CurlyShavings

The old Cookie Monster song claimed that "C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!" but this "C" is for my niece.

I'm not very fast (or very neat). So far I've spent the remnants of nearly four lunch breaks. That probably adds up to nearly an hour, maybe more.

I think this is called a satin stitch. It's not my best. The others I know aren't my best, either. Soon, I will be finished and then I can wash it, iron it and send it on to my niece.

When asked, she said she wanted green stitching. This green (DMC 581) is what I'm using for a vine (split stitch) on another monogram.

The handkerchief is from Decorating With Lace, the "Crochet Small Edge", I believe.

[Update 01/30/2008: I finished the "C" today and started working on two small flowers on the adjacent corners.]

[Update 02/08/2008: I finished the flowers on the corners, washed it, ironed it and am sending it on its way!]

A colleague I met at work makes electric guitars. Cool. Even cooler, he found an ancient house in the area that was getting rid of some ancient, wide chestnut floorboards. That he wanted to turn into a the body of a small travel electric guitar.

Turns out, said colleague doesn't have a whole lot of tools. Not cool. But he's going to let me work on his board, his one-of-a-kind chestnut board. That's cool.

So after some discussion at an East 4^th restaurant (imagine the waitress' eyes when she sees this board on her table!), we decide that I'll make some cuts, here and there and clean them up with a handplane. Sweet.

Well, one thing led to another and I didn't get to it for a couple of weeks. And then I lost confidence that I knew anymore where I was to make these cuts.

I had a rough idea of where the lines would be and so taped them to show my colleague and sent him some pictures. He approved and I ran the board through the bandsaw, leaving just a little bit proud of the line.

Here's where the handplane comes in.

I have a collection of them that I like to use. A #4, a couple of #5s, a really nice #6 bastard and a #7. That doesn't count the various block planes I've made, purchased, collected, etc.

OK, so you get it that I like handplanes.

If you're not familiar with the sound that a plane makes taking off a full-width, gossamer shaving of chestnut, I doubt I'll be able to reproduce it for you. There's just a satisfying ssshhwwshht as the plane glides along the edge. That sound, the lack of earplugs, the resulting curlyshavings and the satisfaction of moving your upper body muscles in tune with a 50-year old tool on well-over 100-year old wood.

That's why I pretend to be a woodworker. That's real satisfaction. Forget the spreadsheets and change records. Give me a board and a sharp tool.

I was a fairly young married guy in 1997 when we moved into our first house on Wandle Avenue in Bedford and decided to paint the place the way we liked.

(Old married guys will notice the funny word "we" in the preceding sentence.)

We brought home a couple gallons of Behr's Arapaho White the same day our pastor came over to check things out. I had a sample on the wall and was moaning about how peachy-pink it was. And moaning. And complaining.

(Old married guys will see where this is going.)

The pastor pulls me off to the side and educates me. "Listen," he said, "she's going to be here all day long and you'll be lucky if you see these walls illuminated a couple of times a week. Paint the walls whatever she wants."

So I did. (He later educated me further on the some of the finer points of servant leadership.)

Fast-forward eleven years. This past week our house was finished being painted what Behr calls Madras Blue, number 560D-4. I think the only thing I like about it is its close approximation to a Buckeye Trail blue blaze. (Well, that and the fact that the house is completely painted and I didn't do anything harder than write a couple checks.)

Turns out we had shutters up there. Five years, living in this house and I didn't know we had shutters. Can't leave them black, we've got to find a complementary color.

Leaning on my fourteen years of marriage experience, I not only painted them Phantom Hue (110F-5), but I also got a quart each of Purplestone (110F-6) and Deep Garnet (110F-7) in case Phantom Hue turns out to be too light.

I may draw the line at the front door, though. I do occasionally see the front door and I just can't imagine Deep Garnet on my front door.

Then again, I have been married for over fourteen years. (Does that qualify me as an "old married guy" yet? Ask me after the door gets painted.)

So, I have this really old house. Built in 1917, so it's really old. And I hate most things about it.

The plumbing hasn't given us too much trouble. The shower drains fairly well, especially after we use a quart of Drano in it. Monthly.

