CJ Van

This is not exactly woodworking but I use a lot of my woodworking tools to do this so I thought I would be allowed to post this here. At the end of last year, I dipped my toes into a new craft after watching 200 hours of YouTube videos. Obviously after the YouTube videos I was an expert in this new craft after having done zero actual crafting… The project in mind was a big one so I decided to start with something small before I screw up the big project. First off, I had to get the material for my project. I came across this lovely little shop in Cape Town that even have Wood in their name, Woodheads, another reason I am allowed to post this. I bought some off-cut pieces for cheap cheap and decided I will make myself a wallet before I start the big project. I wanted a card holder more that a wallet that can take a lot of bank notes and coins, I don’t really use cash anymore. The first one I made was not quite what I wanted so I had to go to Instagram for some ideas. Got some inspiration and made a template for the new one. This is more of what I had in mind for about 4 - 6 cards. The leather was a bit to thin and it was chrome tan leather and not veg tan but the idea was there. Now I was even more qualified in this new craft and decided to start the big project. I will post that a bit later. In the meantime, I refined my wallets a bit and came up with a new but similar design and I used thicker more sturdy leather for this. The one wallet can take about 6 cards and one or two bank notes, this one I call the Chunky Boy. The other one can 4 cards and some note, this one is the Slim Line. I ended up making a toiletry bag or 2 as well.

Holy crap,after seeing this I feel like taking down my little woodworking projects. Oh well, something to aspire to I guess. Nice work!

So, after the slippery slope of looking at second-hand planes on Bidorbuy and hoping the price does not go up too much for the stuff that I wanted I decided not to buy the no 7 plane that went for more than R1000. Instead I bought a no 7 plane off Facebook that Mr Carrera told me about. Thanks for that info there. I had to do some work to get the sole flat, about 10 min with sandpaper on a flat piece of granite. Other than that, I only cleaned some of the rust off the plane. The handle does not look to nice so I will make a new one when I have time. In the meantime, I have put the plane to work. Sharpened the blade and fiddled a bit with the setup until I was happy with everything and Wow! I should have bought a big ass no 7 a long time ago. So much easier to flatten and dimension stock with this bad boy. I am fortunate to still be able to go to work during the lock down period, so I only have weekends to get some projects done. First project was this knife block I made. I’m still not sure what wood the dark brown/black wood is. The almost white wood is pear wood, like in a Packham triumph pear tree. My dad took out an old Packham orchard last year and I took some of the straighter stumps to use for projects like this. Interesting wood, it has absolutely no grain, just plain white.

If you are going to try the steel wool and vinegar on pine you will have to first stain the wood with a solution of black tea and water. Pine does not have a lot of tannins and the steel wool and vinegar solution will not react to the pine very well. The tannins in the tea will soak into the wood and if you then apply the steel wool and vinegar solution you will have much better results. Just keep in mind that this will give you a grey weathered look. I usually stain my pine projects with Woodoc stain. It comes in very small bottles and a variety of colours . I mix that with Woodoc 5 until I get the desired look. Just make sure you start of with enough Woodoc 5 when you mix in the stain. If you run out of your mixture before you have covered your whole project it could be very difficult to match the previous colour again. Hope that makes sense.

Please do not go and bid on the plane that I want to bid on...….

I am not worried about the plane being a collectible, the idea is that it must be a working tool. That said, I don't want to pay R100 less for a tool that does not have the same value as one that you pay a little more and with some TLC you have a more much valuable tool. That Veritas plane irons does look nice but it comes with a hefty price tag. Maybe in the future that will be a nice addition to a old Stanley plane.

Thanks for the info, and the pics of the nice job you did on your restoration. Makes the rest of us look like amateurs again..... If I am going to spend money and time buying and restoring a plane I would then like to get the older versions of the plane if I can pick it up for about R150 more than the newer versions. I have never really looked around on Bidorbuy for tools until you posted the link. After 2 hours I was still browsing and adding stuff to my watchlist. Luckily I came to my senses and decided not to bid on everything.

Anybody here that have a little knowledge about Stanley planes? I want to buy a no 7 jointer plane, but I have no idea if the plane I am interested is a good quality one or if it is one of the later Stanley planes that is of a lessor quality. The plane I am looking at is this one here on gumtree: https://www.gumtree.co.za/a-hand-tools/durbanville/stanley-bailey-no-7-jointer-plane/1006760764730912533330409 Any help would be appreciated. I do not mind spending some time restoring the plane so that is not an issue for me.

When last did you buy tennis balls? They are really expensive now and you have to replace them often.

Pivot less what? Are all hardtails not pivot less?

