Thread: Whoohooo!! All day to work on the lathe...NOT

Ahh fate has a cruel sense of humor. Today was my day off. I was going to spend the day working on pens, I need to finish one that was commissioned, another for the same, and the pen swap pen.

So I got up at 5:00 am, ate some cereal, pondered what days off were for, and promptly crashed for another hour or two.

Got up, was heating up the skillet for an omelet when my ass broke a waterline. Shut off skillet and banned my ass to the back pasture. Spent all day fixing the waterline, digging, mucking out the hole, smearing PVC glue on everything, doing supply runs into town, getting spares of everything I needed except what ended up being needed. All in lovely hot humid Oklahoma summer weather.

First off I rustled up my PVC primer and waterproof glue, I'd bought new and used it only a few months back, but I wanted to make sure I could lay my hands on it before I went to town, I found it, it sloshed, thought I was good to go. Ran into town to get the proper fittings, a bag of sand and concrete, etc, etc, got back, got everything ready, primed it, grabbed the glue, opened the glue...glue had jelled, it was the primer that had sloshed. Pipe was primed, had no time, ran frantically for my spare glue, wasn't waterproof, but maybe it would work, slopped it on, jammed the fittings together, wait, wait wait, glue sets. Turn on water, is that a leak? Boom, hydrant blows off, yep, I think we have a leak. Everything fills with water what seems like instantly. Slog down to the water main, shut water back off, go back into town for more fittings and new waterproof PVC glue, actually remembered to get teflon tape this time.

Get home, it's the middle of the afternoon by now. Because I decided to sleep in, I hadn't showered or shaved before the water line was broken, I was hot, sweaty, smelly, scrubby, stubbly, but still in a relatively good humor, I knew what I was doing, that always puts me in a good humor, knowing what I'm doing for once, it's pretty rare. Had to muck out the hole, I'd hoped it would have drained by the time I got back, it hadn't.

Get the water out, clean all the fittings off, trim the line back, install new fittings, prime and glue the last fittings and jam them together, twist it back and forth a couple times then it's solid, pour sand under the piping to hold it in place and take the stress off, and to give the water trap on the hydrant a place to drain into. Let it dry for an hour, turn water back on, hydrant doesn't blow off. A bit of water had formed in the bottom of the hole, is it leaking? Is the pipe cracked further up the line? Dig out sand, check fitting, fitting is ok. Watch water, watch water more, watch watch, decide watching water is boring.

Take a break, go inside, take a shower, clean up, get a bite to eat, check water level, go inside, take a nap, check water level, go inside, draw a bit, check water level. After about two hours, when the water level is still only a couple inches, I assume it is simply drainback from the soaked surrounding soil. Sand is poured in, then a cement necklace is applied to the hydrant keep it from moving.

Finally, what should have taken an hour or two to do, is now done, three quarters of a day later. Plumbing repairs always take me all day, it's all the time I spend running after that one part. And every time I get multiplies of everything, don't want to run out of anything or break something. Never helps, I just end up with heaps of fittings that I never seem to need.

So now, sunburned and tired, I finally get to work on pens.

It's almost 10:00pm, and I'm working on the commission pen, and it is the crankiest cocobolo I have ever worked on. Cross cut yes, but all the cocobolo I do is crosscut. This stuff is just stubborn. I called it quites for a while, took my main gouge inside with to to examine the bevel and angle, see if something is amiss there. I don't think so, it's doing it with my other tools to a degree as well.

I've seated and reseated the mandrel, checked the headstock, feathered everything in, tried reversing the direction of the blanks on the mandrel. It's just catchy cranky stuff, I think it's the grain orientation. It's beautiful but not easy to work with.

Maybe working in other woods than cocobolo as of late has spoiled me, even ebony just wisps right off in little curls and bits of dust. Lignum is a dream.

Anyhow, that's how my day has gone. Shoulda never gotten out of bed.

If only everything was as simple as fixing a water leak.