When I began the reconstruction of the Barn I bought a 10-inch contractor’s table saw on Craigslist to use on site, as I did not want then to haul my Jet Unisaw out to work in a pretty wide-open environment. The contractor’s saw was never anything better than a pile of pelosi, but it got me through the worst of the project.
Now that the outfitting of the interior is drawing to a close, and the Unisaw is ensconced in the basement (admittedly sans 220v electrical circuit and outlet right now, but I could wire it up in an hour or so) it was time to put the pile o’junk saw out to pasture and reconsider what saw I wanted upstairs in my main working area. Since I mostly use it for making templates and jigs and other light work, something a lot smaller would suffice.
My friend Tony gave me a motor-less Rockwell combination platform with a 4-inch jointer and a 9-inch table saw on the same base, with a brand new thin kerf blade. I did not need the jointer at this time, so I took it off and remounted the table saw. It had the makings of a fine little machine, everything seemed smooth and tight. It needed a motor and a motor yoke, so I dug out the former (3/4 horse) from my stash of motors and fabricated the latter from a southern yellow pine board and a long bolt.
All hooked up it worked well. My final dilemma had to do with the mobility of the machine. I am not one of these guys who wants the table saw plopped in the middle of the work space. I want to roll it out to use, then put it back when done. The problem is that casters make the thing unsteady and frankly dangerous unless they are high quality -and pretty expensive – double locking locking casters that lock both the wheel rotation and swivel.
While at the hardware store I found the perfect solution for less than 10 dollars. These plastic sliders for underneath sofas are fabulous. In addition to allowing the saw to be pulled out and put away easily on the SYP floor, they are not so slick as to let the saw to slide across the floor as I am using it.
One unexpected benefit is that the sliders have padded tops, so in fact this reduces any vibration and makes the whole setup steady as a rock.
I am not convinced that this is the ultimate resolution, especially with the ridiculous 24″ outrigger bars for the fence. I might just cut those off at 16″ or 14″ and see how I like them.
I have two more options at my disposal. Down in the basement of the barn is a sweet 8-inch Craftsman bench-top table saw almost identical to the one I grew up with, also smooth and tight, and back in my Maryland shed I still have my wonderful 9-inch tilting top Rockwell saw that I absolutely love.
For now I will try this set-up for a good while to see if it fits my needs. It saws effortlessly and true, needing only an outfeed crossbar which I will add soon. If not, I will swap it out for the next option.
Stay tuned
Now that the multitudes from Groopstock have departed, I am facing a fortnight of mostly uninterrupted time spent on actually setting up my workshop space. Between the hustle of moving over the past many months and the frenzied preparations for Groopstock, my shop, not overly organized at any point in time, had devolved into a chaotic storeroom full of boxes and bins of tools from the other house.
Even after the first day of shoveling, the place was still not a furniture-making and restoration shop. One of the fundamental problems is that the tools cannot be “put away” until there is a place to put them away to.
One of the first things I did was reorganize and enhance my clamp storage. They were all a-jumble sorta in the same place, but I still found myself tripping over them at every turn.
Less than an hour’s uninterrupted work and the problem was solved.
As I reflect on the declaration of an astounding experiment in governance 238 years ago — in my opinion the most elegant and virtuous secular document in human history — I cannot help but also contemplate the end result of the struggles and bloodshed in the following years, and the culmination of the effort in the formation of a new nation almost a decade later.
I am not much of a John Adams fan, but his observations at the birth of the nation in the guise of the US Constitution are indeed sobering.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Indeed, he was correct.
Nevertheless, I will once again reread and meditate on the sublime ideals first brought forth on July 4, 1776. It remains as timely as tomorrow’s headlines, in fact it reads like tomorrow’s headlines, and serves as a guuiding beacon to all who seek the flourishing of humanity.
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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
(think the scene from “Wizard of Oz”…)
It’s the first day “after” Groopstock but still the crowds are here. The impulse for continued fellowship is so strong that we continued through the morning as folks were packing, parting, and moving out.
