming up with "labels" for posts. I think they mean categories. Ooo, that's going to be hard; I shall have to think about that.