I read a classified advertisment in the paper on Friday, and buried in
there was a mention of "molding planes". Cool. I call the number and
set up an appointment for Saturday morning. She's a SLOL (sweet little
old lady), and leads me to a selection of rather neglected antique
wooden planes. "Beautiful" I murmer, and start thinking about how I can
resurrect them. Some are checked and warped , and a couple are missing
their irons and wedges, so those might be a bit cheaper. Then she lead
me back to the garage, and shows me a Powrkraft 10 inch RAS. "I can't
figure out how to get the carriage to move", she says, so I show her
the levers, clamps and indexing bosses' functions. "My roof's leaking",
so I take a look at her roof, and conclude that she needs a tear off.
"There's some furniture that needs work", so I'm checking out an
antique table base, chair leg, and some trim on a rosewood veneered
bureau. I'm such a sucker for a SLOL. Getting back to the planes, the
SLOL sez, "$125.00 for the lot", and I'm agreeable, but I'm also short
of cash. I plunk down $40.00, and tell her I'll be right back with the
remainder. 20 minutes later, I'm there, but she's had "time to do the
math", and up went the price to $200.00. Hmmmm. Her being a SLOL and
all, I say nothing, then I remember the furniture repairs she needs,
and offer to perform the repairs in trade for the planes. The items she
needs repairing were damaged by some vagrant who squatted at her place
while she was out of town, so the insurance company will take care of
the bill. She just needs a reciept for the repairs (which I could pad,
she says!). Well, I don't know what to charge for these repairs, so I
suggest that she get an estimate from a local restorer, and I'll beat
the estimate by a decent margin. Fine, she says, and writes me a
reciept for the 40 bucks deposit. Needless to say, I didn't get to jump
that day. (Told you this was long, but it was MUCH longer for me!)
What do y'all think of this situation? Update to follow. Tom