I had relegated my old shopsmith to the cottage several years before because, between when I was a kid and learned on it and when I inherited it from my dad, I’d accumulated a bunch of separate tools. I found an entire kitchen full of cabinets from a house being demo-ed to make way for a mini mall, (it’s the American way, isn’t it?) and, since I had the tools at the cottage,

I turned it into this, using the old reliable Smith.

I thought I was done with projects, so I took the Smith home and, having fallen back in love with the machine during our kitchen encounter (no pun intended…ok, maybe) I gave up my separate tools to my kids and decided I’d just use my Smith. I then found another Shopsmith that I intended to keep at the cottage, but I really liked the idea of having 2, one for high speed operations like the table saw and shaper, and the other for low speed ones like the sanders, lathe and drill press….so I kept them both at home.

But I still had some cabinets left, and my wife wanted storage in our little bedroom.
I said I had no tools at the cottage, but had located a very cheap old Shopsmith ($50) not far from the cottage, (timing is everything) and with it I could make her the storage she wanted….which I did.

And since I reminded her that she just might come up with another project, and that I could only do it if I had the tools, she let me keep it.
So that’s the story of how Tommy got Shopsmith # 3 and kept his wife happy. Life can really be beautiful, sometimes…don’t you think? -SST

SST’s SS #3

I was checking prices around the web, and of the, more or less, known brands, the Delta TP305 seemed to be a good starter variety planer at a good price. Locally it’s about $239.00, and that is the approximate web price, but with shipping, a local purchase looks better.

BUT… I stumbled across this planer on Amazon.com at $186.15 and the shipping was FREE…Yes…FREE. Just do a search by name & model number on the site to find it.
While I haven’t used it yet (I’ll do a review as soon as I set it up), It arrived in about a week, and is new, not refurbished (advertised as new, but I worried about that at this price).

I just figured maybe I should pass this info along in case there any other “cheap” lumberjocks like me who were waiting for an excuse to buy their first planer. -SST

Well, over the winter, my farmer friend became quite attached to the old mare and when spring came and the windows on the barn were open on a regular basis, a barn swallow began roosting on the horses neck. (remember, this horse is old and not too mobile…also, I believe he actually liked the birds company)
The swallow eventually built a small nest in the horses mane and, as you may well imagine, made a real mess.

Old Sam (the farmer, not the horse…the horse’s name was Homer) did his best to discourage this, but the bird persisted. Sam tried some home remedies, things like mothballs (why, I don’t know…we’re talking a bird, not a moth) and kerosene, but nothing discouraged the swallow…it kept rebuilding the nest.

Sam finally thought to call his son (his name was Norman) to ask if he had ever had this problem. Norman said, “nearly every year”. Since Sam had paid little attention to this, it really surprised him. “So, what did you do? Did you just let it happen, or could you cure it?”

“Brewers yeast’ was Norm’s reply. “Go into the kitchen ad look in the pantry on the top shelf. There should be a package left. Mix it with a little water to form a past and rub it into the horses mane, and let me know how it works.”

Sam did as described and waited…and lo and behold (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase in a sentence) the bird left and did not return. Sam was delighted, because, as you might imagine, along with the nest, there was another considerable mess in the horses mane that was eliminated.

He called Norman back to ask how he (Norman) had known that yeast would get rid of the bird, and Norm said
“Oh, you know the old saying, dad, “Yeast is Yeast, and nest is nest, and never the mane shall tweet”.
(Remember what day it (still) is?

In Wisconsin, our native pine species fall into mostly three types: White pine (nicest for woodworking), Red, or Norway pine (not too bad), and Jack pine (smaller, least desirable…definitely cheapest)
Being a cheapskate and prone to trying to get my wood for free whenever possible, I have been known to scrounge around all sorts of places for wood.

The company I referred to above is a small pallet maker in the area who uses mostly jack pine and some misc. hardwoods including (recently) some of the local white ash that’s falling victim to a mycoplasmal disease called “ash yellows”. I had gotten to know the owner quite well over the years and as their business has expanded they’ve branched out (no pun intended…ok, maybe intended) into experimenting with these various cheaper or “opportunity” species to make various types of particle and chipboard. The idea was to not waste good wood. They’re very environmentally aware.

