LeTurbo

I don't think they like a lot of water. Certainly, the brachts (leaves, not flowers) only turn colour if the plant is lekker droog.

If you like mechanical things and you like wood; if you like jigs and shop tips and contraptions, weird machines and things with wood gears ... well, have a look at Matthias Wandel's stuff at http://woodgears.ca/index.html There's some crazy stuff there. He's an engineer who makes everything in wood, including his bandsaw (you can buy the plans).

Email general@gedore.co.za. They should be able to help.

Pretty much so. Remarkable in this day and age.

I'm impressed - I took my 30 year old ratchet (that someone borrowed without asking, and then used as a hammer) to Gedore in Milnerton. They replaced it there and then, no questions asked, no humming or hawing.

And then just some details, because I'm bored sitting here on a semi-public holiday night ... but really, the pubs are packed and I don't drink anyway.

11. Let's get jiggy with the table saw. I routed the tabletop with a circle jig (fit a block onto the router's rods, send a screw through into the base of the piece, adjust the distance, and plunge to your heart's content). Now, on the table saw, you raise the blade until it just touches the underside, then turn the tabletop until it stops cutting. Raise the blade a bit more, and repeat. (I toyed with the idea of a board clamped over the top to hold it down, but that might have been trickier in terms of working space. Also, you might want to use a hold-down handle with sandpaper mounted on its base). 12. That worked ok. Bugger! The base is too thick. Oh well, out with the plane again. I think I'll take off about 5mm and an afternoon... 13. Two brass screws (slots aligned, very important for my OCD) to hold the top, and she's done. Funny little thing, but hey! Mom loves it because it's a bit higher than most, to go with one of these overstuffed Coricraft couches (seemingly especially designed so old people can't put their feet down, or lean against the back).

6. Let's complicate matters slightly, just because we can. Well actually, no, it's just because we're going to want a slight 45 degree bevel when we put in the post. 7. Planed first (the plane mustn't feel lonely), and then a router, just to prove I live in the twentieth ... er, damn, twenty-first century. Sometimes. Except when it comes to carbon bikes. I don't do those. Or slopey crossbars. 8. I found a nice vintage contour plane that I wanted to use. Wouldn't want it to feel left out either. That'll be interesting for the top brace, I think. 9. Getting lazy about m&t joints now. But also maybe a little bit of contrasting grain could be interesting along the line (as it were). 10. Yeah, that's ok. Nothing a plane and a file and some sandpaper can't put right. (Old sanding belts are great for this - they might be siek 'n sat on the machine, but they've still got plenty of life for handsanding. Rip a strip.)

I like doing stuff with scraps, usually side tables and such. So I had a bit of oak left over from something or other. And a kiaat plank, about 900mm long. What to do? 1. Lay 'em out until something interesting starts to crop up. They're too short for legs, unless they're very short legs. I can live with that. 2. I feel like cutting some dovetails. I like dovetails. I like birds. Birds live in trees. I like trees and birds. 3. I wonder if I can cope with this. 4. OK. Two more of those to go. 5. Let's throw in a through mortise-and-tenon for fun. The chisels need some work to do, otherwise they'll feel lonely and left out, and I'd feel cut up about that.

Blimey! I'm just looking at the number of posts here already ... is this the fastest growing thread on the Hub?

Haha! We have our own Hardware Centre in Cape Town. It's just opposite the parking entrance to the Good Hope Centre, to remind everyone of Argus collection days. Moridin, they should have, but I've also seen it some of the less well-known hardware stores and often in art supply shops.

There's a pretty neat table saw at Huster Machine Tools (I always think Hustler) on Voortekker Road. It's around R10 000 if I remember, and is either Korean or Taiwanese, but it's a well-made machine and everything works tightly and smoothly. But what I liked is that it is like a miniature panel saw, so there's a small table on the left that moves on rails, perfect for accurate crosscuts. It's worth having a look anyway .... Plus there are very nice bandsaws there. I'd give my eye teeth to have one of those again.

Those nasty perfed steel reinforcing plates really spoil this no end. It's a shoddy and cheap workman's solution to a nice engineering vision. Surely there were more elegant solutions?

