So What Have I Been Doing- the workshop conundrum

  So what have I been doing, that's the conundrum.  It seems nothing, there is no new furniture,  barely a visible project, yet... Over the past couple of weeks I have spent some time working on something in my shop nearly everyday.  I have no photos to share and seemly nothing to show for my effort.  However, all the things where possible because I have a workshop full of tools and a separate place in which to work. 

  Summertime is bicycle riding time for us and this year I bought an e-bike, a Giant LaFree. It was the best money I've spent on a recreational luxury in ages. A new bike involves fiddling, fussing and adjusting, mirrors, racks, water bottles etc. etc.  All of those adjustment require hex keys of various shapes and sizes. 

   Since I live in Canada it means that I have to have full sets of hex keys in both metric and imperial.  I also have a set of specialised driver bits to work on security fasteners as well.  Since I have a shop and have collected those various tools over the years I was able to adapt a handle bar mirror, remount a bike computer and fit and adjust my grandson's bike too.  Were I cynical I would think that manufacturers want you buy something new rather than adjust/modify your existing products. There sure is a broad selection of fasteners out there for which I have the right tools.

  Summertime is also gardening time.  Each year I spend several hours sanding rusty garden tools and treating handles with tung oil.  I have sanders, grinders, wire brush attachments, all of which makes for easy care and maintenance of our  garden tools.  Not interesting, not blog worthy but, a use of time and shop space.  

  What else has been going on...sharpening. I have sharpened kitchen knives, garden tools, shop tools and pocket knives.  I know that blades should be constantly maintained, but...it turns out that a couple of times a year I spend a few hours cleaning up my work space, setting up my sharpening jigs and honing things to a fine edge.  At this time things are sharp.

  The last thing I've done in my shop lately is paint.  I hate painting.  I am not very good at it.  I am not neat enough or comfortably organised enough to be a good painter, nor patient enough. Having a shop space enables me to spread the tools out and contain the mess while doing the job, therefore making the job slightly less onerous.  

  Today's shop time was spent touching up the missed spots on the stairs, and making a new towel rack.  I didn't know we needed a new towel rack until it touched up the drying rack in our bathroom, you know how one job leads to another.

   

cheers, ianw

Friday's Workshop Task-Bike

  On Friday I spent a couple of hours working in your garage, with tools, none of which are wood working tools. We have two bicycles each, one bike is for grocery getting,(5km one way or less) and one bike for longer recreational rides. The long ride bikes are lighter, faster, more comfortable and easier to ride. The grocery getting bikes have bags and baskets, weren't super fancy to begin with and are a bit old.

 If you have equipment, you know that occasionally you have to spent time doing maintenance, and that was Friday afternoon in the garage. One bike needed handle bars replace and another needed bar ends added and they all needed to have things checked and tighten.

 

Bondhus Gorilla Grip 

 Gone are the days when you could work on your bike with a hammer and an adjustable wrench.  Everything is hex head bolts now, and since nearly all bike parts come from the far east, they are metric. Do yourself a favour get a set of metric and a set of Imperial keys and put them in your tool box.

 After the mechanical stuff there were tires to check and greasy bits to be wiped down. And a while later is was time to take the bike out for a test ride. It must be great to live in one of those bike friendly cities in Europe. We can only hope that North America will get on the bicycle band wagon in time for our grandchildren.

    cheers ianw