A great weekend! A bit long
Steve Kubien
>Afternoon everybody,
Saturday is my day to sleep in (SWMBO gets Sunday) so at 9:30 as I drag my carcass outta bed, my 5 year old daughter tells me that her toy hamster (no live rodents in our house) needs shavings for his cage. She asks if I might have some. Well, off to the shop I go to find something suitable.
I scan the carnage which is my shop but the shavings on the floor are both too dirty from walking in them and too fine (they'd get all over her room in short order). I grab my Knight smoother and I can't get a decent shaving. They're all too fluffy! "Hmmf", says I. "Time to pull out a No.5" My 5 is in the long process of getting a new knob and tote. Luckily I received some from Secret Santa in 2004. I adjusted them as need (larger holes) and installed them. Inspection of the iron revealed some shortcomings so I honed it nicely and took the extra time to fit a 2 piece Clifton chip breaker that I've had for about 2 years. Wow, this is now a serious performer! I'm psyched! One minute later I've got a bag full of shavings which are perfect for Hammie. The whole process took almost an hour between slurps of my coffee and much pondering but hey, I'm a hero to my little girl and I've got my jack plane back in action.
Fast forward to bed time...
Same daughter (Marissa) comes to me before going to bed and asks if I can get some more shavings for Zoe's (offspring #2) toy hamster. We'll do it in the morning I tell her. She leaves with a happy yet puzzled look on her face.
The next day I take her out to the shop and get her using the jack plane (with help because of it's weight and her hands are tiny) and she makes a bag full of shavings. Her eyes were glowing the whole time! She was very proud of herself and happy that I took her in the shop. I need to build a long step-up bench for her to get tall enough to be in a good working position and she loves the idea. I also took her to my grandmother's to install some hooks in her closet. She pre-drilled the holes with a push-drill and countersunk them with a brace and she was beside herself. Very happy indeed. To top it off, she handed the bag of shavings to her sister and Zoe thanked her. I told Zoe that Marissa made them herself and she was very impressed, giving Marissa a huge hug (gotta check for cracked ribs). Yup, Marissa was some proud of herself and so was I.
As others have said before, it doesn't get much better that this. Thanks for reading this far. It's been a proud and happy weekend in the Kubien household.
Steve Kubien