Wood Zealot's Workshop

I’m writing this post with one hand and on drugs (so… a pretty standard post). No, it’s not because of a woodworking accident, thankfully. And no, it’s not because I’m “multitasking” my other hand at the moment. The reason is that while I am fairly skilled at roller-hockey I was not so skilled one day recently and ended up shattering my wrist.

As you can see from my x-rays, I am now part machine. Let me hasten to add that parts of me are still human. Before you pure humans cast me from society, I ask you… If you prick me, do I not bleed? I’ll just go ahead and answer that… yes, yes I do bleed. So please do not prick me. That really was the point of all this. I just don’t want to get pricked going forward.

Some lessons learned in regards to having your wrist in a cast:

• It’s OK to stick stuff down the cast to itch things… but do not, I repeat DO NOT, proceed to sniff that scratching object no matter how tempted you are. There’s never a happy ending to that story.
• It feels natural to club things. I’ve accidentally whipped the cast around and clubbed doors, a plate of food, and my face (twice). In an unrelated event, I just ordered a baby seal off eBay.
• You must get used to placing objects between your legs, using your thighs to secure them. I even peeled a banana this way… it felt ironic. I was fairly comfortable with this technique until I was in full squat with a 2 liter soda wedged all up in there… the soda was from a pizza delivery guy who I’m going to say needs new shocks on his car. One of those moments when there’s no where to go…. nowhere to hide.
• Your groin is not the only place to stick things to handle/manipulate them…  Armpits, teeth, and other places will allow you to administer a python-like grip depending on the item at hand and your willingness to experiment. As Clint Eastwood said  as Sergeant Highway in Heartbreak Ridge “You adapt. You overcome. You improvise“. He also said “I’m mean, nasty and tired. I eat concertina wire and piss napalm and I can put a round in a flea’s ass at 200 meters. ” other than the “tired” part, none of that really applies to me but it seems like a bad ass way to end this post.

Tomorrow an appraiser will be visiting and assessing my home for a refinance. It seems that someone has run up some serious credit card debt, possibly related to tool purchases, and needs to consolidate. Sounds pretty standard right?

Well… ummmm… I’m freaking out a bit as I just took a visual survey of my home and I can envision an appraiser torpedoing the deal if they were to lack the creative vision necessary to see past how I’ve decorated the spaces. I imagine an appraiser is accustomed to seeing a dining room with perhaps a dining room table. Mine looks like this (these pics show things in a messy state… the notice on the appraisal was short leaving me little time to get organized):

Lumber buffet.

I must say that downdraft tables have long been overlooked in the dining room. Tired of having to pick up stray chips, pretzels, and cheerios from your dining table? What about trying to round up all those elusive crumbs? These nuisances instantly go away with one touch of a “start” button.

Going with the workbench motif

And yes, those are horse stall mats on the floor.

I’m guessing an appraiser is also unaccustomed to seeing a kitchen like this:

My spice rack. "A Dash of Stanley No. 3 sole rust makes any dish pop."

Requisite lathe for turning potatoes into fries (I actually saw that on a DVD once).

Even the living room is more like an office with a desk and light table in the middle of the room. It’s also where I store a post drill press (intended as a functional tool for the garage one day… the gears run like butta).

A living room? I probably should tidy up before taking pics, huh.

Standard living room accessory

If at any point I feel like the appraiser isn’t going to look past the current design of my home I’ll be prepared to remove him from the picture assuming the appraisal company will just send another one? Or maybe I should splatter red paint along the walls of one bedroom and just explain that “this is where I take people that prevent me from getting what I want”.

An observation that I made while writing this post it that I’m down to having exactly one chair in my entire home. Playing musical chairs when friends come over is going to end rather abruptly.

*** update: As is the norm for me, I didn’t get to publish this until a few days later. So, I can also report that the appraiser arrived and upon walking into my “dining room” exclaimed “Wow! I love this place!” and repeated that in mantra-like fashion until he left…  so I may have lucked out and am encouraged that things may go forward. My nerves are much less frayed. ***

Some days nice things just happen (and as we know, the other 363 days what’s mostly happening is something that only a dung farmer can appreciate) and I had one of those days recently as I noticed that the kind people over at Rockler had blogrolled me. Thank you Kim for this brief lapse in judgment!

In all honesty, as each day passes, I’m just proud that the references to me out there on the web are not for something embarrassing, such as a youtube video of me being caught riding a pony completely drunk wearing only a diaper (If I wasn’t clear there, I’m the one wearing the diaper… the pony is completely drunk).

I will strive to post more on topic about woodworking. In general though, I’m just trying to have a good time here… and for me a good time is writing a post that others find amusing, then a little disturbing, and ultimately nauseating. That is the cycle of life for my standard post.

Now time to head off for the weekend and celebrate with some beverages and Rhonda (Rhonda’s my pony). Wooohoooo!

Rhonda getting ready to party

I had a brain MRI recently and while flipping through the pre-MRI questionnaire I had to pause when one of the questions was “do you grind metals?”

