Thread: Another OZ MK2 PDRacer build in Sydney "Wood Duck"

J E Gordon is the bees knees.

He was more up to date despite the year of writing, than almost any of my engineering textbooks.

So I think he will give you a good run now too. Get the two books he wrote. They are delightful to read ... you will find them of the highest quality of literature too - amusing and candid continuously witty with a real sense of history and respect for things wooden.

In all my engineering textbooks there were two pages dealing with wood and glues. But Gordon will give you all the good stuff you need to know

MIK

Excellent!!! Thanks for that :). I'll try the local library first, but I've also got them on my Booktopia wishlist just in case.

Cheers,
Alex.

I should commission a formal review of them, Alex!

They really are stunning books. They shift one's mind around several times! As well as being lots of fun to read.

Gordon says that there are about 25 pages in each book that have formulas and things on them .. but he also says you can ignore those pages without losing any of the meaning of what follows. Masterful writing.

MIK

I have finally got 100 % fed up with trying to work around clutter. I am now in the process of a wholesale throwout of RUBBISH! (Pity about the ginger beer bottles - I'll just have to drink some more of it :). This is causing a good deal of grief to the rather dominate magpie side of my nature, though! E.g.: "You can't throw that out, think how useful it'll be..."; "As soon as you chuck it, you'll need it", "You spent so much time looking for that and you'll probably never find one again", etc., etc. esorting to the trick of shutting the eyes, grabbing, and tossing onto the pile is proving particularly useful in this respect ;).

Well. I just took delivery of the new vacuum cleaner. I am definitely going to have to do some serious shifting before I can even get it into my work space. It's a MONSTER!

About an hour after writing the above, I was back in bed again for the rest of the day, things having taken something of a U-turn :(. And I had such plans for the afternoon, too. Feel better for the rest, though. No photos or anything else, today: maybe tomorrow...

Howdy MIK,

Coolest of the cool :). I just ordered them - can't wait! (Not well enough to drag myself up to the Library at the moment.)

I trust that you are joking about the review, though :).

Cheers,
Alex.

Oh dear! I've just been reading a thread on pdracer.com which refers to "furniture whittlers" or some such similar term. It immediately occurred to me that I fall precisely into that category!

Eeeeeek!!!!!!

Today was also a total washout, apart from downloading some PlansNow plans for a number of workshop devices that I don't - and won't ever - have the room for! It was rather spooky that I was trawing the site at the same time that the furniture-whittlers were being denounced ;). Scarey! I'm starting to get frustrated, as I still haven't got the physical or mental stamina to do anything on Wood Duck yet, but I'm also starting to get bored. I'm going to have to ring up Booktopia and find out how long it will be before the Gordon books can be expected to arrive.

[Note from the following day: I seem to have woken up having graduated from thoroughly crabby to being just mildly cross. I am going to (slightly) bowdlerise some of my more inflammatory remarks as a result :). Onya, Dr Bowdler ;). Then again, I may throttle up and bcome even more saveage! It's the drugs talking, folks, it's the drugs! (prednasone)].

I sincerely hope that I don't come across like someone who is lost in some sort of pseudo-mystical trip, in the sort of manner of the execrable wine labels that have proliferated over the years here in Oz (e.g.: redolent of raspberry, chocolate, tangy citrus fruit, tropical breadfruit, cheesey, spicy pepper coulis verjuice with a delicate hint of dungheap _ing flavour - actually, I don't appear to have the knack, do I? :). If I thought I did I would immediately ask MIK to delete the entire thread instantly.

MIK - do I come across like that? If so, please delete this thread NOW!

<Unconstructive and unhelpful RANT about tools, tool users and tool vendors snipped...>

Where did that rant come from? Methinks he protesteth too much...

OK, some photos of the new vacuum cleaner: I decided to stop wittering on and do something constructive :).

1. The new Protool VCP 450 E-L from the front...





2. Front view with large-diameter, antistatic hose. In fact, most of the machine's large-surface-area parts are anti-static. Excellent :). The machine is sitting on our relatively new Turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera) floor: the workshop is too cluttered to house The Beast yet!





3. Rear view of cleaner: another of the alex's completely gratuitous, bandwith-and-screen-real-estate-gobbling shots. Instruction sheet for installing the dust bag sits on top. I installed the bag but haven't even turned the machine on yet!





4. The control panel with power-tool outlet. Note that the machine has variable speed motor control in both manual and automatic (power-tool) modes. Part of one of the alex's front paws snuck into the photo: I did try to keep it out <grumble grumble>...





