Living room renovation, preparations

Spent most of last night working on cleaning up my office in preparation of renovating the living room. Will be setting up the TV in the office along with my recliner so that I won't miss any of my few TV shows that I still watch.

Friend from work is helping me nice all the big furniture out of the living room so that I can start working removing the paneling on the walls and installing insulation and update the electrical. We will be doing the same wall treatment as we did with my bedroom, paneling up to the chair rail and drywall the rest of the way.

Was planning on staying this next week but moved it up due to us losing two people at work and causing the rest of us to go back up on hours. My deadline to have everything done is the weekend before Christmas. This is including having all the furniture moved back in and decorating.

Morris the cat

I currently live on ten acres of land with a huge front yard and surrounded by mostly pine trees. Last year while I was still moving in I had a suspicion that something was watching me. I never seen anything but my dad mentioned one day he saw something yellow bounding across the yard towards the crawl space under one of the storage buildings.

Weeks pass without another sighting so we thought it must have been just passing through. Months later Dad told me he had a furry face stare at him while he was cleaning up one of the sheds to make room for a project of his. He put out some food and then left for the day. We were unsure what ate the food the next day since I knew I had raccoons running around.

Eventually the cat grew accustomed to my dad and began to wait for his daily meal. Dad will talk to him and pet him while he eats. We moved the food bowl away from the dusty area of the shed to the carport. Dad named the cat Morris since he began to appear from under the old MGA.

Morris now waits for me to get home from work every morning for his breakfast and then waits for Dad in the afternoon for lunch and snacks. Morris is usually found in the middle of the driveway sunning himself while he waits.

Morris loves to come into the shop with me and watch me work on whatever project I have for the day. He will follow Dad around and will supervise any task dad is doing. He will also protest if he feels he isn't getting enough attention. Morris is a happy cat and has decided being a pet again isn't so bad.

Problems with store bought handles

Very disappointed with the selection of axe and tool handles available now a days. I have been through five hardware stores and only walked away with three handles for projects at hand or for the possible future hafting jobs. I have ordered online and received decent handles but there was still flaws.

One of the biggest complaints is the grain orientation. The grain should be in line with the axe head to give the most strength and prevent cracking. The grain also shouldn't run out on the sides of the handle. 80% of the handles I have looked at, the grain was 45 degrees or worse.

Proper grain on left, poor orientation on right.

The second problem I have is the thickness of handles, I have purchased handles simply because they had great grain orientation but the handles were more useful as a baseball bat. These handles require work to thin them down, I have used a Dremel with a rasp bit, a four in hand rasp, spoke shave, and several sheets of rough sandpaper to work the handle down to fit comfortably in my hands.

My only theory for the thick handles is at the factory when they are changing cutters they are not aligning the cutter head back up properly. I have seen in the same stack of handles some will be thinner than the overly thick ones. Too bad most thin handles have poor grain orientation.

My future plans are to further equipment myself with the tools and skills necessary to produce my own handles. Will only then need a decent source to rough cut hickory timber or even some hickory trees that need to be removed. I believe with the amount of time I waste fixing a handle I could carved out my own.

True Temper Flint Edge restoration

My small collection of axes has been slowing growing. I wanted to get a boy's axe to fill in the size gap between the hatchets and camp axes to the full size felling axes. I lucked out and won a True Temper Flint Edge 2 1/4lb boys axe head on eBay. The head also had BSA marked on the opposite face making this axe have just a bit more history.  It looked as if someone took a angle grinder to the faces trying to remove the rust. There was grind marks all over both sides.

I had to remove the grind marks from the axe head, wished to been able to leave the patina alone but the grinding ruined that. I started with a hammer and a file to remove the small amount of mushrooming on the poll. Once that was worked down I started with 100 grit sandpaper to work the grind marks out. I worked all the way through 320 grit paper, using WD40 to help float the dust away. The head has a nice worn look to it and I finished it off with Johnson's paste wax to prevent rusting.

I had a 28" boy's axe handle floating around in the shop for awhile, I always pick up handles whenever I'm in a hardware store and find one worth getting. It's easier to pick them up as you find good ones than to go and hunt one down when you need it. Handle was fitted to the head and before mounting I gave the whole handle a good sanding with 80 grit paper. I wetted the handle down and went back over with 150 grit. Was real happy with finish sanding that I took two other axe handles and roughed them back down to repeat the same process. Smooth but not slick, I have the problem with over doing it. After mounting I gave all three handles a coat of stain. The next day they received their first coat of boiled linseed oil.

