Monday, June 28, 2021

Stanley Folding Knives

Top: Stanley 0-10-598
Bottom: Stanley 10-049

I have a couple of Stanley folding pocket knives. They're both roughly the same size when folded, about 110mm long and about 8mm thick. I use them primarily as marking knives, for woodwork.

Of the two, the 10-049 (the bottom knife in the photo) is the better utility knife. It has a slightly thicker, sturdier blade, and it folds much more easily, so it's a lot more convenient as a pocket-knife.

The 0-10-598 is more suitable as a woodworking knife because of its narrower, more sharply pointed blade, which will get into the inside corners of dovetails and what-not better. The ergonomics of the unlocking tab at the end of the handle, for folding the blade, are not as good as that on the 10-049, but it does work.

The blades on both knives are, in theory, expendable. However, they sharpen easily with the little EZ-Lap diamond paddles, and will last for many years before they need replacement.

Flash! (ah-ah-aaaah...)

 

Freshly arrived today from far, far away, I now have a TTL zoom flash that will work on my Nikon DSLR. It's a Yongnuo YN568EX, and it has many features that I don't yet know how to work, and a fat little instruction manual that I haven't yet read.

Many years ago, about 1990 I think, I bought a genuine Nikon Speedlight for my Nikon film camera, and managed to buy the exact model that won't work with any modern Nikon. If I'd bought the model immediately before, or the model after, either of those will work with a new(ish) DSLR, but not my one. It cost me about $800 then. This one appears to be just as capable, if not more so, and cost less than a fifth of what the Nikon flash cost me all those years ago — which is good, because I've got a lot less money now than I had then.

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Marking Gauge

 

When you're making things out of wood (or out of anything really) you're going to be doing a lot of measuring and marking. This is a very simple tool, yet very useful for that sort of thing.

The bar is laminated from a couple of bits of oak, with a channel carved through for the steel rule to slide in. Any hard wood would do the trick; softwoods like pine would wear very quickly and get sloppy. The knob is 3d printed, and is glued to a bolt which screws through its nut, captive in a socket carved into the oak and epoxied in place, and the whole screws on to a presser plate that presses against the ruler to lock it in place.

The channel for the steel rule is square and tight, but not tight enough that the rule is guaranteed to be perfectly square to the bar; fortunately, for this tool, absolute squareness is not a necessity. If need be, one could reduce the play in the steel rule by increasing the width of the bar and channel, and still more by lining the edges of the channel with brass or something, but I doubt very much that I'll need to go to such lengths for the tolerances I work with.

The function of the tool is for making marks at a consistent distance from the edge of a piece of wood; I can slide it along an edge with a pencil held at the end of the ruler to make a continuous parallel mark. This is something that can be done with a combination square, of course, but this is lighter and handier, and the oak slides more easily than the metal frame of a combination square.

Monday, June 14, 2021

Stool

I have a sad case of Finish Regret.

I made this macrocarpa stool, and decided at the last minute to use polyurethane to finish it, instead of tung oil. I figured that polyurethane would be better for a piece of indoor-outdoor furniture; the finish wouldn't last forever out in the weather, but it would be a lot more resistant to occasional raining-upon than would an oil finish.

The theory is fine and dandy, but I failed to take into account the temperature. The coolness means that the polyurethane's curing was retarded, and it has slumped in places on the vertical surfaces. I'm going to have to sand it back and reapply, probably in several very thin rubbing applications, with about 24 hours between each.

So, poo bum wees.

Friday, June 11, 2021

Ye Newe Olde Sewinge Machyne of Far Cathay

 

I bought this machine a couple of years ago, and have only just got around to setting it up into a usable condition. I love its bare mechanical aesthetic, free of any sort pandering to convenience or fashion or manufacturing quality.

It tends to be labelled on Youtube and AliExpress and the like as "Chinese Shoe Patcher", and the same basic machine is marketed by a whole bunch of vendors, with variations in colour and quality of finish. I don't recall exactly who sold me this one; I got it via AliExpress, and it cost me a couple of hundred Kiwibucks including postage.

It came with three spindly little pipe-legs that are supposed to screw into its base, but frankly I don't see how it would be possible to use it on them. They'd be wobbling all over the place, and the pressure on the hand-crank is sufficient to move the whole shebang around even with the solid block of macrocarpa I've got it screwed to. It really needs to be clamped solidly to the bench or table I'm working at.

As well as a decent base, I also had to make a bobbin stand because the little rod sticking out of the frame provided for the task is entirely inadequate.

It came with a few spare bottom bobbins and a spare bobbin-shuttle; the bobbins are a non-standard size, but spares are available on Amazon and elsewhere if you know where to look — I don't, but various Youtube dudes do, and have provided appropriate links. There is no way that I can find to wind the bobbins automatically, as I could do on my Pfaff sewing machine, but my usage is light enough that winding them by hand isn't overly onerous. It only takes five minutes or so, and would be quicker still if I rigged up something less intrusive than my sausage-fingers to hold the bobbin while I'm winding. (There's a mysterious sprung rubber wheel on the back of the machine that doesn't seem to do anything, and maybe it's part of a bobbin-winding system? If so, I can't see how it would work.)

The instruction pamphlet that came with it is laughably bad. Even taking into account the problems of translating from Chinese to English, the content is both irrelevant and obscure. It doesn't even include a threading diagram or guide. Fortunately, the machine is popular enough with American leatherworkers that there's a decent amount of instructional content about it available on Youtube.

It creates a decent seam through three or four layers of fairly soft furnishing leather; I haven't tried it yet on anything more resistant than that, but it should be okay I think. It is a bit difficult to control, as one hand is always engaged in turning the crank, while the other has to manipulate the work piece under the presser foot. However, that should be just a matter of practice. I won't be using it on anything that needs neat, straight seams just yet, though there's no reason why it couldn't produce them if I knew more about what I was doing.

It's certainly a lot faster (though as yet, less precise) than hand-stitching, though not as fast as an electrical machine. I have seen modifications to this machine that add an electric motor and foot control, and they seem to work well, though at the price of portability.

Apparently it will handle fairly heavy thread, though the nylon thread provided with it is quite light. It's adequate to my needs for the moment; I don't foresee having to sew draught-horse harness or anything any time soon.