A Dear Child…

..has many names.

That’s a rough translation of an old Danish proverb.

I just bought a dear child. It was quite expensive, but I’m going to love it.

I needed to cut rebates (rabbets, to my American chums) for a little woodworking project. How rebates got to be rabbets just by crossing the Atlantic, I don’t know.
The idea was to set the base board of a box into the carcass making the bottom invisible from the sides. A bit of research led me to a plethora of solutions all involving saws, chisels and other impliments, which I do have but I don’t necessarily have the skill to do the job with the accuracy it requires. My eyes aren’t that good either and that doesn’t help. I could attempt to do it with the router but that is a cumbersome piece of machinery for such a delicate job. Then I discovered the Fillister plane. Or rebate plane, or shoulder plane, or sash plane or any other number of titles for this little tool depending on where one lives and the vernacular one uses. To make it all a bit clearer, see the picture on the right. It is a Stanley no. 78.

A complicated piece of equipment. It has a moveable fence to limit the width of the cut and a depth stop to limit how deep one can go. Removing these two parts will allow one to use it as a normal, full width, plane although I wouldn’t be tempted to try using it as a smoother. The blade is a bit weird as well, being broader at the cutting edge than the part that fits into the body. It needed to be tuned up as a new plane always does. They may appear sharp, but they aren’t. They appear flat and smooth on the sole, but they aren’t. In fact the blade came with a little chip taken out of the cutting edge, so a little grinding and honing was required just to eradicate that. However, with a little fettling and honing, the thing is now ready for use. Cutting across the grain also requires that the “nicker” is brought into play. This is in fact a little knife like blade that sits in front of the cutting iron and it severs the wood fibers vertically before the iron gets to the wood. It is not required when planing along the grain. The cutting iron can also be moved to the very front of the tool where a second frog is positioned, turning this into a bull nose plane. Versatile. I like that..
Having tried it today I’m thoroughly pleased with it. The trick of it is, to keep pressure against the fence while planing down the length of your work piece. It will let you know when you’ve reached full depth. It simply stops cutting…

Now I can do this… and not cut my fingers!

New Drain

The rat problem has finally been resolved. After determining the fact that the drain had collapsed we contacted our insurance company. It’s taken its time but, finally, we were contacted by the drain fixing company. They said they would come within a week or so. That week shrank to two days as we were informed that they were indeed on their way and was that OK? Yes it was, I said, come and get going.
They arrived. With a mini digging machine that wasn’t in any way going to get through the gate to the garden. You’ll have to get in through the hedge, I said. No problem was the reply. Where? I had an elder bush growing in the hedge. I never liked it. Rip that out, I said, and come in there. Goodbye elder bush, roots and all.
Once inside the garden and right beside the wall of my house the digging got going. Six and a half feet down we heard the thump of metal shovel on concrete drain pipe. The hole got a good deal wider now and my garden began to look like the Somme on a bad day as tons of earth and clay came up and out…
I decided to go and make coffee for the pair of workmen. I was otherwise only in their way. Returning with said coffee, I saw that they had now removed the broken pipe and were clearing out the debris and the old well that had otherwise given us a certain degree of access to the drain. It was basically a giant grease trap that will no longer be necessary. We now have a direct drain from the kitchen to the drainage system. Building codes change, apparently. I don’t mind. I used to have to get the well cleared by suction every now and then, which was expensive and wasn’t likely to be getting any cheaper with passing time.
The new outlet pipe was soon in place, sealed and deemed as being in order. I didn’t see that bit so I had to take their word for it. There again, they know what they are doing, even if I don’t.
I was expecting this process to take days. These guys were basically done with it in less than three hours. The hole was filled in, the old concrete junk removed and then we tidied up as best we could. The digger had to remain in my garden as the trailer it came on was now full of concrete pipe, the old grease trap and rocks. It disappeared early the following morning. I hope it was them that removed it because I didn’t hear a thing….
All I need to do now is put the garden back together. There’s no peace for the wicked. What am I going to fill the hole in the hedge with? No idea. Time will tell. Right now, I’m just glad to be free of the rats.

All by Myself..

..for a few days.

My good lady flew off to Spain for a long weekend with a pair of her girlfriends. Lord only knows what they’ll be doing in Torremolinos but as long as she’s happy, then so am I.
So, it’s been me and the dog for the past few days. Which hasn’t been unpleasant in any way. Actually, I got a lot done and the dog has had a few adventures he wouldn’t normally have. He’s been to two different archery ranges and he’s met a shed load of people who all thought he was cute. Being a chihuahua, he’s kind of used to that reaction…
I’ve been a bit busy getting the garden up to scratch. The weekend started at the plant school and I got some tomato plants and seeds, onion sets and seed potatoes, and a few bits and pieces to ease the work. Making it easy is the main thing these days, I am not the young spring chicken I once was. To that end, I have an electric tiller to get the rough digging done and then finish the job with a human powered rake. The toms went in almost immediately. We should be frost free by now. Then I planted the spuds and decided to call it a day after a few hours thrashing around in the soil.
Sunday was archery club, so I didn’t get much done there. Today has been an onion day and I discovered I had bought far more than I intended to plant. However, they are all in the ground now, so I have a bit extra to do in the morning as it took me an age to get them all in. Add to that the collecting of my dear wife who will be home again in the evening and I reckon I’ll have a long and busy day of it tomorrow.
I enjoy these little interludes where she isn’t at home. I get to see the TV I want to see, eat what I want to and come and go as I please. Don’t get that wrong, I miss her and worry about her, but a little absence is a good thing and definitely makes the heart grow fonder.
Both the dog and I look forward to her return.