22 February 2009

The Missing Ferule

I got up this morning bright and early, full of good intentions as you do...I was going to do a bit on the Cherry Table just to push it along a bit. I've done the marking out for the mortises so I just need to sort out the tenons and I'd be ready to crack on with the joint cutting. One of the things I'll need later on though for the jointing is a scribing gouge, or even two with different sweeps. Martin let me have one a while back which I re-handled in a bit of English Walnut...I'm well into my London pattern octagonal handles as they're just so easy to make and do look the part. I'd previously got hold of a smaller sweep from PFT in town so I decided that I'd make a new handle for this one today. I rummaged around in my oddn'sods drawer under the bench and hoicked out a bit of walnut, prepared it to 24mm square and then planed it into an octagon ready for mounting in the lathe. The technique is to turn down the first section ready to fit the brass ferule which sits on the revolving centre (it's then easy to offer it up) so having rummaged around in my drawer I had another rummage around in all my 'baccy tins for the right sized ferule and I just know that somewhere, somehow I had one that was the right size.
But it twern't there...what the hell had happened to it? I was certain it was there 'cos I saw it in the tin before I went on holiday. You know how it is, your absolutely 100% positive that the item in question was there, but you just can't lay hands on it, so then I started to slowly trawl back through the dim recesses of what's laughingly these days called a brain to try and fathom out what happened to it, or where it went.
...and then I remembered, in a sublime flash of insight ( a rare occurrence these days I have to admit) I'd used a couple of weeks ago to make the screwdriver so it hadn't gone missing after all. No great dramas then, I'll just have to put the new handle on the 'back-burner' 'til I get hold of another ferule.
I spent what remained of the day making a bigger storage unit for my growing collection of chisels and gouges. What was holding me up on this little project was getting the right sized piece of clear plastic to go over the front, but if you recollect from an earlier Blokepost, I'd seen just the thing in a skip at work a while ago...good job I'd remembered where I'd put the plastic!

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