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Sunday, February 16, 2014

My Privacy Policy – Some important matter that you need to be aware about

Please be advised that this blog uses a third-party advertising companies that are serving ads which are often shown every time you are going to visit any of the pages. Most of these advertising companies do use cookies that could either collect some information regarding about your visit. The purpose of these cookies is to let them know about your interest about goods or services so that in your future visits they will provide better advertisements that might catch your attention.

About your Privacy

It’s my full responsibility to protect your privacy while you are browsing my blog http://blogspot.com/. Below are the following actions on how I gather information on this blog:

RSS Feed from the Feed Burner

The Feed burner is one of the most trusted subscription provider that I’ve ever known so I use them for asking contact information such as name and email address. Subscriber has the option to opt-out anytime they want. You don’t have to worry about your personal information being gathered because they will never be sold, spammed or given to any third party group.

StatCounter for recording traffic statistics

Most websites and blogs these days are now using StatCounters to tract their visitor’s activities. It can track and record information such as your IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, type of browser, ISP, referring, exit and visited pages, platform, date/time stamp, time spend on the page, and demographic information.

Cookies stored on your temporary folders

Cookies are small temporary files that are often stored on your default folders. You have the option to clear them through the use of software or simply leave them for some purposes. Take note that some of my advertisers could use cookies but sad to say that I do not have the access to these kinds of files knowing about what information do they contain.

The links pointing outside my domain

Notice that there are some links on this blog that will direct you to another domain or site. Please be advised that once you are already on their current page the privacy policy that I mentioned is no longer valid where you have to read their own set of policy.

Contact Information

Do you have any suggestion? If yes then don’t be shy to contact me on my email address alexmercer@ymail.com. I will be happy to hear about your concerns and issues and try to answer them at the best possible time that I can.

I have last updated this Privacy Policy on July 8, 2010.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

A Bunch Of This And That

Black Friday/Cyber Monday

I hope you all found the fantastic deals you couldn’t refuse on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Strange, isn’t it, how terminology is adapted from one application to another, resulting in completely opposite meanings.

When I hear the term “Black Friday”, the first thing that pops to mind is that my already black and blue retirement plan just took another sh_t kicking. Instead, in this application it means that the retailers hope to be in the black part of the ledger by the end of this particular Friday, the traditional “lets get out and spend” day in the United States.

While not a thumper about it, I am quite strong on the idea of Canadians shopping in Canada, as Americans are about supporting their own economy. This year is a little different for me, though. This year I am advocating “Cross Border Shopping”. That’s right; all you Canucks should head over to your nearest state and shop your brains out.

Here’s why I say this…

I read an article in the paper the other day about a old guy who had to replace his clock radio so he went to the local Canadian Tire store, a chain that started life in automotive supply and over the past 100 years or so have spread out to carry just about everything, doing justice to none. The old man picked out a radio he could afford and went to pay for it. The price of the clock alarm was $9.95, Added to this price was the new Ontario Eco Fee, a fee for disposal at the time of sale, which added $2.75 to his bill. Then the standard “harmonized” sales tax (8% provincial and 5% federal) was added not only to the selling price of the radio, but to the eco fee as well, adding another $1.87 to his bill. This brought the total of that $10 radio to $14.56, almost 50% more than its purchase price.

All of this, to me, is just way over the top. Add it to all the other ridiculous ways our multi-levels of government here in Canada are reaching into our pockets and it becomes time to call a time-out.

Save the planet, please! I’m all for it and I’ll even help you. Doing so on the backs of some poor old guy on a fixed income, though, is beyond reasonable. I just think it is time the governments got taught a lesson.

Peace.

Interesting Site

I was sent a link this morning for http://www.thenewchinkyworkshop.com. Yes, the name is a little out there for this day and age, isn’t it, but as the site’s owner explains, it is a play on his name that his parents gave him years ago, so it is not used to cause offense.

Ray, the owner, is seriously into woodworking and creates some amazing projects. He has made everything from a carving knife holder to tables, desks and cabinets. It is not the projects that amazed me with this site, nor the craftsmanship that he obviously applied to each. It is the pure number of things he has created that blew me away. I have no idea how many he has displayed on this site, but whatever the tally, the number will be incredible.

Take some time and have a look around. He is extremely talented and amazingly innovative. It is worth the click.

Here is an image I lifted from his site. It is just a simple fence, but to me shows this man’s creativity. How would you like to wake up one morning and find this running along your driveway? I know I would, and I don’t even have a driveway.

Peace.

Time To Make Some Sawdust

Things are slowing down for me considerably by the end of this week and I am going to have just over a month where there will be few demands on my time. To celebrate a slow work schedule for a change, I am going to get to work and enjoy myself. While the project at hand is not really my cup of tea, it will fit in with some of my wife’s other pieces and given it has been a while since I have really built anything, Im looking forward to it.

Early this year I tried to get my wife interested in growing orchids. Not only has she become enamored with them, she is starting to try her hand at herbs and other green things. To me this is great, and to give her even more incentive, I want to make her a plant stand with grow lights.

For those of you that are not familiar with orchids outside of what you see in the florist shop, without flowers, they can be the ugliest things God ever created. When they flower, their hot. When they arent, their not.

