I was in a fretful mood, so it was "Don't work on the current project, but
piddle and clean-up time."

Let me take you back a few months, right after Thanksgiving, the question
came up again. It was "What do you want for Christmas?"
As I have done in the past, I took a black Sharpie and circled several items
in the Lee Valley Christmas catalog. I never thought any more about it,
but the person that drew my name gave me everything I had circled, I had
expected as in the past they would select one or two items and be done with
it.
(If I'd known I was going get everything I circled, you can bet the bevel up
jack plane would have been circled. :-) )

Well, one of the things I circled was the aluminum straight edge. My
benefactor saw the steel straight edge guaranteed to be accurate to +/-
0.001" or some ridiculous thing like that, so I got the steel one.
Fast forward to today . . .

The work bench I built last year has a 24"X72" maple top., I was going to
make the top, but the finished top was considerably cheaper that the wood
cost to build it, and besides the finished top was dead flat!
I don't know how it happened, but the straight edge ended up on my dead flat
work bench and Gasp. . . . . ., I could see daylight under the straight
edge! Well, this won't do. . . I slipped a sheet of paper under the
straight edge . . . it took three sheets to fill the gap. I break out my
garage sale micrometer and can you believe the bench had (note the had) a
0.015" low spot in it.

Well, this was just wrong. That means the rocking chair I built earlier this
year doesn't sit flat on the floor, after all I had leveled the chair on my
dead flat bench.
So I spent 2 hours with my jointer hand plane removing translucent shavings
from the top. I gave up when the gap got to be 0.008", then I got to
thinking,

It is all Lee Valley's fault, because if that darned straight edge had not
been in their catalog, I would never have known the bench top was not dead
flat.

I'm glad that I'm not one of those anal old fuddy-duddies that permeate the
woodworker ranks :-)

I guess you didn't see the first-ever LeeValley recall?

They had a lot of steel straight edges with a 0.015 bow in the middle.

Too bad.

tic

On Mar 11, 8:52 pm, "Lowell Holmes" wrote:
I was in a fretful mood, so it was "Don't work on the current project, but
piddle and clean-up time."

Let me take you back a few months, right after Thanksgiving, the question
came up again. It was "What do you want for Christmas?"
As I have done in the past, I took a black Sharpie and circled several items
in the Lee Valley Christmas catalog. I never thought any more about it,
but the person that drew my name gave me everything I had circled, I had
expected as in the past they would select one or two items and be done with
it.
(If I'd known I was going get everything I circled, you can bet the bevel up
jack plane would have been circled. :-) )

Well, one of the things I circled was the aluminum straight edge. My
benefactor saw the steel straight edge guaranteed to be accurate to +/-
0.001" or some ridiculous thing like that, so I got the steel one.
Fast forward to today . . .

The work bench I built last year has a 24"X72" maple top., I was going to
make the top, but the finished top was considerably cheaper that the wood
cost to build it, and besides the finished top was dead flat!
I don't know how it happened, but the straight edge ended up on my dead flat
work bench and Gasp. . . . . ., I could see daylight under the straight
edge! Well, this won't do. . . I slipped a sheet of paper under the
straight edge . . . it took three sheets to fill the gap. I break out my
garage sale micrometer and can you believe the bench had (note the had) a
0.015" low spot in it.

Well, this was just wrong. That means the rocking chair I built earlier this
year doesn't sit flat on the floor, after all I had leveled the chair on my
dead flat bench.
So I spent 2 hours with my jointer hand plane removing translucent shavings
from the top. I gave up when the gap got to be 0.008", then I got to
thinking,

It is all Lee Valley's fault, because if that darned straight edge had not
been in their catalog, I would never have known the bench top was not dead
flat.

I'm glad that I'm not one of those anal old fuddy-duddies that permeate the
woodworker ranks :-)

"Lowell Holmes" gloated

As I have done in the past, I took a black Sharpie and circled several
items in the Lee Valley Christmas catalog. I never thought any more about
it,
but the person that drew my name gave me everything I had circled,

This is totally irrational behavior. I love it though.

Any way I could entice this individual to become a part of my family??

Before escaping from the work-a-day world, I spent decades making
transportation system demand
forecasts - computerized forecast modeling. The input to this model was
mind boggling - 10,000
street, expressway, highway and freeway segments, each with 10 pieces of
information - lenght,
speed, XY coordinates of each end, hourly capacity, facility type etc,
605 "traffic analysis zones"
each of which had 6 dwelling unit types and 8 non-residential number of
jobs. The ouput was even
more fun - six 605 x 605 matrices with the number of trips, by six trip
purposes, between each
pair of TAZs. When you're Crystal Balling twenty years out, there were
a lot of assumptions about
things that would change between now and then.

