Two Weeks Later

 So what have I been up to, anyway.  This time I've not been away on holiday nor particularly laid up with my arthritic back,  I have been busy doing  those little things that would be so much more trouble without  shop space and some tools.

  

 The other day I put up another motion sensitive light, this time under the front porch overhang.  What is the best way to drill two holes into brick? A hammer drill and carbide drill bit.  I don't think a house hold should be without a hammer drill and bits. I have drilled dozens of holes in bricks and blocks for shelves, lights and all sorts of other stuff.  It also helps to have a proper five foot step ladder when doing this sort of job.

  

  Here is another goofy little project.  I call it grey leather, double thickness duct tape. In this case I put wooden ends into the "leather" pouch.  I made this to hold my various 'card' wallets together in my bag, or glove box, or where ever.  It was really nice to have work space and a very sharp knife to make this thing.  To make it slightly ridged I put several narrow pieces of veneer between the layers of duct tape. 

 

  Yesterday Kieran made a robot in the shop, one that shoots a torpedo .  Last time K was here he began using the jig saw, this time he got to paint using a "rattle can".  The paint job he achieved with the spray can was many times better than he has ever achieved with a brush.  Many of the bits and pieces are glued on using a hot glue gun, while there are holes drilled for the bolts.  K used the cordless drill with the key less chuck and drill bits to make holes of various sizes.  

  Wet season is coming.  I replaced a couple of broken dowels on my boot dryer, I made mine but there are several to choose from at thetoolstore.ca . Last year I bought the multi hole one for the grand kids. We don't get our boots wet much anymore, so two spots are enough.

boot dryer 

  Here are a two repairs for 10,000 Villages.  I had a bird with a broken neck and a lady with a broken arm.  This time neither repair will be invisible but when I am done the repair shouldn't to too obvious.  The bird fell and broke its neck because the base was way off level, I've wedged it and it glued the broken neck, I hope it finds a nice quiet home somewhere.

  These are my finished carvings for entry in the Rockton Worlds Fair next weekend. Lots of finish sanding and two coats of spray vanish. I hope they show well at the fair.

  There have been pictures to frame and walls to repair (we moved a bunch of pictures so had lots of holes to fill) as well as getting out in the lovely fall weather because you know it won't last.  Busy, busy and mostly loving it.

  cheers, ianw 

Not just "Unplugged" but fully "Disconnected"

  Yesterday morning the electricity to our home was turned for a few hours. Workmen were doing some work outside and so had the main line disconnected. We have a fairly new, well insulated house and so it didn't cool down much over the course of the interruption and I boiled water for coffee in a sauce pan on the gas stove. Technically there was no hardship, and no inconvenience, until I went down to my work shop. 

  I have a pretty good selection of quality hand powered tools  and was not expecting any trouble amusing myself without power tools. I planned to make another small set of Quarto pieces. Last summer I made a set of pieces on a large scale that live at our cottage. Everything was worked out in my head, I didn't need power to glue and clamp the cubes together. The round pieces would be shaped with hand planes, and cut to length with a hand saw. Any other shaping would be done with files and sand paper, everything easy.

  You know, working with hand tools only is not a big deal on small projects like this. A lathe would have been fast and more accurate and cutting the pieces to length on the mitre saw would have been my typical choice but I used my bench hook and shooting board to hold the small pieces when cutting and shaping. Working in my 'disconnected' shop only had one real drawback.  As well as no electricity for tools there was no electric light. It is easy to understand while craftsmen of the past rose early and didn't work in basement shops. My shop doesn't have much natural light and that was the only real challenge of the morning's work.

 

Duct leather 

  One invention from yesterday, and I am sure I'm not the first to think of this, is Duct Tape Leather, on You Tube they call it fabric. I needed a game board from soft material so the board and pieces would fit in a bag. I laid out the Duct Tape and instead of using a second layer of tape I used a coffee bean bag as backing. I figure the bag is pretty tough, and a bit more interesting to view than tape. I have used duct tape similarly in the past to protect sharpened blades too. 

 I think I may get a nice pieces of pine and do this again adding carved details to the pieces. This set is adequate, but nicer is always nicer.