Roger Nixon":2wcd7yuy said:
Mine's home in the shop right now but the real question is: What happened to your saw that you need a new stretcher????
Wasn't me, guv, I got it like that. There's a genuinely junky junk shop, who location I will not disclose 'cos it's about time to have another look at it, wherein I spent about half an hour clambering over car wheels, trunks, tables, hats stands etc to get to "the tools". I went through the lot, found the first bowsaw upright and kept digging until I found the other. The stretcher was nowhere to be found, not even right at the bottom amongst the spanners and old files. On the other hand I also reunited a jack plane with its tote, found a "Toga" drill index, coupla decent saws and so forth. This would be about 18 months ago at least, so it's not a repair I'm rushing into...
Now that I am finally doing something about it, I've had a "dammit, I hate it when that happens" moment. I decided lunch could go hang in favour or making a start. Found an ideal off-cut of beech, cleaned it up, dimensioned it. All going swimmingly. Measured my blade before starting - 12" rather than Ian's 10" - so made due allowance. Measured it a few times before cutting, just to make sure. Cut the stub tenons, all by hand 'cos things seemed to be going well, rounded their ends to fit the mortises and so forth. The LV medium shoulder and LN chisels did sterling work. Everything fits nicely. Let's see how it looks with the blade in then, shall we? Godsdammit, what the...? How in the ****...? By all things Normite - the damn thing's
too short. :evil: Did I forget to allow the length of the tenons, you ask? Nope, I did not. What I did was measure the correct length, discovered the end needed a trim to get past a flaw in the wood, then re-measured and made a fresh mark to indicate the new cut, but
left the old one on. Fool that I am I cut to the wrong mark. Damn and blast and flippin' heck. No more beech handy; means finding a board, doing some serious stock prep etc etc. Leave it for today and get something to eat. On the way out a mitre clamp, for reasons of its own, threw itself off the wall and landed, sharp point down, on my recently completed spokeshave. :shock: There's a horrible great ding right in the middle of the top of it now. I'm trying to tell myself it's just as well, it was bound to happen eventually, now I can use it without worrying about its looks etc etc. But I mean to say, which woodworking deity have I cheesed off today, for Norm's sake? :roll: I'm absolutely not going in the workshop again until tomorrow; it's one of those days.
Cheers, Alf
