Or you could come to Norway, get a job which gives you the right to social services and get the hip replacement for free. I know I’m queuing up for one – Ted 😉

Just a few years before the turn of the century (1998), American woodworkers began to be obsessed with weight.  A picture appeared in “The Workbench Book” by Scott Landis.  The picture showed Rob Tarule, planing away on a reproduction of a “Roubo Bench”.  It was weighty and nicely joined – the race was on.

Since then, weight has been the watchword.  But, alas, as with so many things in life, we may have allowed ourselves to be mislead.  And, I’ll say it now, me too.  Three hundred, fifty pounds sounded like a good weight.  We appear to have identified weight with stability.  And, believe me, brothers and sisters, they’re not the same thing!

When one looks at the illustrations in “L’art du Menuisier”, it becomes obvious that these were to provide information about how the work was accomplished in Monsieur Roubo’s atelier.  Note that there are no dimensions on the benches…

About 5 years ago James Kennedy, an amateur fossil collector, found a nondescript scrap of bone near Vero Beach, Florida.  It seemed so ordinary he went home and promptly stuck it in a box under his sink.  But a few months later he took it out of the box, cleaned it,  and discovered it was not nondescript at all–there was an engraving of a mammoth on it.  Paleolithic art on portable objects such as bone, antler, and rock are common in Europe but before this discovery unknown in North America.

Up close view of the mammoth engraving.  The domed forehead indicates it depicts a mammoth, not a mastodon.  The fossil is mineralized and has no DNA left for species identification. The whole scrap of bone is just 16 inches long.  The engraving itself is about 4 inches wide. 

This fossil is an incredible and rare find from a site that has produced a bounty…

Remembering Edward Abbey, an opinionated author, and a controversial environmentalist (ahead of his time). Today would be his 88th birthday.

I think many of his observations and proposals were brilliant and unpopular, like banning automobiles from National Parks. To give you a flavor of his razor sharp pen read the following excerpt on our basic premise of economical growth:

“The ugliest thing in America is greed, the lust for power and domination, the lunatic ideology of perpetual Growth – with a capital G. ‘Progress’ in our nation has for too long been confused with ‘Growth’; I see the two as different, almost incompatible, since progress means, or should mean, change for the better – toward social justice, a livable and open world, equal opportunity and affirmative action for all forms of life. And I mean all forms, not merely the human. The grizzly, the wolf, the rattlesnake, the condor, the…

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”

Well, not your actual Rolls Royce motor car. But a rather nicely restored Heinkel Tourist scooter… (or motorroller as our Teutonic friends would have it) was originally marketed as the “Rolls Royce of Scooters”. Naturally, it’s not quite as “pretty” as a Lammy… but it has got a voluptuous attractiveness all of it’s own. And like the seller says “very nice machines to own and run, and they are a bit different” It’s got a classified price of a fiver under £4k, which is a lot of scooter for your buck.
Check it out on eBay here.

Here’s that eBay link again.

I’ve noticed that when most folks begin to use a spoke shave, they are inclined to pull the tool towards themselves.  I suspect that it’s very natural to associate the method of using a draw knife with that of using a spoke shave.  In truth, the spoke shave is more closely related to a plane, in that the blade is supported in a body and here’s where the trouble often starts.  The length of a spoke shave’s sole is very short.  Consequently, when the spoke shave is pulled towards the user, especially when being held perpendicular to the workpiece, the shave will tend to follow the existing contour.

The simple way to eliminate this tendency is to skew the shave in relationship to the workpiece.  Two things happen when the shave is skewed.  First, the length of the supporting surface (sole) of the shave is lengthened.  Second, the effective cutting angle of…

A hilly portion of the northern Llano Estacado.  37,500 square miles (97,000 km²) of short grass cold, semi-arid prairie scrub.

In his report to the Secretary of War, after making a survey of the Southern Plains in 1849, Captain Randolph B. Marcy described the lands of the Llano Estacado in less than enthusiastic light.  “Not a tree, shrub, or any other object, either animate or inanimate, relieved the monotony…” It is “the great Zahara (sic) of North America.”  Furthermore, it is “a land where no man, either savage or civilized, permanently abides,” and it “always has been, and must continue, uninhabited forever.”

It’s a tough ride from Fort Smith to Santa Fe on the southern route.

Marcy was no greenhorn or soft skinned parade soldier.  In his 49 year career, he did much to aide American settlers heading west through his immensely popular book: The Prairie Traveler. A…