What a Couple of Weeks

I had 8 days off Thanksgiving week which was great but I sure paid the price the first 3 weeks of December. Long kvetch short, after three weeks of working the back side of the clock, some of the days pulling doubles, and with only one day off over the 3 weeks, I finally finished for the year Saturday.  And what a finishing day. We went "live" with the new Stall training protocol, as required by the FAA last week and I had the pleasure of doing our Centers first Fight Check using the new procedures with a "Fed" looking over my shoulder. No real problem there but things slowed to a crawl as the day went on, ended up being an almost 11 hour day before everything was finished.

Today I caught up on sleep and rest, went out and found a bicycle rack for MsOK's B-Day and piddled in the shop. Mostly cleaning and making a couple of bench appliances.  Looking around the shop as I cleaned I've almost decided to have a tool sell off. I've planes, saws, and chisels stuck in every nook and cubby hole in the shop, most I never use. An example I have a near full set of Bailey pattern planes Type 11 or older. They are beautiful but I don't use them, especially the #6, #7, and #8 no need with the machines to four square stock. BTW, about once a year I'll take a raw board and four square it just to remind me why I have the machines.

Here's an old photo of 'em lined up.

  
There are dozens more including a near mint "45", what a useless hunk of metal but it sure is pretty. Then the 100 or so saws and that many or more chisels on top of all the planes. None of the planes are collector items but most are good solid users with Hock irons. A good number of the chisels have been re-handled and all have flat backs. The saws, about the best you can say, once pass my users, is that there are lots of 'em.

If I'm honest with myself I only use about a 1/2 dozen planes on a regular basis and in addition about the same number occasionally and it's the same with the saws. Chisels I use more but still I would never miss about half of the ones I keep sharp. I need to to do a serious sell off.