The kitchen sink drains fairly efficiently. Well, the left side leaks. Someone broke off almost all the threads on the drain before we moved in and wedged the coupling on just tight enough not to fall off but not tight enough to not leak. Oh, well, we'll replace that when we redo the kitchen someday.

The kitchen faucet leaks where it connects to the base. We'll replace that when we redo the kitchen.

The third floor toilet used to leak but then I replaced everything. Those quarter-turn shutoff valves are nice. They sure beat the turn-forever valves that seem to leak unless they're tightly open or tightly closed.

The faucet on the basement slop sink used to leak. Then I replaced the washers. Now they don't leak.

OK, so maybe I don't like the plumbing in this house, either.

The sink in the 2nd-floor bathroom used to drain quickly. Until the 1½" drain pipe fills up and some leak in the upper portion of the pipe causes water to spill over into the kitchen. Seriously.

We've tried snaking it out, using Drano and nothing seems to help except letting it slowly dry out until we fill it up again. Crazy; no way to live in a house.

So this upper picture is what I pulled out of my wall this weekend. I think there's just about every type of plumbing in this. Galvanized iron, cast iron, bronze, PVC. About the only thing missing is copper. Or maybe stainless.

The PVC on the left is a compression fitting that connects to the P-trap for the sink. The white thingy on the right is a plug of unknown purpose that stuck out into the room on the other side of the wall. The "thing" on the top wasn't totally attached—when I cut through the lower pipe, this just fell off. Hence the leak. Never mind the fact that there is nothing in the upper part of this pipe, just air. Yes, that's correct, my drain vents right into the space between the walls.

So I replaced it with $6 and change of Home Despot parts (second picture). Oh, and I snaked out the drain; you should have seen the hairball!

It's funny to watch the kids use the sink. They've been conditioned to only use a few drops of water at a time so as not to fill up this drain and leak into the kitchen. I wonder how long it will take for them to get used to being able to run the faucet forever.

Now it drains slowly. But it doesn't drain into my kitchen. That's nice. But it drains slowly. That's not nice. I guess that leaky drain was letting air into or out of my drain system.

If it was letting air into my system, then I have a gadget (an Air Admittance Valve) for that problem. If it was letting air out of my system, well, then I guess we'll deal with a slow drain.

It will be nice to shave in the sink tomorrow. And not in a bucket.

I still have a hole in my wall, though. That's nothing compared to the hole in that room's ceiling. Yeah, the third-floor toilet caused that hole.

Sigh.

I hate my house.

Phil Bolger (1927-2009) designed the "Tortoise", a sandbox-looking sailboat with a lot of room for passengers and a fairly-decent sailing ability.

So far

Ben and I took the lines off an existing Tortoise this past week and transferred the hull side shapes to a piece of ¼" BC exterior plywood. Then we took a long, straight piece of pine and turned it into gunwales. Two more long, straight pieces of clear pine made chine logs and the remaining plywood became bow and stern transoms.*

So far, we've probably spent 90 minutes on the project, cutting and gluing. That doesn't take into account waiting for the glue to dry; that's what beer (root and GLBC) is for.

What's next

Next we'll need to bevel the framing on the bow and stern transoms—should be quick work with a circular saw. Then we'll need some 3'-long stringers to keep the hull square while we install the bottom. It would be nice to get some of that started today, perhaps after dinner.

Why not start now? Well, I've got scones and breakfast to make for six, then church, then sailing KrazyKat at LaDue, then cleanup and dinner. I'll be lucky if there's any energy for beveling framing at 7pm!

Oh, and the children are insisting on a bike ride. Since summer started four hours ago (1:45 am EDT), we'll have more sunlight, just perhaps not more energy.

*Update 20090622: Payson calls both the forward end of this boat a "transom" as well as the aft end. Wikipedia says only the stern is a transom. Hmmmm.

Since last time

The hull got two good coats of primer, some Bulls Eye 1-2-3^® and some left-over Behr Premium Plus^® Water-Based Primer & Sealer No. 436. We determined that a tinted primer would have been better.

Not for the last time did I remind myself that gloss paint is harder to apply than a flat paint. It doesn't seem to cover as well and when using a roller, you get the classic "orange peel" look no matter how short your nap. We used a foam roller and kept things fairly smooth but even so had a difficult time getting a dark, smooth finish. By the time we stopped, I'm fairly certain we had four coats of Behr Premium Plus^® Porch & Floor Paint on.

