Basswood – Tilia Americana
close cousins: Lime in the UK, Linden in Europe
Project objective: undisclosed for now. Speculation allowed.
Woodworking
There’s a Hole in my Hatchet Dear Liza Dear Liza
Oooops, wrong song.
I was out working some rail fence on “the back 40” a few days ago. Dropped something on the old hatchet and broke off its head. It was a very old and very inexpensive hatchet, no doubt purchased from whatever “home centers” were four decades ago. It’s amazing how light the handle is with no head, very dry and light. No, I don’t know what kind of wood it is.
Of course, it happened immediately after sharpening the blade to the sharpest it has ever been, and it was cutting very well as I trimmed some rails.
What to do? Well, “Mend it Dear Henry. Dear Henry, mend it.” “With what shall I mend it…” OK, enough of that. A neighbor’s birch tree was split and felled in a storm early this year. I salvaged a few bits of it and they’ve been peacefully drying over in a corner of the shop. How about a small branch of that stuff? Yeah, I know. It’s not hickory, but it’s not something soft either.
There’s not a lot to making a new handle. So, no step by step, just a few random pictures. Most of the work was done with a spokeshave. The first and most important step was making flats on both sides so the workpiece could be held in the leg vice. I got close to the traditional hatchet shape without spending a lot of time trying to refine it to perfection. Nor, did I do a lot of fine finishing work. The surface is exactly what the very sharp spoke shave left. (No sanding!!!) There’s enough of a bulge on the end and slenderness in the middle to make a secure and comfortable grip.
The tennon for the head was chisel work of a trial and error (plentiful error) sort. It fits well enough; certainly not perfect but secure. The last bit of securing the head was reuse of a wedge I found in the old handle. It’s not the usual straight wedge, but a hollow cylinder with a conical shape. (I didn’t take a picture of it before hammering it in.)
Last step, BLO.
Oily rags … spread the word
“Oh no, not again!” were my first words on hearing the news of two people who lost their lives in the apartment above the carpentry shop that caught fire. Before hearing the exact cause of the fire I speculated about oily rags. Sometimes we really don’t want to be right about our speculations.
The location was Villach Austria where our daughter and her family live. We heard the fire alarm early one evening last week while we were visiting them. A few minutes later, a second alarm. The next day, our son-in-law came home from the hospital where he works and told of how the efforts to save two burn victims failed. It was then that I learned they lived in an apartment above the carpentry shop and a fire in that shop was the reason for hearing the double alarm the evening before. The two people were elderly and did not get out of the building before it was completely engulfed.
Two days later we found the follow-up article in the newspaper:
“The fire was caused by spontaneous combustion of oil soaked cleaning material … that had been dumped in a dustbin in the carpentry shop.”
None of us knew the people who died, but all understand the tragedy of lost life from a preventable accident.
Please, please, please remember that oily rags can combust very easily. Always spread them out to dry, or better yet, immerse them completely in water. Never, ever, toss them into a pile or a container. Save some lives. Keep this accident from happening in your shop.
Spread the word. Tell everyone who might ever use oils for cleaning or finishing about the hazard. It is so easy to prevent and so sad to hear about.