An old dutchman co-worker used to stop by while I was pouring over foot
thick printouts and wall
sized color coded and annotated by street segment, by direction plots of
a forecast's output,
checking the cojmputer output for "reasonableness" (a word that's
probably not in any dictionary
but sounded better than looking for F**K UPS). Dirk would stand there
sucking on his pipe (you
could still smoke in offices back then) and remind me that "assume" can
make an ass out of
you (U) and me.

I came to appreciate how true that was when I got into woodworking. I
assumed
- that the S4S board I'd paid a micro fortune on was actually Four
Square,
the faces were parallel as were the edges and that the edges were
straight
- that when the pointer on my table saw's blade tilt arrow pointed to
zero that
the blade was square to the table top
- that the saw blade was parallel to the miter slot
- that the rip fence was parallel to the saw blade
- that the saw arbor had no run out
:
:
:

By the third or fourth project that didn't fit together the way it was
supposed to
and the four table legs weren't actually the same length ----, I became
a believer
in Better To Know Than To Assume and got a couple of engineer squares, a
couple
of straight edges that were certified straight - at least to 0.003 AND
Ed Bennett's
TS-Aligner Jr. Deluxe. Got me to read the manuals and find out how to
adjust things
that were Out of Spec - or out of what I expected.

Amazing how project parts go together when assumed and reality are the
same
or close enough for practical purposes.

The downside of "knowing" is learning what's "close enough".

charlie b

On 11 Mar 2007 18:17:46 -0700, wrote:

I guess you didn't see the first-ever LeeValley recall?

They had a lot of steel straight edges with a 0.015 bow in the middle.

Too bad.

tic

Ah, yer a cold, cruel fella there. [I like that in a person] ;-)


On Mar 11, 8:52 pm, "Lowell Holmes" wrote:
I was in a fretful mood, so it was "Don't work on the current project, but
piddle and clean-up time."

Let me take you back a few months, right after Thanksgiving, the question
came up again. It was "What do you want for Christmas?"
As I have done in the past, I took a black Sharpie and circled several items
in the Lee Valley Christmas catalog. I never thought any more about it,
but the person that drew my name gave me everything I had circled, I had
expected as in the past they would select one or two items and be done with
it.
(If I'd known I was going get everything I circled, you can bet the bevel up
jack plane would have been circled. :-) )

Well, one of the things I circled was the aluminum straight edge. My
benefactor saw the steel straight edge guaranteed to be accurate to +/-
0.001" or some ridiculous thing like that, so I got the steel one.
Fast forward to today . . .

The work bench I built last year has a 24"X72" maple top., I was going to
make the top, but the finished top was considerably cheaper that the wood
cost to build it, and besides the finished top was dead flat!
I don't know how it happened, but the straight edge ended up on my dead flat
work bench and Gasp. . . . . ., I could see daylight under the straight
edge! Well, this won't do. . . I slipped a sheet of paper under the
straight edge . . . it took three sheets to fill the gap. I break out my
garage sale micrometer and can you believe the bench had (note the had) a
0.015" low spot in it.

Well, this was just wrong. That means the rocking chair I built earlier this
year doesn't sit flat on the floor, after all I had leveled the chair on my
dead flat bench.
So I spent 2 hours with my jointer hand plane removing translucent shavings
from the top. I gave up when the gap got to be 0.008", then I got to
thinking,

It is all Lee Valley's fault, because if that darned straight edge had not
been in their catalog, I would never have known the bench top was not dead
flat.

I'm glad that I'm not one of those anal old fuddy-duddies that permeate the
woodworker ranks :-)



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:52:28 GMT, "Lowell Holmes"
wrote:

.... snip


It is all Lee Valley's fault, because if that darned straight edge had not
been in their catalog, I would never have known the bench top was not dead
flat.

I'm glad that I'm not one of those anal old fuddy-duddies that permeate the
woodworker ranks :-)


Hope this doesn't qualify:

I'm working on panels for a headboard and have got the rails and stiles
fit and today I was shaping the panel profiles and fitting the panels.
There are 4 panels in this assembly and I had cut them slightly too wide,
such that all four will not fit, there is about 1/8" between all 4 of the
panels tha needs to be trimmed. Got out the LN low angle block plane and
started planing some shavings to fine-tune the fit. Got to thinking that I
really didn't want to be doing the plane-reprofile-fit-replane cycle so ...

I took one of the shavings from the block plane and got out the calipers,
measuring 0.003 (closer to 0.0028) per shaving. Got out the calculator,
determined that for 8 sides, I needed to remove about 0.0156 per side which
equated to about 6 block plane passes per side. Took 6 passes per side,
re-profiled and re-fit: result: fit the way it was intended.

Oh, and for the really AR old fuddy-duddies -- yes, I can get better than
0.003 thickness shavings out of the plane, I had it deliberately set for a
thicker cut.



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"Mark & Juanita" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:52:28 GMT, "Lowell Holmes"
wrote:

... snip


It is all Lee Valley's fault, because if that darned straight edge had not
been in their catalog, I would never have known the bench top was not dead
flat.

