Today's meanderings

I'm sitting in the office trying to sort out some paper work. A fly is buzzing me. What I want is this:

 

What I got is this:

My good friend, Justin, shared his success in using his air pistol as a salt shooter, so I figured, what the heck.

First I need some wads. Justin used paper towels, so I thought I'd get more efficient.

.
Fold it over, I get four at a time!

I believe that will work.

Push it down a little.

Add a little salt. Please note the custom fabricated salt scooper.

Ram down to the bottom of the barrel. I know, it's a breach loader. Trust me, it's way easier to load salt from the muzzle.

Take a shot! This is about quarter size at about twelve inches.

This was all good fun as I was stalking the fly who was no where to be found, now that I'm ready.
Left the gun close at hand in the office while I worked. I got up to go back into the shop. Two feet in, there's the fly, but the gun is in the office. I guess it wasn't the fly's time.

Chisel restoration

 So, as promised sometime in the distant past, here are the chisels I'm restoring.
They've been abused and misused and left to decay.

That's the fixture I made to hold them at the proper angle on the surface grinder.
It is not possible to put enough coolant onto the chisel to keep from burning the tip, so I've abandoned the idea of using the surface grinder.

Here is the wheel I have found. That is a 2" square tube in the middle to approximate the new hub that I need to make. I may do a post about removing the old hub later. Suffice to say that the wheel is sound, no cracks, and that I can build myself a nice slow, wet, wheel with which to do hollow grinds on my chisels and other things.

Happy New Year!

Life has been in a state of flux for some time now, but I believe I can start to settle in to the new normal. Most projects have been on hold due to excess obligation in the stuff I get paid for. I guess there are worse things.
I was browsing around and came across a thing about restoring old wood chisels. This is because I own a set of pretty good chisels that have been variously abused and then neglected. I started on the 1/2" chisel because it's a handy size and one of the most abused ones. "Abused", in this context, refers to a really bad attempt at sharpening. I'll add some pictures in later entries.
Anyway, the rust is not much of an issue when you have a sand blast cabinet so the two main things have been smoothing out the flat back, and recreating the hollow grind at the tip. I spent a bunch of time building a holder that would work on the surface grinder, but sadly, that spins so fast that it's not possible to put enough coolant on it to keep from burning the tip. So I'm stopped while I research solutions.
I decided that I wanted a big, slow wheel much like you'd find at the antique store. Trouble is they think these things are worth something and if you do find one, the odds are good that the stone is cracked. I did find one that I think I can make use of, so that's where that project is.