I am definitely on the road to.recovery from my bout with the
Fauci/Wuhan bioweapon. With that in mind I expect fulfillment of outstanding orders for polissoirs, waxes, and any other products by this coming Tuesday.
Your prayers and concerns expressed mean more than.you.will ever.know.
I’ve got a few orders pending in The Store, but please be advised I remain in a covid pneumonia ward in LA for a still undetermined time. I will attend to all matters whenever I return. Came for a family funeral, stayed for the bioweapon plague.
In other related news I will be suspending mfr and sales of Mel’s Wax for at least a year or I can figure out the problems with turning black for no apparent reason.
Some version of this post is presented annually at this time. Despite dozens of recitations, I can never read the last line out loud because I am overcome with emotion.- DCW
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. I am unabashedly proud to be a partisan in the cause of Life, Liberty, and Property (the original wording) and find The Declaration 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.
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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.
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
Matthew Thornton
Apparently my laptop (or its charger) just died. Since this is where I keep all my documents and pictures I may not be posting for a bit. Yes, everything is backed up on an external archive drive, but I do not have access to that at the moment. All I’ve got is my Kindle, which IIRC is incompatible with anything USB so I’m kinda stuck for now.
Check back later to see how things progress, if at all.
Stay tuned.
Another of the regular winter/spring/summer rituals here in Shangri-la is to re-think the carpentry needs for the gardens, and this year two new hoops over the raised beds percolated to the top of the pile. There had been hoops before but those were made in haste and only lasted ten years. The time had come for something a bit more robust. They get used year round, in the winter to serve as mini-greenhouses, in the summer to keep out the cabbage butterflies.
I decided to make the ribs with three lamina instead of two, so I ripped the requisite number of 1/4″ strips from pressure-treated 2x lumber. The actual forming/laminating process began with constructing a form that can serve to fabricate laminated hoop ribs from now until I become part of the landscape myself. I used scrap materials for the form and used clamps for making the first curved ribs. I used up all the clamps I had that would fit and kept them engaged for 24-hours (I used T3 adhesive).
I got smarter. On subsequent ribs I used deck screws and fender washers to clamp the laminations to the form. With the addition of crown staples I was able to assemble two ribs per day.
After removing the laminated ribs from the form I restrained them with ratchet straps to keep the correct shape and size, and set them aside. Once I had enough I could assemble the skeleton and cover it with the screening.
Stay tuned.
May you spend this day in reverence for our Heavenly Father and in celebration or remembrance of your earthly father. We commemorated the occasion last night as Li’l T’s dad will be on duty today. I got this t-shirt from his mom and a Peer Gynt Suite CD from the other barndottir. Glory abounded.
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… and it’s home made and free from the scrap pile!
I was introduced to the layout knife when I went into the pattern shop in 1978 (I was a strictly power tool woodworker prior to that) by shop master John Kuzma, who taught me more about precise work than anyone who has ever crossed my path. Regardless of the scale of the foundry pattern, ranging from a small gear or housing to huge dredge pump components, the standard was always the same — work to the center of a knife cut. Given that the final product in metal was probably going to be machined to a .001″ tolerance this made sense. Rarely/never is this the case for woodworking otherwise.
While marking knives (of an astonishing variety) have been a constant presence in my tool kit over the past 4+ decades I have never encountered a better version of the marking knife than the one John used very day. It was simultaneously no-nonsense and performed exquisitely in every application in the wood shop. Recently I made another of these tools like this. The beauty of this method is that not only do you end up with a superb tool using recycled material, it does not require any de-tempering or re-tempering the material. It’s all cold work.
The starting point was a retired file. I make no secret of my pack-rat tendencies, so I always have old files on hand. If they were a good file, they are good tool steel. John’s knife was built from a 1/4″ square file, this one I just made was from a 3/16″ round chainsaw file. Given my reliance on firewood for heat I have a nearly never ending supply of worn out round files.
The first step of the process is to smooth out the remaining texture of the file teeth using a diamond stone or similar. This leaves a texture but not so much as to be uncomfortable in your hand.
