Last spring while visiting my brother in The Free State of Florida, where liquor stores sell 190 proof grain alcohol (locally even West Virginia[!] has become a nanny state that will not sell 190 at retail stores), we moseyed up to the corner liquor store so I could get a case. I grabbed a 1.75L jug of Everclear 190 and told the clerk I wanted, along with another whole case, which he dutifully loaded up for me.
During the recent Historic Woodfinishing workshop at the barn I opened the case and to my very great distress discovered that the knucklead clerk and the inattentive customer provided me with 7 liters of 151 proof of grain alcohol, useful for nothing much at all. At best it is really expensive brush cleaner, although a recent trip to the hardware store revealed that denatured solvent alcohol is running $25+ per gallon. That stuff really is suitable only for cleaning brushes.
Maybe I can figure out how to use this stuff for some varnish making,
Six weeks ago I had, according to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, my 23rd eye operation. Fortunately, like a few of them this one was laser work, as the doc was opening up the pressure port on the rear wall of my eyeball, to facilitate lower intraocular pressures made necessary by my advanced glaucoma. (They say you cannot feel ocular laser oblation. “They” do not tell the truth.)
Yesterday was my follow-up appointment. Unfortunately one of the other doctors in the clinic was sick so my waiting time was four hours. I didn’t really have an option as we were 2-1/2 hours from Shangri-la. Anyway, the particulars of the post-op evaluation were exceedingly good. My eye pressure was reduced by more than 20% (this was the second iteration of this procedure, so the benefit was compounded), and even more remarkable, my vision had improved by one full line on the chart. Still, while the acuity was increased the clarity did not. The best analogy I can make is that in my dominant eye the vision is like looking at a scoreboard after evening fog moves in. I can still make out the numbers but the overall effect is pretty hazy.
I am a sucker for anything to do with artisanal brush-making, and this one on fabricating urushi lacquering brushes had me from the get-go.
The only way it coulda been better if there was another one. Oh wait, there is.
And another…
In fact, in the year-plus since I really browsed deep into urushi videos on youtube there is a whole new inventory of them, including these really cool ones about lacquer brushes.
Some version of this post is presented annually at this time, revised a bit from time to time. Despite dozens of recitations, I can never read the last line of The Declaration out loud because I am overcome with emotion.- DCW
Tomorrow my fellow Patriots and I, however many of us there are, will commemorate and celebrate the 247th anniversary of the most profound statement of human aspiration ever known. We have already endured two violent wars of secession, the first from 1775-1783 and the second from 1861-1865, and I pray that our third one can be avoided by a peaceful segregation of a populace that no longer shares a common vision.
As our nation is seemingly rife with incurious, gullible and servile inhabitants, we would be well-served to reflect seriously on the document encapsulating the mission statement for the greatest nation ever known to man, the only nation ever founded on a creed rather than geography or lineage. It was and is of course imperfect, no institution created by fallen and sinful men and women can be anything else.
I am unabashedly proud to be a partisan in the cause of Life, Liberty, and Property (the original wording) and find The Declaration of Independence to be the most noble civil document ever created by mankind. I pray you will read and reflect on the ideas expressed by men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to pursue the path of liberty. Reading it is much like reading the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament; more up-to-date regarding the human condition than tomorrow’s headlines.
God Bless America, and may righteousness flourish and wickedness be overcome.
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.
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
John Hancock
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
One of the aspects of creating the Roentgen-inspired parquetry surface for my dream tool cabinet is that making the trapezoidal units is something I can do a few minutes or couple hours at a time, in between all the other stuff filling my plate; yard work, the new greenhouse, workshop planning and prep (with the requisite housekeeping), writing and editing, playing with tordonshell, noodling all manner of creativity, etc.
Using this rough “proof of concept” exercise panel I was ready to chare forward beginning to create the individual elements and begin assembling them into the final diamond shapes.
My hope is to have the necessary elements finished so that I can begin laying the parquetry some time this fall, going through the winter.
Once I had a sufficient quantity of sawn white oak veneers, roughly a shy 1/8″ thick, I bound several layers together and laid out as many of the triangles as I could on the surface layer.
Since “precision” was an irrelevant component of the composition at this point I was completely comfortable with sawing them out on the bandsaw. Somehow I failed to get a picture of the filled boxes of cut triangles, but when I had them I moved on to the next step – fitting half- and whole-trapezoids together.
