Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Bet you think I'm letting things slip again, eh? Well you'd have a point. Not that I didn't get anything done yesterday, but I've simply not got round to putting up the pics yet. Took me a while to recover from the 100+ temperatures in the workshop. Have you tried woodworking in a Turkish Bath? Must be very similar... Still, the #140 came into its own in trimming the tenons very nicely, which must be a record turnaround in terms of buying a tool for a particular job and then actually using it for same. Although I'm having one or two niggles with getting the tightness of the lever cap just so, which caused a certain amount of gnashing of teeth. But it's probably just the usual familiarising period I have with every new tool. I also tried out Woodrat's method of cutting tenons using the stop, aluminium guide rails and -technology run amok- a block of wood. Somewhat to my amazement, it works! Could be beginner's luck of course, but it was actually very quick and straightforward. What? From Woodrat? C'est ne pas possible! But yes, it is. I cut the basic shoulders on the 16 tenons in 15mins, once I'd got the set-up right... I'm actually quite enjoying this first shallow paddle in the world of batch production, despite my natural tendency to never make the same thing twice. Of course it's a killer as far as major hand tool use is concerned, but I can still slip in the old neander powered techniques for the final fit and finishing. Anyway, half the tenons are fitted and the other half are a third of the way there, so I had enough for a quick dry fit of one table to see how things are looking. I will get the pics up later today - promise.

In other news, after extensive research I've finally whacked down some cold, hard cash on three 5mg syringes of diamond paste - 45, 15 and 0.5 micron, based on those stocked by Joel at Tools for Working Wood. I was sorely tempted by this but I mean really, how good can they be for that price? So I went to Holts instead. I'll let you know how I get on... Also shock news as I discover another reader! =8~O And here I was confident in the thought that I was just talking to myself...

Finally a small rant. With the biggest Fleet Review since 1977 going on in The Solent, was it really too much to ask the BBC to let Wimbledon suffer with just one channel for today? It's no wonder people have trouble with being patriotic when even the national broadcaster can't see where its loyalties should lie. I won't start on their inability to get hold of anyone who could identify any of the ships. Anyway, good luck to the blue fleet in the battle tonight. Or should that be the red fleet...? If you don't want to know the result, look away now:
(We won)

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