Re: PATINA reports?
William Duffield, on the Cohansey
>I got there somewhere some time between 6:30 and 7:00. It was about 27� F, but clear. (Meteorologists are liars, big time!) The tailgating was interesting: No mud, no snow, but no Toddly bargains, either. In previous years, several Gerstner oak machinist's tool chests have been offered. There was only one this year, not in really good condition, and I could have bought three new for what he was asking for one old.
I was looking for an anvil for doing a bit of smithing, but none were to be found. Todd asked, tongue-in-cheek, since I had inquired of him previously, if I had found any, and explained politely that he didn't have any that he wanted to part with. Somehow, I think I already knew that before I started on this quest.
I waited until 9:00 to go inside, since with the exception of a few gusts of cold wind, the weather was tolerable.
I bought a #71 router from the Leachmeister, complete including the box and instructions, except for the v-shaped cutter, which I can easily make. The cutter's post and screw are there.
I was looking for a couple of items for some of the other guys in the shop, including a small combination square and a 10" (non-heirloom-quality) dovetail saw. I found a nice Adkins, that will only need a bit of sharpening and a minor ding in the blade hammered flat. Several people asked me where I found the 6" Starrett combo square that was in my tool tote. It happened to be the one I brought from home, for checking square and flat. I guess I wasn't the only one looking unsuccessfully for one of these.
I had been warned about Slav's files and rasps. Did I listen? Did I stay away from his table? No. I got a couple of 4" extra slim files for sharpening backsaws, an auger bit file, and then three different 6" Swiss pattern half round files, for shaping reproduction furniture, and a business card. He didn't have any French rasps, so I figure a trip to NYC to try out some of Joel's is still in order.
Quite serendipitously, I was discussing saw sharpening with Sandor, and discovered I had missed his post on his very elegant triangular file gunsight for saw sharpening. I looked it up as soon as I got home, and put another tool on the "build it" list. The number of tools (or tool wanabees) currently laying on my bench without handles jumped by several percentage points. I'm going to have to run out to the plumbing supply store to get some more compression nuts.
I only found one book I needed, The Preservation of Historic Architecture. I think it is probably available on line for "free", but sometimes I'm kind of old fashioned, and I like to have my reading material on paper. When I got home, LOML pointed out that she works for the "company" that publishes it. I didn't find any copies of Moxon. I talked with Lee Richmond, and he had talked to Astragal, but they were not clear about whether they had any plans to do another printing of it. No one had any updades on whether Walter was going to put out a new edition of "Stanley Tools", either, but no one made me any good offers on the dog eared one in my tote.
On the way home, I stopped at Woodcraft to take advantage of their sale of 8" slow speed bench grinders. Putting in a new one is probably more cost effective than trouble shooting and rebuilding the old 6" regular speed one that is currently collecting dust on my dirty bench.