My dad really enjoyed this axe restoration, he was a boy scout when he was a young boy. He mentioned he is going to look for his hatchet he had when he was in the boy scouts which will be real treat for me. It is a real hot to breathe new life into a old tool, it's a disgrace to allow a tool to be abused and destroyed, but it's a even worse to clean one up to simple be a wall decoration. This axe will be put back to use when it is needed to complete a task.

House renovation, pantry

The kitchen was very simple, three very large shelves that spanned the whole width and depth of the three and a half foot by two foot closet pantry. This was also the access to the attic. The closet was dark and hard to see much of anything further back on the shelves.

Wanting more shelf space and a cleaner area for the area that will store my food we painted the walls a very light blue to cover the rough and dirty plywood that was used. We cut a total of eight a shelves that would wrap the three walls of the pantry made brackets to support the shelves. Everything was painted the same color as the walls to match. It took awhile to get everything to line up and level for each shelf but was happy with results. The ceiling was closed off to the attic and the access was moved to the hallway.

Investigating the Gurdon light

So I tagged along for another outing with the paranormal group to investigate the Gurdon light in Gurdon Arkansas. This is a well known unexplainable area. Each year the area is walked by several groups of kids and adults, and has become sort of a tourist spot for the town of Gurdon.

There are a few stories of how the Gurdon light came to be. Many trace the Gurdon Light legend to a murder that took place near the railroad tracks in December 1931. William McClain, a foreman with the Missouri-Pacific railroad, was involved in an argument with one of his employees, Louis McBride, regarding how many days McBride was being allowed to work. During the Depression, the company did not have the option of giving McBride more hours on the job. McBride became very angry, hit McClain on the head with a shovel, and beat him to death with a railroad spike maul or a spike hammer. The Gurdon Light was first sighted shortly after this murder, and many have come to believe that the light is actually McClain’s ghostly lantern glowing.

Late last year I was informed that the railroad company had came in and removed the rail line after it had been left abandoned for so many years. This made me interested in returning to the location to determine if the light will still show since one of the more popular explanations is that the rails themselves are giving off static electric discharge. We didn't know what to expect to be left behind from the removal of the track and didn't know if we would still be able to reach the location where we seen the light before.

When we arrived we confirmed that the rails had been removed leaving only the gravel rail bed that had been leveled off to form a small road. The five trestles that we needed to cross were left behind making it easy to cross the now filled creek beds that were dry the last two times we were there.

When we finally reached our normal location past the fifth trestle we stopped for a moment to wait to see if the light would show. A few people that came along were not prepared to be out in the woods, complaints of insect bites were frequent. There were also those that were too inpatient, expecting the light would show immediately and wanted to left when they were told we may have to wait awhile.

While leaving the area I kept looking over my shoulder hoping to see something and get everyone to stop. Once I thought I did but I only had half the group with me and by the time we all stopped to look it was gone. The rest of the group moved a bit quicker and was already halfway back to the vehicles.

Hold on

Usually when we buy a new tool like a axe or hammer the handle is coated with varnish, a finish that is said to cause blisters. Most of us have gotten into the habit to remove the factory finish by scraping and or sanding. Personal preference I go up to 220 grit paper for most everything. Handle is wiped down with boiled linseed oil and left to dry. Many people and few friends tell me this is too slippery you will wear your hands out trying to hold onto the handle.

My mind wanders off thinking of the age when made a living swinging a axe. How from constant use the grit and oils from these men hands worn the handles of their axes smooth. My Gransfors Bruks small forest axe came with the handle waxed giving it a nice grip but I know a couple hours use will wear this off. A tool handle can be made as rough as someone wants it to be but it will eventually be worked smooth unless that person only has the tool for decoration.

Maybe

So I wonder how much of this advice is pure nonsense that has been past on as useful knowledge and how much was actually put to daily use by the older timers that swung the axe most their lives. As for me and my tools, well I will continue doing the same process until I find something that's needs to be changed through actual use of the tool.

Edit:

I have finally quit sanding the handles to 220 grit and making them to slick to hold onto. 80 grit paper is used to even everything out and remove any rough spots. Handle is wetted down with water to force the grain to rise, once dry 150 grit paper is used to remove the raised grain.