Tag Archives: woodwork

Sunday

We went back to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church today. The Rector was out, but that was really OK–We got to see how the parish worked without her. Answer: Just fine. That is the way it should be. LeeAnne is a brilliant preacher and obviously well-loved in the parish, but the church needs to be able to get along when she is elsewhere.

After we got home mia_mcdavid took a nap, while I worked on some of colgaffneyis tent poles–we had several equipment failures at Perham. I did everything I could–the next step is a policy decision by Mia and the Tinker. I also made some progress on cleaning my workbench.

What to do???

I saw an interesting woodworking tool on the ‘Bay today. It looks period for colgaffneyis and the buy-it-now price is not bad–$42. I don’t have anything like it. It is being sold by a reputable dealer–I have bought tools from him before.

Just one thing. It is 190 years old, a good ways toward actually being period. Is it OK to buy something that old and actually use it? It is in good shape, just needs some sharpening. I am not going to buy it just to hang on the wall. There is no modern replica available.

I happily use a couple planes and drills that are 80-90 years old, but adding a century seems like a stretch.

I have to make up my mind in the next three hours.

Different Monday Night

Gaeltacht Minnesota has gone to its summer schedule, so I have (roughly) alternate Monday nights free. I had planned on going to a class at Woodcraft, for which I had registered by a telephone conversation with wolfsword. However, I got a voicemail this morning that the class had been canceled for lack of students, and that my payment would be refunded.

So I ended up going into Minneapolis with mia_mcdavid for a session of the Speculative Readings Series at Dreamhaven Books, where haddayr read three excellent very short stories and another author read a single longer work, which was very different but also very good. Gaeltacht Minnesota was quite well represented there–All three teachers and several students came to hear haddayr.

New Tool

After my computer class finished today I went to the local Woodcraft store, which is in the same part of the Metro. wolfsword was working there and was in at the time. I had a discount card, so I did something I have been wanting to do for a long time: I bought a Lie Nielsen block plane. Lie-Nielsen makes some of the best hand tools for woodworking available today. Perhaps some day I will be able to get one of their larger planes as well. Meanwhile, a good block plane is a very useful thing to have in a shop, and I expect this one will serve me well.