When my friend Sam, a restoration carpenter, bought a portable sawmill he volunteered to practice on the walnut logs from the tree my pal Bob and I felled a few years ago (as a lifelong logger/timberman Bob did all the felling with great expertise, I did the watching and cleaning up after). Though the walnut tree was a beauty, it was a beauty that cast an impenetrable shadow on one of Mrs. Barn’s prized gardening locations.
Nix one walnut tree.
For the last eighteen months the sawn walnut has been sitting in the middle of the large room on the main floor of the barn, awaiting the next chapter in its journey. That journey will come to fruition later this summer as Webmeister Tim will be coming to the barn for a week-long visit and our project for the time will be building him a workbench. He is a turner moving into hand tool bench work so we need to make sure he has a proper bench.
Although the slabs resultant from that felling and milling are not fully dried — the traditional rule of thumb was “one year per inch,” which means another couple of years to reach “air dry” — I think that they are far enough along that trajectory to allow us to move forward with making his bench.
NB: here in the mountains there are old-time timbermen who swear by a different rule for seasoning wood. For them, the time is “one year for the first inch, two more years for the second inch, three more years for the third inch,” and so on. By that measure these four-inch-plus slabs need at least another half-decade to be “air dried.” However, given the structure and features of a slab-top bench I think it is safe to proceed.
To get to that point I am prepping the thick walnut slab stock. Since I had to rip edges of the slabs in place I dusted off my 10″ Milwaukee portable circular saw for the first time since I can remember.
Sawing from one face only the saw got to within about 3/4-inch of a through-and-through cut so I finished up with my venerable rip saw.
I wound up with two beautiful half-slabs, en toto ~21″ x 4-1/2″ x 84″. I’ll leave them alone now until Tim comes and we can move forward, depending on the details he wants for the bench. I don’t have any machinery to handle something like these so there will be plenty of hand work from this point on.
In the meantime I am thinking about slabbing the white oak timbers that have been sitting outside the barn for several years. The smaller one on top of the pile is 8″ x 15″ x 102″. The bigger ones are a full 10″ x 15″ x 125″.
Just another quick reminder about the two upcoming workshops focusing on shellac and wax finishing.
The workshop at the barn (my final one here due to my already recounted business insurance termination) will be June 19-21. For that workshop contact me directly.
The identical workshop will be held at Joshua Farnsworth’s school/shop in Earlysville VA, July 17-19. Contact Joshua for registration and other information.
Recently while visiting our older daughter and her posse I snuck down to the basement workshop while the rest were up in the dining room playing board games (have some pity on Mrs. Barn, she loves board games and dancing, two activities for which I have near-zero proclivity), spending some time assembling sub-units of the tool cabinet parquetry. It’s an easy project I can take with me in a shoe box.
This parquetry topic will play an increasingly prominent role on the blog over the next year.
The work itself is fairly mindless, giving my attention plenty of opportunity to wander here and there. One of the ruminations it settled on was the numerous work spaces I inhabit, and the many sets of tools these places are populated with.
Of course there is my workshop in the barn, with its plethora of tools for woodworking and metal working.
That’s the first pile o’ tools.
Even in the barn there is the subset of tools up on the fourth floor where I build Gragg chairs. I created this space and its accoutrements after getting mighty tired of walking up and down stairs every time I needed this or that.
Thus, a second pile o’ tools.
Just down the hill from my main barn is the vintage log barn, originally a livestock housing but now a storage bin for lumber. Attached to this barn is the lean-to where all the lawn equipment is stored. And stored along with the equipment is the substantial collection of tools requisite for keeping things in operating order.
Third pile o’ tools.
Just across the creek from the lean-to is the cabin, and like almost every domicile it has a fairly extensive set of tools to keep everything there running smoothly, from electrical to plumbing to woodworking to who knows what else.
Fourth pile o’ tools.
Then we’ve got three vehicles, each with their necessary tool kits in case anything goes wrong while on the road.
Tool piles five, six, and seven.
Then there is the aforementioned workshop at my daughter’s house with fairly complete workshop in the basement (pile #8) and my carpentry tools and power machines in her little barn (#9).
Even though I do not have a workshop nor tool collection at my other daughter and son-in-law (he’s got an excellent inventory himself) I’ve got a couple selections of tools I take whenever we go there.
Piles 10 & 11.
Some might say I “have a tool problem,” I refute the accusation vigorously. I do not have “a tool problem,” I have a lot of tools.
