Not Worth Losing Your Head Over…

It was a youngster weekend again.

My grandson was here for his fortnightly stay with the old ‘uns. He enjoys these weekends, no pressure, all fun and my wife spoils him rotten. His birthday is on the 1st of January and, due to things way beyond our control, we didn’t get him a birthday present. It was promised and not forgotten. He wanted a remote controlled “Mario” go kart. Better late than never, we got him one and he was given it on arrival at our home. Some assembly required. The battery pack has to be charged and fitted and batteries for the controller need to be loaded into the back. No problem and quickly done.

The kart wouldn’t turn to the left. It went in a straight line and to the right but refused to go the other way. I told him to read the instruction booklet but what ten year old ever did that? So I did. I had to. The kart needs to be trimmed to the controller. One does this by pressing the “trim” button and getting the thing to run straight. Then switch “trim” off and try again. That worked. Hosanna! Jubilation! So off to the street outside and see what this thing can do. It does about 20 kph. That’s 12 mph in old money.

I told the lad to take it easy until he had some idea of the capabilities of the kart. Steering and speed and so on. Again, what ten year old boy does that?
Nope. not mine. It was full speed ahead and no holds barred.
This was great fun for a while but then the inevitable happened. He ran it at full speed into the kerbstone. The kart stopped but Mario’s head continued and bounced across the pavement, disappearing into the hedge.

I thought, he’ll be upset now. He’ll scream and shout and bawl. The world will end for him right here. I expected a right old fuss.

Not a bit of it.

He looked at me with calm and control written all over his little face. “You can glue that back on, Grandad.” he said. Infinite trust. Absolute belief in what he said. I was quite taken aback.
I reckon we can, I said and retrieved Mario’s head from the hedge.

Off to the shed then. This could also be a learning moment for him. Two part epoxy should be on everyone’s list of stuff to have lying around. I explained what two part epoxy is, a resin and a hardener. Mix in equal amounts. He was very attentive, but then again, he always is in the shed. We mixed it, found a little stick to spread it with and set Mario back together again. Leave it until the morning, I said.

It worked. Mario is as good as new and the lad is driving it happily and, perhaps, a little more carefully  once again.

One can’t even see the repair.

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As Time Goes By..

…so says the old song..

A year ago I bought a watch for my dear wife. Not just any old watch, no, she wanted a Tag Heuer Aqua with mother of pearl and other blingy bits like gold and a diamond. I found one, bought it and wept at the sight of my greatly reduced wallet. She loves it and has worn it every day since she got it.
The time has come for a service of this expensive piece. We have a service agreement, the first two are free and they are annual. Corona has hindered us in getting in on time but they were very understanding at the jewellers and “no problem, Sir” was the order of the day. So far so good.

Fourteen years ago, I bought my own watch there too. A Seiko, fully automatic, generator and batteri driven. It has served me very well. It is also in need of a service. The weight that drives the works has become noisy and the second hand moves in a less than ideal manner. I delivered it at the same time and, again, no problem. They will ring and give me a price. All is well.

Now neither my wife or I have a watch at present. (Not entirely true because I have a few cheap ones for daily use in the garden and the shed, but not, well, nice.)

Then this thing caught my eye as I was leaving the shop. As a secondary accoutrement it will serve my purposes. It will (hopefully) not be a replacement for my grand Seiko but one does need to consider one’s appearance.

Again a Seiko, automatic, from the “Presage” series. Not terribly expensive but elegant enough and it isn’t too heavy.

So I bought the thing.

The dear wife says it’s nice. Thank heavens….

Thieving Mouse..

I thought I was feeding a hedgehog. We have one or two that come round, one spent the winter here in another house. This house was set up as a feeding station and resting place for itinerant hedgies. Something was taking the food so I decided to set up the trail camera and catch the hedgie on film. Turns out, it isn’t a hedgie.. The little mouse was in and out several times during the night. Always took the same route in and out. I think it may be a nesting female gathering food for her brood. Oh well, they are a part of nature too and as long as she stays outside of the house then I’m OK with it.
Video here:

https://youtu.be/YCAV68lymPQ

The Tool Chest. Part 3.

Nearly there….

I figured out how to put the lid together. Bless my grandson for his input. I cut the four pieces to length and fixed the construction with dovetails. The flat lid is glued and dowelled to this box like affair and the whole thing sits nicely on the chest. I dropped the hinges into the carcass and allowed myself to screw them directly to the underside edge of the lid wall. The lid sits flush with the carcass over the hinges. I set the lock piece into the opposite side and the whole thing closes and locks with a padlock. A lot of thought and work went into that one piece but I am more than pleased with the “pop up” storage space the lid now creates. It will give me space for all the skinny things like marking knives, pencils, marking gauges, try squares, screwdrivers, bits and such other things. Those decisions will have to wait though. Fitting comes later..

In order to keep the lid from tipping backwards, I fitted a window lock to limit the travel. I had to modify it a little as it really needs two screws to hold the one end. Had I used two screws it wouldn’t be able to swivel as is required. One screw then, and it rotates on that perfectly. It also gives me a variable opening height to the lid if I so need it. Positioning it was a bit of a chore but it got done. I think it will need wheels… damn thing is solid and heavy. But that was the point in the first place. It should be so.

For the moment, I’m done building the chest. I need to find out what kind of finish I will give it but I’m experimenting with a clear varnish which is meant for maritime use. It gives a warm colour to the wood, yellowing it slightly and leaves a glass finish.
I have a lot of sanding to do and that will give me time to think.