I’ve had the good fortune to be a “guinea pig” in being able to try these experimental products in some projects around the house. Since I get them for free, I really can’t complain, and, for the most part, they’ve been good products. Last year, they came up with a chipboard that uses a (secret) process and mix ratio to combine the now readily available diseased white ash with the always cheap jack pine in a way that results in a very strong panel that has look that’s just beautiful. The way the chips lay, it seems that it could be used in furniture making.

I’m going to get a photo in a future blog.

The reason I’m involved is that, even though I know it’s not true, I have this feeling I’m partly responsible for the owners fatal accident. I have been a visitor at the facility on many occasions to watch the development of these panels, and the last time I was there I was helping the owner make a small batch of chip mix for the product. We were concentrating on the ratio of the two species going into the chipper when I slipped and bumped my friend, whose arms were full of the jack pine and ash, and he fell headlong into the chipper….

Making a complete jack-ash out of himself… Happy April fool’s day! -SST

I was doing some re-bricking at the top of my chimney and rigged up a rope, bucket and pulley system to get the bricks to the peak of the roof & the top part of my chimney. I would put the bricks in the bucket and hoist them up to the top and then tie off the rope and go up & unload the bricks to the roof.

When I was finished with the project, I filled the bucket with the unused bricks…and rather than do 2 loads, I thought I’d save time by getting all the bricks heaped into one bucket load. (smart, eh?) I then went down the ladder and prepared to untie the rope and ease the bucket down.

Because I’m a “safety first” kind of guy, I didn’t want the rope to slip through my hand, as the bucket was overloaded, so I (cleverly) wound it around my wrist a couple of times. When I untied the rope to lower the bucket, I realized I had grossly underestimated the weight of the now overloaded bucket. (Who’d have thought?)

The bucket, now heavier than me, began a rapid descent towards the ground (and me) at the precise time that I began a rapid ascent towards the roof peak (and the bucket) At the half way point in our respective journeys, the bottom of the bucket made contact with the top of my head (ouch), and after a brief pause, we both continued on in our previous directions.

Reaching the terminus (don’t you just love words like that?) of my upward trip, (gives the term “rising to the top” a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?) I jammed my rope-wrapped hand into the pulley at the peak of the roof, (ouch, again) at precisely the same time that the bucket hit the ground, knocking out all of the bricks.

I now became considerably heavier than the empty bucket, and, the laws of physics being what they are, I began a rapid descent just as the bucket began a rapid ascent. (you remember…”for each action there’s an equal and opposite reaction”) Speaking of laws, I’m sure “Murphy’s Law” has a place somewhere in this tale.

Anyway, at the halfway point, we met again…the bucket hitting me square in the __ (knowing which direction it was coming from, you can fill in the rest). (OUCH, OUCH) We then continued on to our respective ending points.

At the same time that the bucket hit the pulley at the top, I hit the ground (ouch, one more time) which caused me to let go of the rope. (not my best move of the day) The bucket, now heavier that the rope, began a downward plummet making contact with the top of my head yet again. (ouch…is there no end to all this???)

And the moral to this story is: If someone tells you that you’re a few bricks short of a full load, it may just be a good thing, after all.

There, that’s my Sunday afternoon story, and I’m stickin’ to it. -SST

For some reason, it reminded me of a chapter in Aldo Leopold’s “A sand County Almanac”, which was required reading for anyone in a Natural Resources major (me) way back in college. Even though I wouldn’t call myself a hard core environmentalist, I still believe this book should be required reading for anybody on this ship…I highly recommend it.

The chapter is called “Good oak’ and while it doesn’t refer to woodworking, it brings to mind similar feelings about faces of the past. Leopold says there is a spiritual danger in supposing the heat comes from a furnace. He then takes us on a journey back in time as he makes firewood, sawing through the annual rings of a good oak, reading from what he sees in the rings and describing the surrounding events of those times. It’s a wonderful read.

I don’t know, maybe it’s the aging process… maybe it’s simply stepping back from the race to take a leisurely Sunday drive through life…maybe they’re one and the same, but it’s really comforting not just to use my tools, but to feel the tools. Not to look at a plane as a way to end up with a flat board, but to savor each stroke as part of the PROCESS of flattening the board.

