Halfway there
Jeremy Osner
>Well this morning I find myself halfway along our trek in life of threescore-and-ten years. (Life expectency's changed a bit since they set that figure so I'm probably still not quite halfway, but...)
My birthday present from Ellen this year is new handles for some planes, courtesy of Mike Taylor of Katy, TX. The handles are for: a Stanley #5 with a broken handle, a Stanley #4 with a broken-and-glued handle (both are quite early, I believe type 10), and a Millers Falls #14B which would be my favorite jack plane if it were not for its crappy handle.
The new handles arrived Monday and I started puttine them together Monday evening. The two Stanleys were pretty straightfoward and the handles fit like a dream. The MF was a little more difficult -- the mechanism for attaching the handle to the bed involves a small ferrule at the front of the handle, and it seems like I mismeasured slightly when I told Mike where to drill the hole for the ferrule, meaning the handle won't seat properly. Tomorrow or Friday I will try re-drilling. Also I should probably take the handle bolt to a hardware store and see if I could find a replacement because I think it's not quite straight.
Besides that, I am nearly finished building a playhouse for Sylvia in our back yard -- all that remains to be done is a few rungs on the ladder, and sanding and polyurethane. My slogan for this project is, "When I build something out of 2X4's, you know it's made of 2X4's!" None of this fancy business like I saw in the 2X4 chair contest, where you guys were coming up with stuff that looked like it was made from good, expensive lumber... The playhouse design is pretty cool though and if I can get my scanner working again I will post a picture of it.