Busy day

WoodturningWoodworking

Well, I’ve never clamped anything to this side of the vice before….

I couldn’t move the boxes beneath the bench out of the way because there’s nowhere for them to go, and I didn’t want to spin the piece around because I was using the nailgun and I’m not quite ready to point anything at myself that has the word “gun” in the title just yet. But this worked well enough.

It’s just scraps of pine – that base was actually a board that was in the living room for the last four years and I’d forgotten about it because it was up on top of a bookshelf. Some glue, a few brads and on we go.

Again I didn’t have brads of the right length here so glue and screws provide the holding strength and the brads just pin everything in place long enough for me to get the screws into it.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in 2 Comments

Maintenance day

ShedToolsWoodturning
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Woodworking

Cold wet Sunday so time to tackle a few bits and pieces in the shed that have been hanging about a while. Like mounting two magnetic strips on the inside of the door because I’ve run out of wall space for things, and epoxying some handles I turned onto the saw files.

Larger tasks though involved a cardboard box that’s been eating bench space for the last few weeks. The little bandsaw that’s earned its spot in the shed over the last year or two came with a “fence”. Said “fence” followed the adage of doing one thing and doing it well, but unfortunately that one thing was weighing down a bin bag. It definitely was too cool to be square, daddy-o. But there are after-market fences (meaning we couldn’t make it well for the money, so give us more money and we can do it right).… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in No Comments

Using up offcuts

Woodworking

So with the lockdown in Ireland now extended to May 5 – or The Lock-in as we ought to be calling it the way WW2 was The Emergency – garden centers are closed (apparently the Greens asking us to feed ourselves from our window boxes full of lettuce didn’t make Woodies an essential business 😀 ). I ran around one before the Lock-in commenced and got a lot of seeds and potting compost (and we already had a general-purpose liquid fertiliser and tomato feed and for high-nitrogen stuff like Basil, well everyone knows that trick of mixing eggshells and used coffee grounds with their compost, right?); but I thought we had more planters than we had. Seems I threw the ones we did have in the bin a few weeks ago because the UV had finally mangled them past maintenance’s hopes.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in 4 Comments