Travel restrictions have been eased somewhat and Eva and I were able to get away for much of February. What with packing and planning, returning and recovering, no blogs for a month. I always find it takes me a couple of days to re-adjust to home routines.
So yesterday I officially finished unpacking. Always when I am away I come home with a small repair project or two. This time I had to fix the broken arm on my sun glasses. I had carelessly thrown the sun glasses into my shoulder bag and the arm snapped.
The repair was easy, because I had a couple of special items in my shop. First I "super" glued the arm together with two small pieces of plastic to support the repair while the glue set. Then, and this is the clever part, I covered the repair with heat shrink tubing and used my heat gun to shrink in down tight. I opted for the contrasting colour because I am a style maven,.......and my black tubing wasn't big enough.
Another job that I came home was my travel shoulder bag developed a hole in it. Not a big hole, but enough for coins to fall through. I like this bag, it is light, bright and has a solid zipper pocket for pass ports etc. Anyway, as a shop job I turned it inside out and lined it with Duct Tape. I guess I will have to replace this bag eventually, but not today.
I didn't post any blogs while away but....I did think a big about wood. This tree is in a botanical garden in Ponta Delgada, Sao Maguel Island Azores . It is an Australian Banyan Tree
The garden has several species trees including Kauri trees and Norfolk Island Pines as well as bamboo and other flowering shrubs. The Borges Garden is right in town, a short walk from the Mall. It is comforting to observe that there are almost NO initials carved into the tree.
I came home to a little job that I hadn't been able to finish before we left. My wife's friend had some plaster casts that were made some years ago by her father. She decided to they should be mounted and seen, rather than live in a box in her closet.
This is one of those jobs that is easy, but has many steps and stages. To begin one of the plaques has a very rough, uneven back. To glue it to the oak board meant that I had first to fill and smooth the back. That is why it took so long, the plaster had to set, hard. Waiting for glue, plaster, varnish etc to dry it not labour but it does take time. I glued the animal heads to the board, weighted them down and let the glue dry, for a couple of days.
I really like doing small 'one off' things in the shop. Get task, solve a problem and move on. I worked in a factory with a small production line as a teenager and it inspired me to go back to school. I still like variety in my work.
Before I took off in February I tried to revive another old toy.
Unfortunately, this toy had been neglected for too long. This little dozer was a childhood toy of mine, so fifty-eight or so years old. It had drifted into dead space at my parent's house and lived there for years.. When it resurfaced only one of the motors ran, amazingly.
Each track had it own motor and I was hopeful that with a little patience and solder it could be fixed. Once I got it apart the rust had pretty much eaten the gears and a portion of one motor. The repair was beyond me. The happy ending was that with the motors removed it became a usable push toy, and the blade still goes up and down as it moves.
There is a YouTube channel called Rescue and Restore, old metal toy trucks are returned to their former glory. It inspired me to try and save some toys. If you are a tinkerer give it a look.
Well, spring is coming they claim, didn't feel much like it today.
cheers ianw
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