As a final clou, I printed a small label to stick inside the chest. It says, simply; “Hand made by (me). April 2021.”

I like to think that this tool chest will outlive me, so I am leaving something for posterity!

I enjoyed building this thing. I enjoyed the challenge, the work and the sense of achievement that it brought. I learned a lot from it. Let’s hope I get some good use from it.

The Tool Chest. Part 2

This is getting to be a saga…

I worked out how to fix the peg that holds the drawer shut. It wasn’t difficult once I’d had a good think and the solution is elegant enough. The front of the drawer was given a rebate to accomodate the peg and then screwed and glued to the lower front section from inside. Fashioning the peg was easy enough and with a polish with some besswax it dropped nicely into position. See my pictures on the right.. The peg drops through the floor of the upper tier and enters the hole in the drawer front.

The drawer got a quick rub all over with wax too, so that slides nicely back and forth in it’s housing in the bottom tier.

So, on to the lid… which quickly spun out of hand…

Progress had slowed a bit due to my grandson who comes to stay every other weekend. He enjoys being in the shed with me, especially if I let him get involved with whatever it is I’m doing. He looked over this project with a critical eye and we dicussed how I should make the lid. I was determined to have a bread board joint on each side to hold the thing flat and I explained how that would work. He seemed impressed at my ambitious solution and suggested I let the lid fall into the box. No, I said, the lid has to close the chest and ride over all the edges. Well, he said, why not just screw a few batons under the lid all the way round instead of the complicated bread board thing?

The idea lamp went on. The lad doesn’t know how inspiring he can be. I’ve decided to let the lid construction become a box in itself, which will give me extra space to hold things like chisels, marking gauges, screwdrivers, pencils, and other long skinny stuff. It might give me a problem with the hings and other hardware but I’ll figure something out…
Quite how that will work out, I have no idea.

But it’s going to get done.. somehow!

For now, I’ve started on the lid. 4 boards with a 40mm wide insert to allow the thing to be broad enough to reach from front to back. Cut to length and glued up it didn’t need much truing up. I ripped a board lengthwise to create the strip which is placed centrally in the lid. Then I ripped another to make the bread board ends.  It actually looks good. I marked out for the tenons to be reduced to fit the ends and cut the grooves to fit. All I need to do now is final mortis and tenoning to get a good fit.
I think I’ll have that done by tomorrow evening. Never having attempted anything like this before, I’m taking it very slowly. We’ll see how it goes…

Progress so far, the carcass is done. The drawer is fitted. The locking mechanism is in place and works. And here is a final picture documenting the beginnings of the end joints.

I’m enjoying this….

The Tool Chest

Part 1.

Having collected a heap of tools I decided to make a chest to hold them all. After a year of trial and error and building a few small things like hedgehog houses and bird boxes I needed to set myself a real project that would be of benefit to me. I had no idea where to start so I had to sit down and think for a long while. Setting pencil to paper helped to fasten my thinking and the plan slowly grew.
I decided to make a two tier chest. An upper storage area and a drawer in the bottom. The side walls would be dovetailed to the bottom of the carcass but otherwise screwed and glued on all sides. The drawer will be held shut by a peg internally, which can only be removed once the lid is open. The lid will lock with a padlock.

I worked out how much material I needed and then it was off to the builders merchant to stock up. Planks, glue, screws, hinges, a lock thingy for a padlock and a few other bits like a groove cutter for my router.
Getting it all in the shed was a chore because it can’t really hold planks at 3.6 meters in length so I had to reduce them before I could get them in. It was cold outside at the time… Saw, shiver, saw some more.
Finally all indoors, I got cracking and cut all the pieces I needed to build the carcass.

I cut all the pieces I needed to length and lined them up in piles of long sides, short sides, bottom and lid. I may not be the worlds best chippy but I can organise the workplace. The short sides will be vertically positioned, the long sides horizontally. So I started with the most demanding bit and cut dovetails and dados to hold the internal floor of the upper compartment into the side walls. The bottom was cut for dovetails and the thing started to come together.

It took me a days work, but by the end of that day I had the short sides and bottom assembled and I was gluing up the long sides.

Day two had me fitting the back wall of the carcass. This immediately squared the whole construction up and despite a few minor alignment problems, it all started to look like a tool chest in the making.  I fitted and fettled the internal floor and then needed to take a break to figure out just how I should proceed. I needed to create the space in the internal floor to get the locking peg in and work out how the drawer should be formed to accomodate the peg. So it was back to the drawing board before proceeding with the front wall and the drawer section.

The internal floor would be further supported by strategically placed blocks glued to the inside of the long sides. So I needed to fix that too..
I ended up cutting a recess to allow the peg to penetrate the internal floor and then screwed the top section of the front side into place. It all fitted nicely. I glued the support blocks into place and then turned my attention to the drawer. I don’t want all the fancy bells and whistles so this is just a basic box to fill the space. I fashioned it out of cross ply and planking and it all went in very nicely, thank you very much. The front of the box drawer is screwed to the lower section of the front side from the inside. Once the drawer is closed and locked there is no way to get into it without removing the peg.

I’m far from finished but I won’t get much more done until next week. Grandson is on his way for the weekend…  Anyway, here’s a picture of what I have achieved up until the time of writing this account of the state of battle. I have not done myself any real damage but I did nick my finger with a very sharp chisel. One learns by one’s mistakes..!!