More reading

If I'm going to be bored, I might as well read useful stuff. This is the study of PM-V11 steel from Lee Valley. The new steel has been around a little while now, but this is the first time I sat down and read how Lee Valley did their testing. I thought it was interesting and worth sharing with others who had not read it.
I haven't tried any of the PM-V11 chisels or irons yet. None of my planes need new irons at the moment, and I can't just replace good irons. As a plane or two needs fresh steel, I will likely go the PM route.
Apologies to Lee Valley, but I doubt I'll try the PM chisels. I'm stuck on my L-N chisels. So, unless a set shows up at my house (ahem...LV...you know my address), I won't be checking them out any time soon.
Anywho, just sharing what I thought was an interesting read. Have a good evening!

A good read

Being a Baldwin, this was of particular interest to me.
Thanks to Lost Art Press for posting the letter!

I have a small collection of E.Baldwin planes. Enos is Austin's dad. They made really good planes that are as useful today as they were 160+ years ago.

Learning to saw

When it comes to woodworking, this is probably the most useful podcast/video I've seen for quite a while. Bob Rozaieski at the Logan Cabinet Shoppe put together a great presentation on how he improved his own sawing. The problems he described are very similar to my own issues when I saw. I cut fairly well, but I'm always slightly out of true in exactly the same way.
If you're into woodworking, you're probably familiar with Bob. Just in case you've never found his site, though, now you know.
Once I'm back on my feet and working, I'm definitely going to make the adjustments from that podcast and see if I can improve my saw cuts.

Boredom

Gawd...I'm bored. I've got a list of things to do a mile long, but I'm not capable of doing much more than sitting on the couch and rotting my brain on daytime TV.
Thankfully, there are these devices called computers! The internet is a lot better than soap operas. I've been spending some time watching vids at Lie-Nielsen and Paul Sellers. I've got some new ideas in my head and can't wait to get healed so I can get back to life.
Once I'm capable of doing work again, the first thing I plan on is rethinking how I sharpen. Sure, I can get pretty good edges now, but I think my method could be improved. After that, it's time to improve my tool storage.
Because of the breaks in my pelvis, I may not be able to ride a bike at all this year. That means that the time I would usually spend out being a hooligan may be spent being crafty. We shall see. I'm kind of miffed that I can't ride my new bike.
Another thing that I'm miffed about is that I can barely type. I take pride in knowing how to actually type, but my left wrist isn't quite healthy yet.
Anywho, I'm just typing off into space to kill the boredom. I have a small project that my dad is going to help with over the next few days. Who am I kidding, he'll probably do all of it while I point and supervise!

More on passenger pegs

Before my accident, I made some progress on my peg mounts for the Aprilia. I'm bored as hell right now, so I'll get the pics up that show the current state of the peg mounts. With any luck, I'll be able to ride this bike sometime this year. It kind of sucks owning such a beautiful machine and not being able to enjoy it. Anyway, enough of my whining.

The frame stand offs are cut from 1/2" stainless hex. I went with that because the factory body mounts are made from hex stock. They will get a little cosmetic treatment to match the factory parts at the end.

Cutting down the OD for the male threads, which will be 8mm. Look close and you'll see a funny spot. It took a few passes to get through it, but that little spot was sort of hard. It happens, and luckily wasn't enough to mess up the part.