5. Tools that came bundled with the machine





6. And tools that I purchased separately. I'm rather surpirsed that the brush attachment was excluded from the tool set in favour of. e.g., the furniture brush <shrugging of shoulders>





7. The carpet brush's dorsal surface. You can really tell with this one that I have nothing useful to say, this evening!





So I think I'll shut up and go back to bed. Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow in a considerably better frame of mind - it wouldn't be hard! There is a very high probability (close to 100 %) that this post will be severely edited tomorrow morn ;). [Well, it was 100 % :). Not sure about the "severely", though.]

What's a furniture whittler? A disparaging reference to accuracy perhaps. You just go about you business Alex don't be distracted by some inane comment.
This thread is heading for a record keep going matey.

Thanks Mike :). I've been grumpy all day (except when I've been asleep ;), and got my knickers in a knot. I'll do some snipping to the above so that it's not so silly, but now is not the time, I suspect! I think MIK knows more about this one, and I'm intrrested to see if he will make a comment (here).

[Added next day...] I don't think the pdracer.com forum is a good place for me to visit: I don't really know why - apart, possibly, from the fact that the snooty dudes never once welcomed me, even when I initially introduced myself and very politely asked a (probably silly) question - but I often get worked up at something or other that I read, or what I think is a useful contribution I've made that gets totally ignored. I think we're all better off if I remain in my own little corner of the sandpit - where I'm happiest. I'll get back to actual boat-building and related topics now !

Cheers,
Alex.

Being grumpy is OK Alex.

Being interesting is also OK - 11,000 views speaks for the interest in your posts. Were all with you - have no doubt about that!

Brian

Thanks for your support, Brian - but note that all of this is going on in my own head! Noone (except me) has accused me directly of being a "furniture-whittler" - or was it "parts-whittler" - but they might now!

I'm now down to half a steroid tablet a day, via a gradually-reducing titre, from a full dose of two tablets. Only four more days to go and I stop taking them! Yay! I can hear the cheers of relief from my poor family, too!

Hope things are going well in the wilds of northern Scotland, havent seen any new pics from Chris lately. Your sails seem to be pretty well sorted now, can't be too long before we're seeing photos of - well, Trim at the boat show ;). I feel a bit better now :).

Cheers,
Alex.

Alex

You just rant away. If it gets out of line, you'll find out soon enough.

Hope things start getting better for you and you can summon up the urge to get Wood Duck under way again.

Tomorrow is another day, which is today :). There's a nice clear sky, and hopefully my aching foot will let me venture down to the workshop for a bit. And out to get some small clamps for my scroll saw table from the Engineering Supplies. Aching foot? Eh? After spending too much time not walking about, I think the workboots that I put on were too tight, and bruised the foot while trudging around Horsnby to see doctors, visit shops on the way home, etc. Whatever it was, I found that I couldn't put any weight on that foot for the last couple of days - at least for any length of time - and I think that that was also contributory to my exceedinlgy foul temper over that period: my apologies, everyone! There is enough misery in theworld without actively adding to it.

Some more about the PlansNOW service (see rant-post just above for the link). It costs money, but it is quite useful: the articles for sale are ones that have appeared in the Shop Notes, Woodsmith and Workbench magazines - sort of glossy colour versions of Fine Woodworker. One of my most treasured woodworking books is an very no-nonsense, clearly-written book on chisel sharpening, written by one of the FW staff, I should hasten to add. My interest lies mostly in the array of useful tools that one can make, e.g., a thickness sander, although I will have to modify the disign a bit to use a different sort of power source. It takes its power from a "contractor's saw", and as the item of that general description that I have is a circular-saw-powered Triton, that's not going to work too well! Actually, it will be cheaper and more efficient to buy a No. 7 jointing plane and use that at this juncture. Maybe when I've finished the CNC mill, the bandsaw, various small but essential engineering tools, etc. Oh, and the boat, too :).

I just turned the new vacuum cleaner on for a test run - it sounds very industrial while at the same time not seeming too loud - at least in the living room ;). It has a much deeper note than the usual vacuum-cleaner mosquito-whine, which whine its Protool predecessor had too. Not that it matters, as the new vaccum will be being mostly used with power-tools,and I always wear earmuffs when operating same.

Originally Posted by jmk89

Alex

You just rant away. If it gets out of line, you'll find out soon enough.

Hope things start getting better for you and you can summon up the urge to get Wood Duck under way again.

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for your kind words, too :). I can get cracking again soon too, I'm going nuts! Sort of "cabin fever", I suppose.

Cheers,
Alex.