Ok, maybe I should rephrase my post. If there is no electricity at Oak Valley, no power lines at the sport field where the event is, then it does not matter if there is load shedding or not, the organizers will have to have generators anyway. I left out that last bit on purpose because how else would I have gotten a reaction on my post? I might be wrong, it happens some time, about there not being access to electricity at the sport field but with all the events I have been to at Oak Valley they where always using generators. I just assume that there is no access to a power outlet there. Anyway, if someone wants coffee, there will probably be about a gazillion bialetti's at our camping spot with a few milk frothers ready for action. Pop in for a cappuccino in exchange for doing one lap with my tag.

Kom nou Greasy, wil jy regtig 'n burger he wat met elektrisiteit gaar gemaak was? Braai jy nie jou burger patties op kole nie?

How would load shedding have an impact this weekend if there is no electricity at Oak Valley. You are going to have load shedding the whole weekend...….

Adidas took over the distribution of Five Ten shoes and they are not bringing them in to SA. You would probably be better off looking at a shoe in the Ion range or Ride Concept range. The guys doing Ion is in Blouberg, The Brand Stable, and the shoes get good reviews. The same with Ride Concept, mostly good reviews is see in the interwebs.

I forgot to take some photos of the whole process. I only have this one of the stock pieces before I started. I used some left-over oak pieces from a wine barrel that I got about 7 years ago for a project. I also had some off cuts from a sleeper that was cut into planks that I made shelfs from for my sister. If anybody can tell me what wood this is that would be great. It looks like Panga Panga or Wenge but I’m not sure it they ever used that wood for sleepers. The last piece was from a few planks I got from my uncle that he brought with him from Zimbabwe about 20 or more years ago. It looks like Teak to me, someone might be able to confirm this. The end result after way too many swear words……. This is by no means perfect and I still need a lot more practice on the lathe. I will definitely buy a 4 jaw chuck in the future to make this type of projects a little easier. PhilipV can post some more pics with better lighting if he gets around to it.

Thanks for the link Corneel. Some feedback regarding drilling a hole with a drive spur at the headstock. If you secure the drive spur into the wood nicely, set the lathe to the lowest speed and start the drill bit in a small pilot hole in the centre of the wood you get a nice straight hole. Do this before you start tuning down your piece. If the drill bit drifts slightly off centre is does not matter because you will then use that hole to for the live centre when turning your piece. I did not do this with 2 of the pieces and only drilled the hole after I turned it and the drill bit drifted slightly off centre. The last piece I drilled the hole first and it came out perfect. Also, do not use a forstner drill bit that requires you to back off and clear some of the wood chips as this will cause the piece to come loose from the drive spur. Some things that I have learned in my short time behind a lathe: Don’t think that if you have turned 2 pieces off wood that you have the hang of this and then dive in to your project with the nice hardwood you do not have a lot of. Practice some more.It takes some time to get the wood to almost the correct dimension, after that it takes no time at all to take off too much wood. Sneak up to the dimensions you want.You cannot put the wood back on after you have taken off too much. Refer to point 2, sneak up on your final dimensions.Measure twice, cut once.The right tool for the job is the right tool for the job. You can wing it with a different tool but that comes at a cost.If you are not to skilled in the art of wood turning, you need a lot of sand paper. A lot of sand paper will still give you a good finish. I will post a picture of attempt at wood turning after Monday. PhilipV is not allowed to se his birthday present before Monday.

Myles, the Grease Monkey and I will be there at 07:30 waiting for your pedo van. There will be little to no wind tomorrow at Jonkers. I'm not sure where you get your weather forecast from but you need to change sources. We have the whole day to finish only 4 stages. After that, I will buy you a coffee and banana bread at RideIn and the Grease Monkey will pay for it. See you there!

Thanks Corneel, I thought I might be on to something here that will kill me. I do have a face plate but the first holes on the plate is not close enough for the width of my stock. Best option will then be to glue some more wood to one end of my stock square up the end and mount that to the faceplate. The 3/4" 16 tpi adapter with that chuck should work on my lathe as well. If I don’t find any joy with the face plate will invest in that 4 jaw chuck.

I have a question for you avid woodworkers. Hopefully someone can help me out here. A friend of mines’ dad gave me an old wood lathe that was standing in their garage and not being used. I have not used it for a project since I got it, only practiced some spindle turning on it. I can now confirm I am quite good at tuning spindles with some decent catches on my work. The F#$*& skew chisel does not want to turn nice beads. I know, more practice and Youtube videos. I now have a project that I want to do on the lathe, and it requires me to drill a hole in the end of the spindle. I have a drill chuck for the tail stock, but I only have a drive spur for the head stock. What is the best why to drill a hole in the end? Do I just align the drill bit with the centre hole on the spindle and keep the drive spur in the head stock and then turn on the lathe and start advancing the drill bit or is there a better, safer, more accurate way of doing this? I do not have a jaw chuck and the thread in my headstock is an imperial ¾” thread, so I assume getting one, that is affordable, in SA will not be that easy. So, the question is, will I be ale to drill an accurate hole with what I have and if not, what will be the best, affordable way to go about this. I don’t have a lot of the wood I want to use for this project so I would like to make sure of what to do and not trail and error this one. Thanks!