That reminds me of a quote I heard once upon a time from our CABBS group:

One never really finishes a boat, you just run out of time.

Launch Day

We launched on July 6th, 2009 over at Shadow Lake in the South Chagrin Reservation, part of Cleveland Metroparks. We hauled everything down to the southern end of the lake and got set up (see nearby picture).

The initial hull test (throwing it in and watching for leaks) showed that the seal between the side panels, the bottom and the forward and aft transoms was good.

Then we added the builder (Ben) and let him bob around at the end of a long painter.

He wanted to sail, however, so I climbed in and we sailed around a bit. There wasn't a whole lot of wind but we were able to get it to go in the direction we wanted without paddling. That counts as sailing in my book. I was reminded that the tiller was too long and the boat just isn't designed for a full-sized adult. Certainly it can handle the weight but there just isn't a comfortable spot for a grown-up to rest easy in a boat this size. Ben, though, was in heaven and he got to helm this little craft a few times as we even got up enough speed to get a bit of a bow wave going.

I'll look around for a picture of the raccoon we startled down by the south-east corner spit of land. Barb says it was missing a tail and we did watch it galump (the movement a raccoon makes while running) along the shore and into the woods.

All-in-all it was a great day and I am quite proud of the new boat-builder in our family. Ben, you should be proud of your accomplishment! This is quite a boat and I look forward to letting you mess around in it on Shadow Lake and even LaDue someday soon!

What's next

As I wrote above, you never really finish a boat, you just run out of time. There's currently plenty to accomplish still on this boat:

• We have a coaming to add to the afterdeck and a foredeck to add as well. There's a bit of a problem with the forward transom (aka "bow") that I'd like to address (it's not symmetrical) before adding the foredeck.
• We've considered adding a small skeg to help it track better.
• The current rudder is sufficient but a kick-up rudder (e.g., Irwin Schuster's POP-I Sharpie) would be welcomed.
• The sail is beginning to show its age and could use a bit of duct tape in a couple of spots.
• Oh, and we'd like to add a water line and stencil "Box II" on the stern transom. Ben's got a red paint all picked out for that!
• And of course, more sailing!!

About the design

The Tortoise is a Phil Bolger (1927-2009) design from his book Build the New Instant Boats.

I was able to work on this embroidered handkerchief a little more seriously in December.

Once I get started on a project like this it usually doesn't take long. It's the getting started that slows me down!

My next project is a series of handkerchiefs including the letters B, K and M.

Our tenants left us very little other than holes, scrapes, marks, scrap tires, 20 gallons of paint and broken glass. (Oh, we did find the quarter behind the mirror; we'll give that as a credit.)

One thing they didn't desecrate was a rosebush. (They probably didn't know it was there.) This week, while I was working outside near it, the bush bloomed.

I had planned to widen the sidewalk near the flowerbed a few years back and had installed a 4"x6" beam border as a promise to myself to add brick pavers there.

A different group of tenants relocated the border and I found myself moving it 9" back to accommodate the brick pavers we had salvaged from Wandle Avenue when they ripped out the brick and installed concrete.

We have dozens of these pavers left, which is a good things since I estimated that I'd need over 30.

All those years ago, I'd dug out to 5-6", laid out some plastic sheeting and added chipped limestone as a base. This served me well since it was exactly what I needed. As soon as the 4"x6" beam border was back where it belonged, I was set.

The rose chose this time to begin blooming.

I'd warned our youngest not to pick this one; to restrain her urge to lop off the head of any pretty flower and present it to her mother. A noble deed, no doubt, but one that is tiresome when the dining room table is full of drinking glasses with decapitated flowers and the garden is bare.

I was busy and working against the sun clock as the shade I enjoyed on the west side of the house became threatened by approaching noon. So I didn't actually see much of the rose opening—I smelled it open.

It was an odd pair of days. I'd wait until it was decently late to begin chipping concrete off pavers and then rush until the area I was working on was drenched in sun. All the while I dealt in dripping sweat, dry crushed limestone, chips of red, flint-smelling brick and the light, sweet smell of this rose.

How it had survived all these years, I do not know. But survived it had.

The buttercups and thistles and maple, buckeye and oak volunteers had not crowded it out, nor had the children climbing in and out of the windows squashed it.