R3800 for a Stanley? No way. They're about R380 at Builders' RipOff. And they're absolute rubbish now. I haven't read one good report on a modern Stanley on any of the many forums I go to. Yes, the best suggestion is an old one that you can pick up at flea markets, pawn shops, second-hand dealers and the like. Stanley or Record. R200 should get a good one, but take a reliable straight edge or square with you to check the flatness of the bottom. It's likely to show a little light in the middle which is OK ... but only a very little. Check too that it has the right blade, no cracks, the proper chip-breaker and cap iron. I think Paul Sellers has some good stuff on Youtube or his website about selecting old planes. If you want to learn more about hand-tools from a really, really seasoned old codger, he's undoubtedly the man.

I can't help thinking there are really constructive uses for this, or some market that needs it. The thing is, you can't export Ebony anywhere; it's very high on the CITES list of controlled woods. It's particularly endangered, as much as the Ivory. But please, don't do anything rash with it. The only other source is very old bowling balls, which were often turned from a solid piece. These days, the balls are sought-after by turners for delicate handles and such.

I've got an American book here with pics of massive curved wooden beams used for school stadia (no simple gym halls for them) - and, most interesting, pics of wooden beams after a fire, still holding up the twisted and bent steel girders.

That's one way to mark the spot.

Some low-tech emergency clamps: the wedge method, and the twisted rope. Mostly developed by the Romans.

I go past Arderne Gardens in Claremont quite often - oak trees, birch, beech, redwoods - all the wood gets sawn up into little 30cm lengths, then mulched. Travesty! Some of those boughs would yield good planks, or even the smaller bits would give turners lots of joy.

Another way to fill, especially smaller gaps: sand and push the sawdust into the gap. Then drip super-glue on. Sometimes you need to repeat a few times, especially if the glue isn't runny enough. Final clean up is done with a sharp chisel.

Ah! The workbench. It was put together by my Dad and my Grandad in about 1955, when my folks moved into their new house. Nobody could understand why they'd live so far out in the sticks as Linden - all those sand roads ... And now I'm so used to using an engineer's vice too, I don't know if I could change.

Voila! Restored chair with nice tight joints, several good coats of RLO (I prefer to BLO), two coats of Woodoc 10 with a rubdown of steel wool between coats, and finally finished with a waxing of Cobra polish. Total time per chair about 3 days, but that would make them unreasonable so you can only really charge for about 2/3 of a day. Damn. Oh, and the oomie decided to bring the matching table through to me on the back of his bakkie. He stopped off in Wynberg, and wondered why it wasn't there when he got back after an hour ...

Next comes replacing all the broken surfaces with new wood: plane them smooth, add new sections, shape them by plane, spokeshave, rasp, file or sandpaper, cut new joints. We're probably into day two by now. The chair now costs a lot more than a new one. Lay all the cleaned and restored pieces out, check the fit of each joint. Cook a small amount of animal glue in a double boiler, test the consistency ... then take a deep breath, get everything else out of the way aaaaaaaand ... work at a furious pace because everything needs to go into the right hole at the right time before the glue gets too sticky, go, go, go! then find interesting ways to clamp up all the awkward angle and pieces. When it's all dry-ish (about 24 - 36 hours), you can unclamp it and insert new dowels.

*** jobs to avoid at all costs: chairs. An old oomie in Hout Bay inherited this dining set from his grandfather and wanted to pass it on to his son. Nothing special, they're mass produced numbers from around the 1920s. First, I wash chairs. No sanding. Just Handy Andy and a pot scourer gets most old varnish and shellac off. Rinse and wipe well, because runs will show up when the wood dries. But that's all you need do, as the chair on the left shows. All the joints were wobbly, and the dowels had to be drilled out and the joints separated. Sometimes you need to add new floating tenons; you usually have to cut new corner blocks, and there were several mortises that had split (stop kids rocking on the back legs, dammit!) The old hide-and-bone glue had broken up ... but I used it again. Why? First, new animal glue sticks to old animal glue, so you don't need to clean the joints. Second, it can be steamed open if there's a mess up. Only old glue makes a piece restorable in the future. What you're going to face is hundreds, if not thousands of staples in the fabric. That's a few hours of mind-numbing work to remove. And when you get the first layer off, there are more staples in the foam. And then more on the fabric support. And the cross-straps. And ... and ...and ...

Great under-rated tool, the spokeshave. Yup, old cartwheels and early car wheels spokes were made by hand with these. And, I suspect, old plane propellors. You can pull it or push it. Dial the blade right back first. Then you can also angle it, if necessary, depending on whether you want to hog off more from one side or the other. Very necessary in tight spaces, or where you can't use a router. I think a fair amount of Meyer von Weilligh's furniture is done by spokeshave (at least there's a pic on their website, but maybe they've got a CNC hiding in the background).