I'm glad that I'm not one of those anal old fuddy-duddies that permeate
the
woodworker ranks :-)


Hope this doesn't qualify:

I'm working on panels for a headboard and have got the rails and stiles
fit and today I was shaping the panel profiles and fitting the panels.
There are 4 panels in this assembly and I had cut them slightly too wide,
such that all four will not fit, there is about 1/8" between all 4 of the
panels tha needs to be trimmed. Got out the LN low angle block plane and
started planing some shavings to fine-tune the fit. Got to thinking that
I
really didn't want to be doing the plane-reprofile-fit-replane cycle so
...

I took one of the shavings from the block plane and got out the calipers,
measuring 0.003 (closer to 0.0028) per shaving. Got out the calculator,
determined that for 8 sides, I needed to remove about 0.0156 per side
which
equated to about 6 block plane passes per side. Took 6 passes per side,
re-profiled and re-fit: result: fit the way it was intended.

Oh, and for the really AR old fuddy-duddies -- yes, I can get better than
0.003 thickness shavings out of the plane, I had it deliberately set for a
thicker cut.


I am disappointed. If you were a true AR neander, you would have used long
division by hand with a pencil with a hand carved point. Not a calculator.

Not anal retentive enough if you ask me.

"Lee Michaels" wrote in message
. ..


I am disappointed. If you were a true AR neander, you would have used
long
division by hand with a pencil with a hand carved point. Not a
calculator.

Not anal retentive enough if you ask me.


Bah! Abacus.

--

-Mike-

"Mike Marlow" wrote in message

Bah! Abacus.

Sorry, dude ... a true neander would only use his fingers (excluding the one
currently in his nose).

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 2/20/07

"Swingman" wrote in message
...

"Mike Marlow" wrote in message

Bah! Abacus.

Sorry, dude ... a true neander would only use his fingers (excluding the
one
currently in his nose).


True, and the one in his nose serves another, less immediate purpose. It
pulls out that long stringy stuff that can conveniently be used to stretch
over an object for a measurement, then stuck in the pocket as a record of
that measurement. Sorta like the predecessor to the story pole.

--

-Mike-

"Mike Marlow" wrote in message

True, and the one in his nose serves another, less immediate purpose. It
pulls out that long stringy stuff that can conveniently be used to stretch
over an object for a measurement, then stuck in the pocket as a record of
that measurement. Sorta like the predecessor to the story pole.

eeeeeccch ... More info than I needed. That'll teach me to be a smartass.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 2/20/07

wrote in message
ups.com...
I guess you didn't see the first-ever LeeValley recall?

They had a lot of steel straight edges with a 0.015 bow in the middle.

Too bad.

tic



Ooooooh... that's just mean....

I like it.

You are a very bad person! I like you!

Vic


wrote in message
ups.com...
I guess you didn't see the first-ever LeeValley recall?

They had a lot of steel straight edges with a 0.015 bow in the middle.

Too bad.

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:52:28 GMT, "Lowell Holmes"
wrote:

I'm glad that I'm not one of those anal old fuddy-duddies that permeate the
woodworker ranks :-)


Great story! G

On 11 Mar 2007 18:17:46 -0700, wrote:

I guess you didn't see the first-ever LeeValley recall?

They had a lot of steel straight edges with a 0.015 bow in the middle.

Brilliant!

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 08:39:09 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:


True, and the one in his nose serves another, less immediate purpose. It
pulls out that long stringy stuff that can conveniently be used to stretch
over an object for a measurement, then stuck in the pocket as a record of
that measurement. Sorta like the predecessor to the story pole.

I thought it was the original rubber cement! G

Earwax works great where you don't want the glue to stick.

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:29:05 -0400, "Lee Michaels"
wrote:


"Mark & Juanita" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:52:28 GMT, "Lowell Holmes"
wrote:

... snip


I'm working on panels for a headboard and have got the rails and stiles
fit and today I was shaping the panel profiles and fitting the panels.
There are 4 panels in this assembly and I had cut them slightly too wide,
such that all four will not fit, there is about 1/8" between all 4 of the
panels tha needs to be trimmed. Got out the LN low angle block plane and
started planing some shavings to fine-tune the fit. Got to thinking that
I
really didn't want to be doing the plane-reprofile-fit-replane cycle so
...

I took one of the shavings from the block plane and got out the calipers,
measuring 0.003 (closer to 0.0028) per shaving. Got out the calculator,
determined that for 8 sides, I needed to remove about 0.0156 per side
which
equated to about 6 block plane passes per side. Took 6 passes per side,
re-profiled and re-fit: result: fit the way it was intended.

I am disappointed. If you were a true AR neander, you would have used long
division by hand with a pencil with a hand carved point. Not a calculator.

Not anal retentive enough if you ask me.


Darn! I am shamed :-(


+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+