I should explain why the design of this thing is not something I would choose to build or buy. Shortly after my wife and I were married, my wife asked me to take her to an antique show which I agreed to do, but only if she agreed to leave her wallet at home. We attended that event as, surprisingly, she agreed to my terms, but what did I know at the time, I had just married the woman. Walking the aisles she came across a craftsmen styled sideboard which she wanted. Im huge on the Craftsman architectural style but not enamored at all with the furniture style. Knowing that she didnt have her wallet, I figured why upset the apple cart. I told her that if she could figure out a way to pay for it, she could buy it. Man, I was so naive back then. I went off to look around some more and left her to her quandary.

When we hooked up again, nothing was said and we wandered around the show some more and did a little window shopping afterwards, as well. When we pulled into the driveway that evening, there was a rather large truck parked in it. It was the dealer delivering her Craftsman styled sideboard. The way she settled the problem of not having her wallet was to tell the dealer that when he delivered it that evening, her husband would cut him a cheque.

So this almost-Craftsman styled, solid oak monstrosity will sit in the diningroom. Even though it stands 6 4" in height, there is only enough height for three shelves. This is because of the 4" facings along the underside of each shelf to hid the florescent grow lights. I will be 5 wide, though, so hopefully it will have enough shelf space to hold all her green-thumb endeavors. I included four doors across the bottom to give her some hidden storage for dirt, pots, watering cans and other sundry items.

I hope she will enjoy using it as much as I am going to enjoy building it. I started doing the glue-ups today, and here is what the end result should look like…

Peace,

Mitchell

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Its All In The Details Sans The Detail Planes That Is

Things are coming along with my wife’s plant shelving unit. Not as quickly as I would like it to, but at least things are heading in the right direction.

I now have both sides completed, and son-of-a-gun if they don’t match. I have always found this to be the hardest part of building anything; when you get one side done, you have to match it. I would save myself a lot of grief with this if I worked like Rob over on the woodbloke blog. He makes scale models and does tremendous research before he even buys the materials. Often, as with this project, I don’t work from a plan. I just come up with a concept and start at it. I know that if I spent a little time creating plans, I could cut all the pieces in one go and they would all be the same. Knowing and doing is two different things, though. I just think that working things through as I go along is a lot more fun. I work one side until I get it the way I want it, and then I shoot myself in the foot making the match.

The first order of business was dressing the stock. Using a scraper, I got rid of the squeezed out glue and realized that I would have to do very little planing. In fact, I only had to touch the plane to it in two or three places. The whole thing was cleaned up with a card scraper. I purchased a Veritas Scraper Set some time ago and I love the thing, especially the holder. I can take out a hunk of skin working with cotton balls, so anything that minimizes the chance of blood ending up on the wood is a good thing for me. While the set is a winner for me, the card holder is the bonus. It makes holding the scraper blade so much easier, especially for these large jobs.

Once I had the faces smooth, I cut the piece to length. The shelves are made from a glue-up of two 1” x 6” pieces, so the final width was 10 ¾”, which is the width I made the sides. As a result, I did not have to do any ripping on them.

I then shot the ends using my temporary shooting board with my 15” Veritas Low-Angle Jack. I have no idea how I lived without this appliance for so long, but I’m very happy to have it now. The dark areas in the image above are sweat stains, by the way.

I shot the long edges with a Stanley No.7, and I was ready to do the detail.

The detail on the shelf edge is a perfect example of why I don’t work with plans. In my drawing, I placed a three-bead reed along each edge of the shelves, but all the other details are single beads. As I looked among the Stanley No.66 Beader blades, I realized that the design would probably be more unified if the shelf edges matched the other shadow lines. I ended up putting the reeding blade back and using a single ¼” beading blade.

I started out adding a bead to the outer edges. I then wanted to remove the ¼” space between so I pulled out the little Veritas Miniature Shoulder Plane and the set of Veritas Detail Rabbet Planes. Now these little planes are really well made and I am sure in the hands of someone a heck of a lot more capable with tools than myself, they are probably an incredible advantage to a shop, but, man, I had a hell of a time with them.

The Miniature Shoulder has a blade adjuster on it, so setting the blade was very easy. Getting that blade to remove the oak in anything that resembled a reasonable amount of time, however, was another story. With a sole that is ¼” wide by 2 ½” long and only weighing in at 1.7 ounces, it was like trying to remove wood with a feather. I knew at the time I was asking a lot of this little plane. Maybe on a smaller project, one that does not involve hardwood, I might have stood a better chance. It didn’t take long to realize that there was no way the day was going to be long enough for me to plow out that space using that tool.

I then turned to the Veritas ¼” Detail Rabbet plane. At 3”, these planes are a little longer with a bit more heft to them, but they are awkward little buggers to hold. Because of their height, they are also difficult to keep square to the stock. Being a tad lighter than what was needed, it wasnt going to remove stock in a hurry either. The biggest issue I had with them, though, was setting up the blade. There is no adjustment and the only way to work it is to set it using two fingers and doing so by feel, not the easiest way for a raw amateur to set a plane blade. I also noticed that after two runs down the 52” length, the plane was uncomfortably warm in my hand, damn near hot, actually.

I said the heck with the lot of them (ok, so maybe a little stronger than that), and went to the Veritas Miniature Plow Plane, which is what I should have started with in the first place. It was much more controllable and removed what I wanted in about 4 minutes flat. I finished it all off with a quick sand and I was done for the day.

Thankfully, only two of the four shelves require this treatment, the other two having square faced edges.

Tomorrow, I’ll start trying to match it.

Peace,

Mitchell