The first of what eventually grew to several piles of thrashed pipeline.
For many years my seasonal regimen for the hydroelectric system has been fairly routine: I drain the waterline some time in November, depending on the temperature trajectory, then recharge the line sometime late in March. I use the descriptor “For many years” because our first winter here also saw the coldest temps since we bought here in 2000 with overnight lows reaching -15F, and my dream of running the system year-round was dashed. The water froze in the pipe, resulting in my need to replace almost 600 feet of pipeline the following spring.
At one time I was rethinking the scheme of having the pipeline above-ground and wondered, could I get it buried beneath the frost line? Since the answer to that question turned out to be, “Of course, all it takes is something north of $75k, and oh by the way it will completely destroy your creek and everything adjacent to it,” I’ve just stuck with the original concept.
So now, every late autumn as soon as we get a string of days with sub-freezing daily high temperature, I shut it down to preserve the line. Notwithstanding that I’ve had to do a little repair every spring, virtually all from trees falling on the line and breaking it (once was from a bear gnawing on it) the routine has worked well.
No big deal. A half-day of work and we’re ready to roll.
Until this year.
The replaced section near the bottom of the system.
For starters, between travel and yard duties I did not even begin to turn my attention to the hydro system until a couple weeks ago, a full two months later than usual; since I have not been in the shop much and there has been plenty of sunshine, the solar panels did more than enough to keep things copacetic power-wise in the barn.
When I dove into it this week, I encountered almost two hundred feet of shredded pipe near the bottom of the system. The damage was the typical helical fracture pattern of bursting due to water freezing in the pipe. This perplexed me since I had drained the line last fall. My annual draining protocol is to disconnect the pipeline just below the capturing box at the top of the system by loosening the hose clamps holding it together, then moving the pipeline aside a bit. And that’s where the problem this year started. To quote the famous LBJ line, “I reserve the right to be smarter than I used to be.”
Now I are smrt smarter than I used to be.
What almost certainly happened was a fierce rainstorm occurred after the disconnect, with the resulting water flow in the creek high enough to pour into the open disconnected water line and refilling the line. And when the line subsequently froze, BOOM! A couple hundred feet of pipeline turned into confetti.
Treacherous footing abounds. One false step can land you flat on a bed of rocks.
I spent this week working on the damaged area, which is an exhausting undertaking. Every footstep has to be considered and calculated given that every single space is uneven, loose rock, most of it slippery from being in a creek bed. Even wearing my best old lumberjack boots, it is treacherous. Especially since it requires good vision to navigate the terrain, a feature I do not possess. (Monday I will be having my 22nd eye surgery, which will provide no enhancement to my very compromised vision but should help to preserve what little vision remains in my used-to-be-dominant eye). Trying to traverse treacherous ground with zero depth perception is a challenge.
I was able to make the repairs with the last of my original inventory of 2″ x 20′ PVC pipe. When I had the first catastrophic winter damage I bought a complete bundle of the necessary pipe, I think it was 80 pieces, and have been using a piece or two every year since the first one.
Yesterday morning I walked to the top of the system and much to my dismay saw serious damage up there too – not from freezing but from destructive/tumultuous water flow in the creek — which I repaired fairly quickly, then reconnected the water line. Just downstream from that repair I discovered another breach. Drat. Walking the line yesterday afternoon I found dozens more breaches, and hundreds more feet of shredded pipe. Double drat. The air was pungent with not-appropriate-for-Sunday-School epithets.
I went to the local farm coop and bought all the pipe they had but still I am way short. This morning I will check with the hardware store the next town over. I’ve gotta get enough material to finish the project next week and bring the hydroelectric turbine back on-line.
Remember the full bundle I bought ten years ago? It was roughly $11 per piece. Now the price is $36 per piece. Ouch.
Lesson learned, albeit a very expensive lesson – put a $1 cap over the end of the pipe intake when you disconnect it, stupid.
At the end of July I’ll be building a premium workbench for Webmeister Tim, who will be visiting. In order to get in the mind-groove I was browsing youtube for inspiration, not that I really need it, and stumbled across this wonderful short video chronicling the construction of a bench the analog of which I have built four or five. I probably use at least one my three remaining iterations of them on an almost daily basis (given my inventory of more than a dozen workbenches, one is never more than a step or two away from one). Easy and inexpensive to build, yielding a heritage workbench for centuries to come.
I might take a slightly different path for some of it but en toto this one is solid gold.
Recent Comments