New Old Car

 

My trusty, but increasingly creaky old '96 Pulsar was stolen last week. There has been not a peep from the cops, which to be honest I'm not at all surprised by.

Now I have replaced it with a less old, but still fairly old car: a 2006 Nissan Wingroad wagon, from Turner's Cars. This was a buy-and-drive-away deal; I didn't go through the auction process, although if I could have been bothered with all that hassle it would probably have been a bit cheaper. Not to worry though, at least it didn't completely wipe out every last bean of my savings, which is what I was expecting.

Although I did love my old Pulsar, and I wouldn't have willingly parted with it, I think this car is definitely an upgrade. It's a decent bit more powerful, and there are fewer things broken on it, like the air conditioning for example. Plus, it's modern enough that I only have to get it warranted every twelve months instead of six. And being a wagon, there's oodles of space in the back when the seats are dropped down, and it has a tow-bar too (though I've never towed a trailer in my life and couldn't back one to save myself). No spare wheel though, which is apparently common with more recent vehicles, but it does make me a little bit uncomfortable. I guess I'll have to invest in one of those squirty-foam things for emergencies.

I do miss my old sound system though. This one has a tuner / CD player, which sounds pretty good and which does read MP3 files off the CD, but commercial radio is almost all utter shite and a CD is only about 800MB, a far cry from the 64GB shuffling of music I'm accustomed to. On the plus side, I'd kind of lost the habit of listening to a whole album all at once, and it turns out that's actually kind of a good way of listening to music.

Portable Jigsaw Table

 

Fairly often, I have a need to cut small pieces of copper or brass for various projects. I could cut them with a hacksaw, but that's a slow, arduous and boring process.

Instead of that, I use an old jigsaw with a metal-cutting blade. This DeWalt I've had for quite a few years, but it seldom gets used any more for woodwork because I have a cordless Ryobi that is much more convenient for that. 

While it's possible to use the jigsaw in the usual way on metal, for the small pieces I'm concerned with, I find I get much better control and accuracy if I guide the metal through the blade, rather than steering the whole tool over the metal. So to that end I've mounted the jigsaw on a little MDF table, which I can secure in the vise, with the blade poking through, and  manoeuvre the metal more or less as I please.

This system isn't all that well suited to making steep curving cuts because of the width of the blade, but straight lines and gentle curves are easy enough to do accurately. 

The metal does get hot with the friction of the saw, so finger protection is necessary. Reasonably close-fitting gloves are a must, so that they don't get in the way of my eye-line when I'm following a mark on the metal. 

Yet Another Box

 

Here's another box, made from salvaged rimu. The body of the box is 300 x 180 x 120 mm, and the lid overhangs that by 10mm all round. Inside it has a squishy cushioned insert on the bottom; that's not fixed, so it can be removed at will.

I'm not sure what timber the splines are — some kind of tropical hardwood is as much as I can guess. 

The copper plaques are the ones I used the Press-n-Peel PCB masking film on, and I'm pretty happy with the way that stuff performed — I'll definitely be using it in the future.

The dedication plaque on the front is a first for me, again etched via the P-n-P film. I wish I'd known about this stuff before. 

Iron-on PCB Etching Film

 

For the first time, I'm trying out some iron-on-peel-off PCB film for etching copper plaques.

As with any new thing, there are hiccups -- sorting out how to get it through my laser printer without jamming, for a start. And also, I forgot to reverse the text, so I'll have to do that one over.

Apart from those issues though, it looks like a useful tool. Now I just have to research how to get it off after the etching is finished.

Note: Acetone. Acetone whips it off easy-peasy. 

Rimu Tray Bowl Thing

 

Small rimu tray, 120mm diameter, intended for keeping gaming chits and things under control.

I didn't realise when I picked out the scrap of wood that it had been jointed, but as it turned out I quite like the way the seam shows up across the face of the tray. 

 

Painting

 

Acrylic on stretched canvas, 500 x 500 mm.

Just messing about with shapes and colours.

Knife Rebuild - again

Here's yet another knife rebuild.

When these old casein knife handles get too cracked and warped from our abuse and lack of care, I'll break off the old handle and give it a new one, usually wood, and I'll generally regrind the shape of the blade and sharpen it too.

I don't know for sure what timber this knife handle is, but it works easily and takes a nice polish. It looks like some kind of tropical hardwood.