Getting there in my kinda style

Bought myself something today. I'm still not working, but, needed a way to get around. I didn't want a payment. More important I wanted something at a comfortable level of technology. I hate paying other people to work on my cars. I found this 1966 Chevy 3/4 ton with a factory stake body at a price I could afford. It needs some sheet metal work, some adjusting to the brakes, and seals in the rear end on the drivers side. Just under 64,000 original miles. I bought it from it's second owner. The first owner was a welding shop in Rochester, NY.

I'm gonna fix her and put us both to work

Woods

A Tribute

This is pretty much a continuation of the previous post. I intended to attack the mushroomed wedges with an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. I didn't have a cutoff wheel and the wife had our one and only car. I wasn't going to walk 4 miles to a hardware store.

Well I wanted it done. I had two teachers who both passed away too young. Ray Bishop my science teacher and George Schaefer my shop teacher. This post is a tribute to both men.  Both believed in keeping the old ways as common knowledge. This afternoon I spent 45 minutes remembering George Schaefer. I recalled the day he taught me to properly use a hacksaw and file. The prepper side of me decided to use the old way rather than let the skill atrophy.

You can see the crack in the piece I cut from the large wedge. To be honest I was pretty skeptical myself when I started. It is a 1.5x2" piece of metal afterall. It made me glad I took the time to aneal them. Another 15 minutes chamfering the edges with a mill file and it will be done. Just think no noise , no electricity also no sparks or grinding dust all over the place. I did one side of the small wedge with a grinder. It took as long as doing two sides with a hacksaw.

Thank You George and Ray. You may not have known it when you were still here, those old skills are apreciated. Thanks for teaching me the proper use of hand tools. They really aren't that much work when you know what you're doing.

Woods

Opening the shop

It's that time of year again. Sometime around the start of hunting season in the fall. My workshop begins to acumulate stuff. Good stuff, junk, stuff that could go either way. It's too cold to work out there with no heat. The days are short and there is no electric for lights. You want something out of the way, put it in the shop.

I've spent an hour or two a day for the past couple weeks just sorting through stuff and making things as neat as I can. That tends to be a loosing battle as I have more stuff than can be neatly organised in a 12x16 foot space. The ten box challenge is well underway in attempt to solve this. I've made the decision to just put much of it in consignment shops. Much less hassle that way. It gets things out of the way quickly and I only have to handle things once.

At this point the shop is cleared out enough to start projects. In my efforts to clean and neaten I found a project started several years ago. Sometimes I tend to over think things. This Stanley #78 plane was relatively clean when aquired 4 years ago. In spite of having around 90% of it's japan finish intact I intended to have it bead blasted and redone. When I came accross it sunday afternoon I could only ask myself why. I ordered a set of replacement parts from Stanley and they had arrived exactly 3 years and 3 days before sunday. So I spent some time sunday chasing out rusted threads with a set of taps. Then installed the new fence and depth stop. I spent the yesterday evening cleaning rust and putting an edge on the iron. The pictures were taken midway through the project. It's now a working plane again.

I also managed to fire up the forge yesterday. Earlier this month at the Rochester gun show I ran into an old coworker. He has a business selling survival stuff. He also does primitive skills workshops on the side. He expressed an interest in aquiring some flint and steel sets to sell and give out in his workshops. So I spent part of the afternoon straightening a couple old coil car springs out. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have turned them into steels. I also intend to dig out my little retort and make some char cloth up to go with each set.

A couple years ago I aquired a couple splitting wedges from the local Habitat for Humanity store. I think I paid a quarter each for them. I've been playing russian roulette with those mushroomed heads and know it.

They had become pretty work hardened too. The larger one has actually begun to crack lengthwise though it doesn't show in the picture. I decided while I had a fire I would aneal them before grinding the mushroom off.

Here is the small one in the fire. I'll bring it to a dark cherry heat then let it cool slowly. Quenching it would just make it hard again.

Shortly after this I put the fire out. The wind put an end to my nice day. Even if the nieghbor's house is in forclosure, I wouldn't want to burn it down with a stray spark. It gave me a chance to finish up that Stanley plane.

Woods

What I'd give for some ice in my whiskey

For three years I've been a patient man. My wife loves her restored 1930's vintage ice box. And she should love it. She did a wonderful job restoring it. However man did invent mechanical refrigeration for some very good reasons. Don't get me wrong, an ice box gets the job done and gets it done well. However it's been a good many years since the ice man drove his wagon down our street. Also for some reason block ice can't be bought at all anymore here. That means nearly 25% of our freezers space was being consumed by ice making. Don't forget to add ice, or you'll be throwing stuff away. Also don't forget the byproduct of ice in iceboxes is cold water coming out a hose in the bottom. Forget to empty that bucket and you get a cold puddle on your floor. Not a pleasant suprise at midnight when wearing just socks. And if you like a good bourbon on the rocks before bed, forget the rocks. You won't have cubes handy with an icebox. Back in 1942 my appliance repair man grandfather, was given a slightly used Norge refrigerator by his emplyer as a wedding gift. An event that was given special note by my grandmother in her wedding book. Not a suprise given such things were rationed and hard to get during that wartime. Shortly after wars end my grandparents aquired a new Westinghouse which did daily duty until the mid 60's when it was replaced by a modern self defrosting Frigidaire. as long as I could remember my grandparents shopped monthly and kept the overflow in the old Westinghouse in the cellar. Just before my meeting Pelenaka, grandpa passed from this world and grandma went to assisted living. I begged for the old Westinghouse. It had been around from my earliest memories. It sat in storage for three years. Then it was saved by a side of beef. Yes a cow saved my beloved antique fridge. You see my wife is about the best bargain hunter I know. And she found a deal on meat, alot of it. Suddenly there was no room to make ice for the ice box. If you count the great grandmothers grandma nursed in thier elder years. Pelenaka and my children will make the fifth generation of the woodsrunner family served by this old timer. Considering grandpa always kept it in top shape and serviced, hopefully it will serve a few more. I don't know what my grandparents paid for it. But, it has to have one of the best depreciation rates ever. BTW, that picture was taken hours after being pulled out of storage. Pelenaka did her thing and it looks almost new now. Here's to having ice in your whiskey. Woods

Honestly, I only wanted a couple of them.

Last fall I came accross an old Bailey #4 plane in a thrift store for $4.00. This past winter found me leaving the hardware store job to return to the machine trades. With this job change came the opportunity to aquire rough sawn hard woods used for packing crates. There are several pieces of hickory, basswood, and oak out in the shop now. So, I figured I'd go out and find myself a jointer plane. By the time the summer was over my shop wall looked like this! To aquire the big wood bodied Stanley jointer plane I hade to buy the compass plane, and a millers falls #17 block plane. Then a month ago I picked up all the hand tools in an estate in the next town over. That got me the Stanley 78 plane , a Stanley 9-1/4 block plane and the greenlee drawknife. Then one day I found myself in a antique shop, for $10.00 I couldn't help but buy the Stanley #80 Cabinet scraper hanging vertically at the left of the photo. Another unintended collection I suppose. Just like cider presses and yankee screwdrivers. I'll save the yankee screw driver story for another day. They can be seen to the right of the photo.