Transylvanian saw poised to taste blood

Cutting up firewood in a Carpathian Mountains stylee:

Materials meeting the saw blade appear to be possibly beech, birch, and very probably white Romanian male...

(Apparently they made it through to the end all in one piece. This time.)

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.

Wooden Square

In amongst all the tool cleaning and refurb, a strange and unaccustomed feeling swept over me. Gradually it dawned on me what it was.

I wanted to make something in wood.

I know! What the dickens? Worry not, gentle reader - I slaked the need by making... a tool.

Yeah, it's one of them wooden squares. I'm not convinced about them, but as someone who believes in trying something for myself before dismissing it, I figured what the hell. I happened to have some suitably thin pieces of ash that had spent some years acting as drawer dividers, so I reckoned it was going to be about as stable as any wood ever will be. Alas, the truly quarter sawn pieces were a little thin and a little narrow, so I had to slum it a little.

And honestly? I don't like fancy shapes at the end of the blade. Y'know why I did it? There was a partial saw kerf in the ash, and by making a wavy shape at the end of the blade I could eek out another inch or so of length. It'd be vastly amusing if that or something similar was how the practice came about in the first place.

Being well out of practice - and bridle joints giving one very few places to hide - the stock ended up a tad shorter than planned too. First up I stopped thinking and started cutting like it was a tenon. i.e. All the wrong side of the line. Abort. Recut, shoot, mark again. Second time was just, ack, horrible. I tried to rescue it it, but it was beyond hope. Abort. Recut, shoot, mark again. Third time went much better, although I thought I'd got a better fit with the blade at 90° than subsequently occurred. *shakes fist at gap* No matter. The fit was largely okay, and as a slight re-entry back into some proper woodwork, it was fun to do. 

And I dunno what's with my photography at the mo', but swear on my combi plane collection, the edge of the blade is not sloping as it appears to be in that pic. Really, if I had any sense at all, I'd have Photoshopped that away and fixed the gap at the same time, but 'tis all laid bare for you, gentle reader. In all its hideous reality. 

I must be mad. (Don't answer that)

Listing to one side

Gradually - oh, so gradually - I make small inroads into the ever-lengthening To Do List. Cast your mind back to March, um, 2011 (Zoicks!) when my fit of Spring Cleaning hit the Brace Bit Blockage.

I managed to get through all the stuff on the left, but came over all faint at the thought of cleaning up all those auger bits - and put them away again. Shame! Horror!

Well I finally mustered up the will to finish the job, hence my recent mild obsession with lead screws. And here they are; cleaned up, sharpened as necessary, and the spare-spare spares put in the One Day I Will Get Off My Behind and Sell Something box.

Technically I still have the l'hommedieu or shipwright's augers to clean, but honestly I think their best kept in their mummified state, deep in their coating of linseed oil. Until I need to build a boat.

Anyway, in amongst that lot are no fewer than five different patterns of bits (You want to see a bit without spurs? Just holler. I have, um, four types) and absolutely no complete sets. Oh well, variety is the spice of life, is it not?