Heads Up

I don't open/look at my banking account often, mostly just once or twice a month to schedule paying my bills. Because I'm expecting a reasonably sized deposit and I had a couple of minutes with nothing to do I opened the Bank account to see if the deposit had been made. It hadn't but there was an interesting debit from a California Harbor Freight for $272 USD and change at the top of the statement. First problem: I'm in Tucson, second problem; I don't buy crap from Harbor Freight.

I called the bank, fast response, no permahold and they put a stop on my Debit card and started the process of issuing a new one. All that is neat and good but here is the kicker: they can/will do nothing about the charge until it finishes processing, it other words the money is taken from my account. That sucks, not so much because I will lose $272 USD during the dispute phase but the fact that it has to go through the dispute phase before it is returned. In addition it requires another phone call to the bank in a couple of days when the withdrawal has cleared to dispute the withdrawal.

Here is the bottom line: I will never use a Debit card again. While that doesn't eliminate the chance of the card being hacked it will or should decrease the odds of it being hacked. From now on I will use a credit card for all the things I've used Debit cards for up to this time. With a credit card if it gets hacked, the charge or charges are removed and that is the end of the story plus there is a very active watch by the bank for fraud.  As a side benefit there are miles/cash back on credit cards that are not on Debit cards. I should have done this long ago.

Be careful out there, hear and check your bank statement often.

ken    

Slowly Returning to the Shop

I still can't really do anything of substance in the shop but I did a little re-arranging of the sharpening bench and cabinet and the real biggie....Cleaned up and oiled the RV's wood sink cover/cutting board. Hey, it's a start.

The sharpening bench: On the left is set up for JNats and other waterstones and the right end for sandpaper and oil stones. The overhead cabinet holds the stones and most of the other "stuff" needed for sharpening.

This one is real excitement, the RV's sanded and oiled sink cover/cutting board.

And last, a chair MsBubba rescued and wanted me to "fix". After much butt scratching I decided to screw slats to the frame. One down, four to go.

As posted, it's a start.

Received an email from David Savage this morning posting about something I've long said: Shiny is not necessarily sharp.

Part of his email:

"... 

Ohhh! This is going to be bad. You know more tosh has been written about sharpening woodworking tools than a grown man can tolerate. But I shall proceed, but only if you are sitting comfortably. There is a convention that sharpness is the product of two polished surfaces brought together at a suitable angle usually somewhere between 25 degrees and 30 degrees. Pedants may disagree, but I do not give a hoot. Polished surfaces are generated by using a course abrasive, then a a grade finer, then a grade finer. The objective of each stage being, to remove the scratches of the previous layer. O K, so a shine in this context would the objective, yes? The more scratches removed, the more polished and shinier the surface would become??? I have used a shiny surface to a chisel back or plane blade back as a sign that I have done a good job for years. Apparently this is just not so. Look at the image below this is a surface created with an 8000 grit Japanese Water stone. this is the kind of polishing stone I and many other Western Woodies have been using for years. they are fast to cut relatively cheap and they give this great result.

So whats the problem? Well look at the second image below. This is the same tool polished with a NATURAL Japanese abrasive stone. The scratches are finer that is clear. What is confusing and counter intuitive is that the surface is NOT so shiny.

Tomohito-San who has been my guide on this has been trying to convince me that shiny is not automatically sharp and this is his proof. I have been using a couple of natural stones on plane blades for a while and can report a real difference in performance. They cost a lot more than man made water stones. My stone was about £300 and I only use it in specific situations where I need a surface from the Tool..." ken

More RV Photos

Some more photos of the RV:

We will leave for the PNW on the 17th and be back in Tucson after Labor Day. I hope by that time I can return to the shop.

kem

New RV

A '08 Domani followed me home this AM. I spent most of the trip to Houston looking for a 30' or less 5th Wheel that flipped all the buttons with no joy. First day back in Tucson I found this one and it without a doubt did all my buttons.

The inside is almost as nice as a custom aircraft or boat completion.  Anyway it's just in time for the Oregon trip, I'll load most of the stuff out of the old RV back into this one and try to find time for a short shakedown run before the 17th.

Here are a couple of photos of the outside, inside photos to follow:

One more, remember to big 'em, click 'em.

ken