The second step is to put the tang in the vise and give it a bit of a bend. The amount of the bend is slight enough that there is no need for any heat treatment of the metal.
Once the bend is done, sharpen the tip to a knife edge. In my case I use a coarse diamond stone for the shaping followed by a routine regimen of achieving a sharp knife edge. The beauty of this little curved tip is that it enhances the ability to make marks inside or underneath restricted spaces. I have never encountered a better way to transfer the lines of the small dovetails I often make,
On the other end of the file I again used the diamond stone/sharpening stone routine to create a knife bevel and razor sharp tip.
That’s all there is to this tool.
No cost, almost no time (under a half hour) and incomparable performance. Sounds like a near perfect formula to me. As soon as I come across a worn out square file I’ll make one from that, too.
As I have stated previously, the interior of the tool cabinet will be “composed” more than it will be “designed.” The process of layout and fabrication will certainly be a deliberate one, and the amount of progress will depend greatly on the other activities in my life, projects in the studio and events outside the studio.
I have made my first choices and taken the steps to make them happen.
First, I moved my saw rack en toto into the rear of the proper right compartment.
Second, I began to design the fittings to affix my hand planes to the rear of the proper left compartment.
Third, I began the process of mounting my carving chisels on the proper left door panel.
It’s clear there will be a lot of proceeding and retreating as I work out the composition, but it will all be a lot of fun. There will be irregular updates as they are called for.
Stay tuned.
In between extended travels to spend with Li’l T and his parents we are back at the homestead. The “to do” list is lengthy; mowing the hay that popped up in the yard, lotsa gardening for Mrs. Barn (pretty much all day every day), packaging and mailing several polissoir and wax orders, preparing for the upcoming presentation at the SAPFM Annual Mid-Year conference at the end of June, more mowing (always a problem given my extreme allergies to grass pollen), along with all the other things that are ongoing in the studio, paying bills, doing laundry, and a multitude of other things I cannot remember at the moment.
I get tired just thinking about it. Tough. Better get to it.
Sometimes a willingness to venture “outside the box” yields great rewards. This is one of those times.
Like probably most of you I have a number of modern saws with impulse hardened tri-faceted teeth. The upside is that these teeth can be very long lasting. The downside is that they are brittle and prone to snap off whenever encountering an exceedingly hard material, such as a nail. I have several saw blades with a gap-toothed grin. Fortunately, the blades are almost always replaceable. Unfortunately, until recently, my experience had been that they were impossible to sharpen due to the impulse hardening that made the files skate off of them without affecting any improvement. I found this frustration to be true for any of the facet-tooth saws I have, whether actual Japanese saws or the Stanley western style saws that employ Japanese-style teeth.
While working at my daughter’s house a while ago with my old-ish Z-brand saw I hit a nail good and hard. Much to my surprise only one tooth snapped off, but a couple dozen were mushroomed (I’m not good enough with that camera to get a nice pic). I had never before seen this damage. Before, the teeth just snapped off.
I certainly had new replacement blades in the drawer, but since the teeth were intact (except for the one) I decided to bring it back to the barn and give it a try to sharpen them. Using abrasives, first sandpaper then one of my small whetstones, I flattened the back side of every damaged tooth. Since most of the saw’s use was for rough carpentry and yard work I went ahead and cleaned it up pretty well.
However, when it came to re-shaping the damaged facets even my diamond needle files mostly skated over the hardened tips. But there in my small container of whetstones for my carving tools was a diamond shaped aluminum oxide “India” stone. The cross section was exactly like that of the file normally used to sharpen Japanese-stye saw teeth. I also had a needle-taper stone of the same material. They both came in handy.
Setting up the sharpening station just like every other saw I’d sharpened in the past umpteen years, “filing” with the “India” whetstones worked like a charm.
In less than a half hour I had the task done. Prior to the sharpening the saw would still cut after a fashion, 51 strokes to get through a 2×4, but after the sharpening it made it though the same lumber in exactly 1/3 of the strokes, leaving a very nice kerf surface.
It is a good day when you can go to bed after learning something you did not know when you woke up that morning.
© 2024 Don Williams
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