A little woodworking this afternoon….another step in my ongoing project to build a new pole lathe. I had to smooth a piece for one of the poppets. Down came my Stanley Bedrock 605 plane. A few minutes with this beauty (a gift from mia_mcdavid) and that part was ready to be glued in place.

A byproduct of this was a pile of wood shavings on the floor. I scooped them up and took them to the back porch. There I put them in the grill, to be used as kindling for our dinner tonight. I started to add additional wood kindling, then charcoal….and had an idea.

On my workbench was a very large used file. I have enough files for my woodworking needs so I had not used it. Old files are often made of good tool steel. People make knives out of them. This file is big enough to make a dirk, suitable for use with colgaffneyis. However, files, because of their function, are made of very hard steel, and so are difficult to work. It is possible to soften the steel by annealing–heat the steel in a fire, then let it cool slowly. This allows the iron atoms to relax their structure, and make the metal easy to work.

There I was, building a charcoal fire….I took the file and put it in the grill, then pile more charcoal on top. I lit the fire. It took off immediately–I was clearly in touch with my inner pyro. Mia came home with more charcoal, which I added to the fire. The coals are burning really well now. Time to prepare the lamb, potatoes, and asparagus ready. I will retrieve my file tomorrow, after the fire is cold.