Plumbing new depths

Having the plumbers in to fit a new boiler shouldn't really have a knock-on effect on everything else - but it does. Even when things go well they seem to pervade the whole place and make getting anything else done near impossible. And things have not gone well. Yesterday they cut through two defunct pipes and capped them off. At least they thought they were both defunct, but one wasn't... So yesterday was spent repairing the damage and getting hot water back to the kitchen sink.

Today it was freshly reaming out the holes bored on Monday for the new pipes, right next to the remaining non-defunt, non-repaired pipe of the three available. The time-served borer of holes, who's experienced the flex in drill bits of any length (and due to the thickness of the cob wall this particular bit is three feet long) well, that borer would exercise caution and elect to drill from the pipe side in. Ben, the plumber's mate, knows that - now. Unfortunately he didn't know it earlier today, the bit wandered and he managed to nick the mains water pipe thus achieving the full house on all three pipes. The rest of the day was spent repairing it.

All this was preceeded by a lot of "it should" and "we'll try that first" by Vic, the boss, which I said at the time boded ill, but being able to say I told you so is little comfort. I can't honestly blame them though. This house is a sort of textbook example of how not to do it. If tradition and logic dictates the cold water pipe should be on one side of the hot one, well it's guaranteed to be the other way round in this place (and it was). Pipes wend their way gaily down the middle of the wall above wash basins, just asking for a nail put to hang a mirror to go right through it (and it did). Electric cables go not up and down as safety dictates, but rather throw themselves jovially across the wall at a diagonal. Spare bits of live cable still live under the floor and no-one's yet been able to decide what exactly they do but don't dare cut them because they don't know where to go to replace them again. The usual old house problems of an abhorrence of 90° corners anywhere and strange creaks and groans at about 3am are mere peccadilloes.

Monday also brought us the delights of having three-quarters of the spare room floorboards up to find out which pipe did what (before finding out they didn't, in fact, do that at all). There's a cynical story told in one of John Winton's books about how dockyard folk go about fitting out the pipes and cables in one of HM Submarines. Viz; all the pipe fitters, 'leccy fellows etc are drawn up on the dockside, a whistle is blown and they all sprint for the boat. Whoever gets there first gets to fit his pipe or cable straight as a die from A to B, regardless of its size. All others, even if 3 inches in diameter, have to work round it, leading to an end product not unlike a facsimile of a plate of spaghetti. Well that appears to be what's happened under our spare room floorboards.

I can say this with confidence 'cos I can easily refresh my memory. Yes, you've guessed it; the floorboards are still up... We assume from the debris on the stairs and in long-haired cat Polly's fur that she's had a good rummage round while the going's good. Too late to find the mummified mice found under the airing cupboard though - bad luck, Poll. She reached the dizzying heights of sixteen yesterday, which is something of a record for our cats. She was born in the bathroom behind the toilet, hand fed in order to avoid imminent death, fostered onto our other cat (who happened to also be having kittens) by her mother within a week, had to "break-in" three or four other cats who've come and gone, spent a couple of years travelling to and from Cornwall once a month and now has a pair of parrots to contend with. Heck, it's been a hard life thus far so a little under floorboard exploration is nothing.

And what does all this have to do with woodworking? Quite frankly, sod all :)

Little tinker

Yet more tinkering and just when I think I'm done (at least with this cupboard) what catches the corner of my eye? The #80 scraper, that's what. Ack. Anyway, thus far:


Somewhat to my disgust the Anant dado plane has got itself a rather prominent spot, but alas, it happened to fit there rather nicely. Still not sure about the Mujingfang - that blasted cross handle rather gets in the way in storage terms - on the other hand having it handy again has already proved a boon. The bullnose going Australian may yet prove to be a damn fool thing to do but when a space speaks to you... Bit like laying crazy paving I imagine. Rather chuffed how good the wooden shaves and scrapers look - don't be fooled by the "space", there are others but I, erm, couldn't find them...

Anyway, now it gets difficult. I had hoped light would have dawned while doing this bit about what to do next, however I'm still rather in the dark. What exactly is the best way to deal with fenced planes like the rebates and combis? Do I still put the combis separately as I'd originally thought, or just some of them, or none of them? And chisels? And gouges? And braces, and drills, hammers and screwdrivers, and... No, maybe just stick with planes and bring in the woodies? Oh lawks, I never found room for the technical jack I use all the time. Oh damn and blast...

I'm going to sit in a darkened room for a bit and reflect on why I hadn't done this before - 'cos it was a bloomin' stoopid thing to start!

Incidentally it never occurred to me until last night that this could be taken as an extended gloat of outstandingly crass proportions. It's certainly not intended that way, but apologies if it causes you to turn up at the edges and call me names. If it helps I call myself names for being so weak-kneed and not selling off three-quarters of it. That probably doesn't help, does it? Sorry.

Hold the front page!

Or rather Hold the Side Rebate...

Marc wonders about the detail of holding the side rebate pair. The key is to utilise the depth stops:


This is the neater one. The first was done by hand but I wilted on the second and brought the Woodrat into play - the sort of odd task I find it worth keeping for. Anyway, first I bored a hole with a 5/8" bit deep enough to take the depth stop bolt head. Conveniently its centre seems to be 25mm up from the bottom and 25mm in from the nose (or 1") so easy enough to get right. Then I put the depth stop in place at what would be it's highest possible setting, drew round it, lengthed the lines for the end of the depth stop foot (try saying that six times as fast as possible...) down to the bottom to take it at it's lowest setting too and removed the unwanted wood. This one eyeballed to the lines (sort of) on the 'Rat, the other bored and then (badly) chiseled to the line. Thus I don't have to worry about setting the depth stop to a certain height in order to fit the storage, which seems to me a Good Thing.

Anyway, like the rest, not a Thing Of Beauty but when (if...) I make a fancy one I'll now have a much better idea of what I'm doing and how to make it look better.

Fiddle, fiddle

You know the old dance step thing? "Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow"? Well this is sort of like that - only without the quick bits... Thank goodness for Chris Becksvoort's method of holding the 98/99 side rebate planes which I pinched with a gladsome cry - otherwise I'd still be turning them around in all directions trying to work out a way to hold them.


Decided the upswept handles of the LV router plane were asking to get it knocked off, so I shall find another place to put the router planes. Not sure about Little Victor in there either, but on the other hand the available hole is just right and nothing else will fit there. Would have liked to get Phil's purpleheart shoulder plane in the New Tool side but I simply can't see where. Might well be looking at a separate wooden plane area 'cos I'm not sure about the Mujingfang either... Still, quite pleased so far and the old vs. new almost-but-not-really-a-mirror-image is fun. Now do I add in the Record 3 and 4 or not? Decisions, decisions...