Well, I’ve rattled on long enough on pretty much the same subject as before, so (is repeating yourself a sign of getting old?) it’s time you all got back to your woodworking.- SST

Well, I’ve rattled on long enough on pretty much the same subject as before, so (is repeating yourself a sign of getting old?) it’s time you all got back to your woodworking. -SST

I’m also, of course, doing it to keep telling myself that I’m not a collector, I’m a user. (Hello, my name is Tom, and I’m a plane-o-holic….[group response, “hi, Tom”]
From a time standpoint, at least on a small project, it actually seems to be a bit faster than the machine set up, but if I really wanted to save time, I’d just buy whatever it was I was making, so let’s just take that out of the equation altogether.

As I’ve begun to work on my (to this point somewhat limited) skills with hand planes, I’ve had the occasion to think back to 8th grade woodworking class. A time, for many on this site I venture to say, that was before they existed…when “Leave it to Beaver” had yet to hit the rerun circuit.
I was handed a tri square (try square?) and plane and shown how to square up a board. It looked so easy when he did it. Then I tried to square (try square?) it up. It took a long time and the board got a lot smaller along the way.

As I practice this now, I think I’m a little more proficient at it than I was then, or maybe I’m just starting with a bigger board.

One thing I do know, though, is that every stroke I take in some small way takes me on a journey back to that class…to that time. A time when my dad was around and we’d go down in the basement and I’d watch him work on his/my Shopsmith (see my recent tool review), and he’d show me how to do stuff. (God, he was proud of that machine)

As I make more shavings, and I’ve made a bunch, I try to imagine what it must have been like to be a woodworker back when my great grandfather (1880’s) used those skills to make a living. I have a few of those planes and, holding them, I am sometimes overwhelmed at the idea of doing what he did.
What I do know, and what I do feel is a kind of kinship with those craftsman…not because I’m even remotely able do what they could (I have a long ways to go in that regard) but because when I hold one of those planes, take that stroke and watch the shaving curl up, I feel the kind of satisfaction in the result that I believe you can only feel when you truly work the wood by hand…the feeling they had.

It may take me a long time to develop the skill to be as precise as today’s power tools…maybe I never will… but I’m going to keep on trying…. because that feels so good -SST

I have a collection of old electric trains, I know what it’s like to collect things (boy, do I), just ask my wife.
I started out with an old Stanley #4 and 9 1/2. I hadn’t used them in a ton of years, so they just sat on a shelf. Then, sometime back, I started getting back to an interest in hand tools. The more I read, the more I realized just how useful they were, and what a great feeling of satisfaction I received from using hand tools. Still, the old planes stood on the shelf.

Then one day, I got down to sharpening them, and then I made some shavings…the first in a lot of years, and then I believe I felt myself slip (just a little)...felt my whole workshop tilt downward (just a little)...the slope was almost imperceptible, yet was there
.
Then I thought I’d just take a peek on E-bay, just to see what was out there…and the whole house tilted noticeably, dishes slid off the table, glasses fell out of cabinets, furniture slid across the room. A vortex seemed to appear, swirling, seemingly drawing everything into it’s center, and calling to me as the sirens called to Odysseus. Only there were no rocks, only planes…hundreds of them, all different, all calling.

I began to realize that to become a complete woodworker, I need far more than I had. (I thought a little one and a big one was good enough, how naive I was)

Then came a #3. (I still haven’t succumbed to the urge to own a #1 & #2, unless I find one at a garage sale) Then a 220, another #4 w/ adjustable frog screw (the one I just made handles for), a #5, a #75, a Stanley/Gage self setting #4 (my favorite), a #78 rabbet plane, a Millers Falls low angle #56, 3 tiny Harbor Freight planes (work pretty good when tuned), and a Stanley #45 Rube Goldberg machine…so far.

With each new acquisition, I felt my world tilt a bit more, so that it is only with a great deal of effort that I am able to maintain my grasp on the level plane(sorry about that) of reality.

But…I’m not a collector.

By the way, does anyone have a Stanley #95 that they want to get rid of???
-SST