Like anyone else, on occasion I’ll grind on some metal if I’ve had one drink too many… especially if it’s particularly shiny or in the form of dancing robots (as in the video below). But nothing out of the ordinary and I wondered how this was even relevant in the first place?

On second thought I realized that they most likely meant abrasively removing metal which of course I do all the time on the grinding wheel and even most recently sharpening carving tools on a belt sander.

Wanting to get the MRI done, my eyes dart left and right, and my mind thinks “nobody knows… I can do this”. Thinking it through a little further, my brain does me the favor of envisioning my head inside a massive electromagnet with metal floating in my veins and what the resulting experience may be like.

So without further hesitation I do what I have to do and quickly grab the nurse… she’s offended… I figured what did I have to lose? My metal-laden melon is about to explode so I might as well get a cheap thrill first (plus, in all the educational videos I’ve ever watched the nurse always seems receptive). Anyways, it turns out I can still do the MRI if a head x-ray called “orbits” comes up clean which it does so I’m green-lighted.

Since I’m claustrophobic my anxiety level was already on the high side as I know my head is going to be strapped down and my body inserted into a tiny canal (I almost made a phallic analogy here but I realized I would represent the huge penis in it). The technician gave me some blinders to wear which really helped… have to say though, after being harnessed in and blinders put on I was waiting for someone to feed me an apple out of the palm of their hand as I felt like a horse being broken. I just went with it and whinnied whenever I felt nervous, which is to say every moment.

While inside the machine, I wondered how large a metal particle needs to be in order to be spotted on the orbits x-ray? I mean I use 15 micron silicon carbide belts on the sander which make super fine metal dust. Are particles smaller than the resolution of the orbits scan not going to be pulled through vein walls and into my virginal gray matter? In theory, my heart was beating during the MRI so couldn’t have some of these particles decided to take the road trip from the lungs to the brain during the scan?? I guess getting answers to these questions would have been prudent before doing the MRI.

Trust is both a wonderful and dangerous thing. I guess there was no damage done, although I have noticed that I now tend to face polar north when standing idly.

In the end, I survived the MRI and the results come back negative which was rather deflating… I was so hopeful that they would finally confirm the existence of a brain after all these years. Oh well, time to go oil my joints (a reference to the brainless Tin Man, not a euphemism for self-pleasure (this time)).

Note:  certain artisitic freedoms were taken in this post and it should be noted that no robots or nurses were actually inappropriately grabbed or grinded upon.

One day not that long ago I found myself with the task of mounting an under-cabinet light fixture. Simple enough. Or maybe not… as I examine the fixture I see it mounts by sliding sideways over mounting screws. Unfortunately the light fixture is exactly as long as the space under this cabinet and thus has no room to slide. So without pause for any thoughts that would extend beyond my mid-brain, I ask myself the obvious… What would McGyver do? Easy… magnets.

Moments later, via assistance of a forstner bit, magnets, and CA glue the job was completed with minimal casualties. I quickly put the fixture up, flip the switch while exclaiming “let there be light!”, and revel in my brilliant ingenuity. Lastly, I check how I would replace the bulb and as I take the bulb out I see a clear view of the mounting holes. I find that interesting.

Before taking the, at this point, optional step of adding screws I explore other potential uses and applications that this groundbreaking use of magnets may yield, including cures for diseases, military weaponry, etc. While none of that panned out, I did find that it allows easy and convenient storage access to keys, canned soup, and knives. Clearly, the potential for such an invention is limitless. I may have to patent this novel notion of magnets holding junk. Disclaimer: if you have no sense of aesthetics, live in California, and actually implement my invention, I take no responsibility for subsequent injury due to falling knives and cans of soup.

Hanging my beans with bacon.

Additional evidence that I should never have children

What other McGyver-type ingenuity have I attempted? well, since I’ve mastered magnetism, it made sense to switch over to lasers. I played a little bit with using a leveling laser as an aide for identifying high spots when hand jointing a board. I think the idea may actually hold some merit and would have pursued it further if I hadn’t been distracted by a shiny object elsewhere in the shop that day.

I believe this technique may be particularly handy when jointing in the dark (probably how cave men jointed boards at night before fire was discovered). Operational note: While it’s interesting to observe the angle at which the laser bounces off your jointer, I recommend changing your observation angle if and when you feel your retinas tingling.

ET Fingers

With lasers embedded in practically every woodworking tool these days, I’m waiting for the first hand plane with one embedded into the toe casting (maybe in a fore or jointer plane) and at least obviate the need for winding sticks. Come on Lee Valley get on this… I’m sure Rob will cut me in for half??? If nothing else, it should provide for one of your April 1 tool releases.

-As you may have noticed, I refer to Rob Lee of Lee Valley in this post in a familiar way. To be clear, we haven’t necessarily hung out for an extensive period of time (which is to say that I’ve never met/talked/communicated with him in any way). I, however, choose to believe that all tool manufacturers are my good buddies and that they make tools just for me (Freud understands me)… Yo John E! How’s it hanging Tom L?!? A little creepy? Perhaps… and while I know that they make drugs to remedy this, I just gotta be me on this one.

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