Prepping For Amana

Handworks is now six months away and we are busily preparing for stocking the booth for the onslaught of the thousands of friends old and new bound by the love of traditional hand woodworking tools.

My broom maker has a standing order for dozens of polissoirs to make sure I have plenty of these magical tools for show and sale.  Unfortunately(?) I still get orders almost daily so building up the inventory is going slower than I would like.  I go to the post office every week with a bag of packages to send.

The broom maker and his wife have finally moved into their dream house he has been building for the past several years, and is having trouble finding the time to set up his own workshop just the way he wants it.  I spoke to him this morning (I had actually run out of the Model 296 polissoirs) and just yesterday he was able to begin using the workshop in the new house.  I will be providing a complete set of polissoirs as a door prize for Handworks.

Here on the homestead I have been refining the raw beeswax, known in the apiary/honey/beeswax world as “slum gum”, to provide the purified raw material for Mrs. Barn to make into beeswax bars.  There is nothing quite like the beautiful appearance of the amber nectar after the final filtering  as I cast it out as molten material in cookie pans.

This is a favorite winter activity as it both heats the kitchen a little with her dedicated crockpot going almost 24/7 and imparts the lovely scent of clean molten beeswax throughout the cabin.

Over the days the pile of finished bars grows and grows, eventually becoming wrapped and placed in their storage boxes.

Meanwhile up in the Waxerie I’ve added casting more shellac wax and Blend 31 bars to my mix of activities.  This is a nice punctuation to my other ongoing projects in the shop as it does not need my immediate attention all the time.

I plan to have a full inventory of polissoirs and waxes and stuff and will schedule hourly demonstrations at my booth at Handworks, and will expound on these as things come together.