As of this morning the radial arm saw is off to its forever home at my wife’s high school in Sutton. Where it will spend the rest of its days cutting chunks of whatever they have to throw at it until it dies. The saw was second hand to me, and most likely from the mid eighties or perhaps nineties. I don’t think it was made earlier than that. A sturdy, and extraordinarily heavy item. I fought with it for a good hour just to get the damn thing into the back of my wife’s SUV. Unfortunately the 2×4 stand it was on could not go with it. It failed whilst being moved to the trunk of the SUV. I ended up having to use a sledge hammer, saws all, and a crow bar to get the thing broken down (the stand that is). No major loss, the tool still works, and I locked it down so it won’t swing around and clang the whole drive there (I hope). They are definitely going to want to have two or more people move it, as it is deceptively heavy. Cast iron, and almost entirely metal parts. A Sears Craftsman item from the 80’s! It’s loaded with metal parts. It would serve quite well as a boat anchor. Now I have freed up more space! Yay! Not sure what else I can do to open up the floor anymore. Well, I mean I do know, I just don’t want to. I don’t have thousands of dollars to buy a 72 inch 3 bank rolling tool cart & hutch, to consolidate all my hand tools etc into one spot. It would leave me with no where to put 2 of my 3 vices. I already need to modify my wood working bench in order to accept the smaller second wood vice. I don’t have a long enough table top to mount a permanent metal vice too. Maybe if my bench were a full 8ft long, but at just under 6ft I can’t afford to give up that much table top real estate. In order to mount my second wood vice I need to cut down one end of the table to 3″ thick, down from the 2×6’s I had used to build it, otherwise the vice sits too low. Not going to happen any time soon, as a project like that needs to be thought about, thought out, and planned for. It will also take me an hour or two of cutting, hammering and chiseling before I can even attempt to dry fit the vice. I have to mount it where it makes sense, but also doesn’t interfere with where I set up my box cut joinery jig at the far end of my bench. Can’t be hasty about this. Have to tamp down my desire to be impulsive.
We have arrived at the Wednesday portion of the week. Far enough in to see the weekend, and far enough away from Monday to settle into projects, meetings, conference calls and whatnot. Once again I’m not certain of what today will bring work wise, so I’ll putter around the house tidying things up as I go. Throw some junk away if I can. Yeah – that’s the ticket! That usually sets my phone to chirping, if I decide to tackle a home project of minor importance. Ciao Bella.
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