While I had so many sturdy bodies at the ready, I asked them to move the mondo SYP hand hewn timber from the first floor (basement) up to the second floor. Six of the men jumped in to volunteer, and they got the job done in about 45 seconds. This timber will soon become a 13-foot-long planing beam in the center space of the main floor, and that transformation will provide me with an excuse to blog about planing beams in general and this beam in particular.
By lunch time we were down to a half-dozen exit stragglers, and by supper only one overnighter was left.
The next phase of the summer would be finally (!) getting my own workshop space in order. Saturday and Sunday were still decompressing time, but by Monday I was back in the shop all day. Tales of that start tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
The final day of Groopstock has, in the past at least, been capped off by a gargantuan meatfest for dinner. We did it again this year, but first the highlights of the day.
photo courtesy of Joshua Klein
Bill Robillard and I built the folding portable workbench in real time to start the day. I will build another one in a month or so in order to blog in detail, and then compile those blogs into a downloadable PDF.
photo courtesy of Joshua Klein
He then left to present a monumental project of restoring the dais and rostrum for the US House of Representatives. I was still working downstairs, but I got to hear it at least.
After lunch Dave Reeves, Bill, and I began the ritual of meat grilling. I grilled up ten racks of ribs while they worked on 85(?) bratwurst, cooking them first in beer and onions before cooking them over real wood charcoal, as I was doing a dozen yards away. I had heard of Tennis Elbow, but this was the first time I’d ever been afflicted with Barbeque Shoulder. Flipping those dozens of pounds of meat really got tiring, and I was pretty sore by the time it was all over.
photo courtesy of Joshua Klein
While this was going on in the yard, up the hill at the Barn there were presentations by Jon Szalay on molding and casting (I think they did cast some bronze), Brian Webster on Building a Website, and finally Jim Young and Bruce Hamilton on Pricing and Estimating.
photo courtesy of Joshua Klein
Those who were still mobile and non-catatonic after gorging on meat traipsed back up the the barn for Martin O’Brien’s discussion of historical varnish recipes recorded in the archives of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, which I still maintain is about as close to perfection as a museum can be.
Following that, a bunch of the crowd wanted to watch the rough cut of my upcoming video Historic Transparent Finishes, but by midnight I pulled the plug and told everybody to go to bed. They did not necessarily obey, but I was asleep and did not care.
For any enterprise like Groop, there are many layers of dynamic activity. Such truth is enhanced immensely when the members gather together during their irregularly scheduled GroopShops, of which there have been many over the past fifteen years, including three at the Barn. It is then that fellowship goes into overdrive.
After dinner on the second night, Group Trustee Mike Mascelli took to the floor to give a heartfelt recitation of Groop, reflecting on its founder Alan Marriage and his untimely death a dozen years ago. (Somehow I did not get a good picture of Mike) Mike also launched a round of memento giving, including this super cool Vixen file to me, knowing of my passion for tortoiseshell and the similarities between Vixen files and French tortoiseshell rasps known as “grailles.” It has already been put to work, which is the highest compliment you can pay regarding a tool Mike has bestowed on you.
Groopster Dan Carlson once again was the ringleader for an aggregate gift commemorating Groopstock, this time a vintage saw purloined from my ample stash of saws “to be fixed up, some day,” painted then signed by all the attendees.
It has already taken its place of high honor near the gift from three years ago, a portrait of my wife, me, and The Barn.
Dave Reeves brought down the house with his lengthy and convoluted tale of my fascination with the Studley tool cabinet, and told of his tireless efforts to find me a legitimate replica, and the joy of learning that his pickers had found one. I will let you judge their efforts, but I am not certain they comprehended his instructions adequately.
If you want to follow the adventure of the REAL Studley ensemble, including the upcoming exhibit in May 2015, you can do that by going here.
One final treasure of the week was spending it in the company of my brother and nephew, without whose tireless efforts the lawn would not have been mowed, the new shower in the barn not installed… Thanks guys.
It does not get much better than this.
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