It had survived and it was beautiful to behold as well as a scent to enjoy.

Maybe someday I'll post a picture of my beautiful sidewalk expansion. It's really quite plain in comparison.

I found much of what I read in Shop Class as Soulcraft to make sense. Some of it even put words and reasons to some vague theories I've been working on for a few years.

One situation he describes captures how I feel about plumbing projects. I have an older home that has seen its share of owners and repairs over the years. Sometimes that age makes a "simple" plumbing project take a silly amount of effort.

You can quadruple the amount of horsepower a VW engine makes, or even more, if you need it to last only for a single race and are willing to spend absurd amounts of time and money building it. I was reminded of this by Chas when we first discussed what was to be done about my engine situation. Scrawled above the dingy parts counter at Donsco was a slogan: "Speed costs. How fast do you want to spend?" It represented a kind of anti-salesmanship. If the usual method of the salesman is to insinuate himself into your favor, play on your hopes, and lead you imperceptibly to an expensive decision, the mechanics behind the counter at any old-school speed shop seem to adopt a more ambivalent stance, in which the desire to sell is counterpoised with haughty professionalism. If you want chromed "bolt on" baubles that claim to give you power, go to a chain auto pans store to indulge your shallow fantasies. Then put the sticker on your rear window. If: on the other hand, you want to go deep and have your crank journals nitrided, you've come to the right place. Just tear down your motor and bring us the crank. This Olympian stance can have a powerful effect on the customer. It hints at the existence of an exclusive club that he might aspire to be a member of (those who have held a bare crankshaft in their hands). So perhaps the disdain one encounters in speed shops is a higher form of salesmanship, the kind that announces a hierarchy of human beings. But you can't buy entry to this world, you have to earn it. There is no sticker.

Page 86-87, Shop Class as Soulcraft
emphasis added

In particular, I'm thinking of the joy I feel when I am finally able to extract a faucet stem from some antiquated fixture or device, then wrap it in a blue rag and take it to the local hardware store. Not the Big Box place, but the one about a mile down the street that has all the parts for the old houses in this neighborhood.

I walk in with a smile and my package and we talk about grease, packing with graphite string and whether or not the seats should be replaced.

I can usually walk out for a few quarters or maybe a dollar. Yeah, it might take me longer to replace these pieces and fix the device than it would to throw it away and replace the whole device for thirty-five dollars.

Speed costs. How fast do you want to spend?

But in the process, I've learned about teflon tape and where (and where not) to use it, how to sweat a pipe, I've learned about washers, gaskets and collected the right tools for the job at hand. And the knowledge of how to use them.

And when I'm done and the project is put back together and the fixture is working again, I can turn on the faucet, feel the cool (or hot) water run over my hands.

"[I] can simply point: the building stands, the [water] now runs, the lights are on." There is no need to boast. I simply point. (page 15).

This may not be relevant to many of you reading this blog but I have found one of the few remaining copies of the user manual for the HP J3591A, also known as the HP Secure Web Console, or SWC.

I've had one of these HP J3591A devices for years but without the user manual, it was kind of useless as the setup process is quite arcane.

It's a nice little device, about the size of a VCR/VHS tape with a 10Mb ethernet port and a serial connector for your serial TTY on a headless server. It requires 13v, 300mA power but the AC/DC adapter provided (P/N: 0950-3415) is of the 12V, 1.0A variety.

What's that you say? You haven't had server with serial consoles since the late 1990's? Oh, never mind, then. Neither have I, I'm discovering.

What's this used for?

This can be really useful for those servers with a serial TTY console that you don't want to expose via SSH. Put the server in your DMZ with the minimum of ports exposed (you do this already, right?) and connect this little device to its serial console and run its ethernet to your internal network. (Yeah, there are reasons to not do this—make sure you take calculated and thought-through risks, don't just do things for the sake of doing them.)

So here's a link for the J3591A HP Secure Web Console manual. Yes, I recognize that I'm violating copyright law. Here's how I'm justifying this: a) it's not (update: easily found) on the HP support site, b) through my searches for a copy I have seen many requests for one and c) no one else seems to have one. If you're HP and want me to take this down, please contact me (it's not hard to figure out how) and I will comply as soon as I receive your notice.