Jaco, jy hoef nie in die village te slaap om 'n sak deur te stuur nie. Drop jou sak met droe klere en stuff by die DHL trokkies. Maak net seker jy merk dit mooi. Niemand wil na die tyd in nat lycra rond loop nie maar meer belangrik, niemand wil jou na die tyd in nat lycra sien nie.

The last Enduro that we had where 150 tags would have been enough was last year at Jonkers, but that could be because the dates were changed, and some people could not make it on the second date. We had just under 300 riders at Jonkers on Sunday, about 275 I think. The starter kit would then not cost you R180k but more like R340k because they would need at least 300 tags and you have to add the software to the package. And this will limit you to only 5 stages. The pods we use at EWC can also be reprogramed on the fly by the marshals to time a different stage if we need to replace faulty pods. Last year at Ezelenduro PhilipV were able to take stage one pods to stage 5, reprogram them and all was happy. On Sunday we had 2 possible no scans on the stage 3 start pod and one possible no scan on 4 start. This could have been miss scans where the lights did not go on and the pod did not beep and the rider should have taged again, most likely, or a glitch in the system. But only 3 possible miss scans for the whole event is not too bad. I know Dan has been testing the pods from stage 3 after the event to try and duplicate a miss scan but he could not get a miss scan again. I would say they are quite reliable. The biggest issue with not scanning someone out in time is usually the tag not facing down or someone’s long sleeve shirt is over the tag and the marshal cannot see the tag. Long story short, the EWS system would be awesome but with the cost of medics and other stuff they are not making enough money to justify the expense for the system. If there were more events like this in SA and they could rent it out, maybe then….

It depends on what you want out of your hydration pack and what type of riding you are doing. If you want it purely for water storage, then go with the smallest you can get and that fits really comfortable. If you want more storage and not just extra water, then I will not go for anything that does not have a decent hip belt to support the weight of the pack. You do not want to carry the whole load on your shoulders. Again, it must be comfortable and no pack without a decent hip belt will be comfortable after 2 hours in the saddle supporting all the weight on your shoulders. The best pack is the one that you want to wear out on the trail and not the one in the cupboard gathering dust because it is uncomfortable. Also, if your riding includes some more technical, bumpy, rocky and steep downhills a pack with a hip belt that you can tighten helps a lot to prevent the pack from bouncing around. If you want a bigger pack, then I can recommend the Osprey Raptor 10. Does not weigh much and it’s got decent storage and fits really well. I like the fit of the Osprey more than that of the Camelbak Mule or Kudu. They also have their lifetime almighty guarantee which is nice should you tear your pack, or something breaks. Everybody here is going to give you their opinion of what you should get or that you do not need a hydration pack or this or that. One thing you can be sure of is that if you buy a cheep on and it does not fit well you will not use it. Link to the Osprey Raptor 10 if you want more than just water storage: https://www.osprey.com/us/en/product/raptor-10-RAPTOR10S19.html

For some reason my bike sometimes does not want to clear the doubles, but at least my bike can turn left. I know a guy with a Giant Trance and his bike does not like turning left..... I might need to case that double a bit harder. Upgrading your rear wheel is always best to do with an insurance claim.

The question now is which line is faster. The last feature on plumber 2, the rock with the wooden ramp at the bottom could be faster than the B line as you carry a lot more speed down that rock and the entrance is not that slow into it. The rock drop before the step-up could be faster if you do, and clear, the step-up. If you do the rock drop and keep left of the step-up it might be slower than the B line. Think it depends on the entry speed to the rock drop. Guess I will be doing some split timing on Plumber this Saturday.

The only trail we did not do top to bottom was plumber, we only did the top and middle section. All the other trails was top to bottom runs. The top of plumber for me is not the difficult part. Yes, it is steep but not to technical except the last bit with the rock garden. The middle part is where you need to concentrate. If you do not keep you momentum over all those baby heads your front wheel might get stuck. I marshalled at the end of stage 2, plumber, and after that I was the sweeper for the rest of the field. That last climb to Iron monkey broke a few people and I had to start threating people with DNF's if they for them to get back on their bikes and up the hill. We were already way past the cut-off times. My total climbing time for that day was 3:50, almost an hour for every climb. If we are going to do 5 climbs I would stop worrying about plumber and start with fitness. I think the hills are going to kill more people than plumber will. Don't not do plumber, do plumber but worry about fitness. +1 for shuttle day in Jonkers!!! Edit: Armageddon was not a top to bottom run, we did not go all the way up to saaltjie.