Nice Things

[Duke Mantee]

2 hours ago, Dr_Heech said:

Ok..ok.. in the the top trumps of nice tools, you win!  I conceed 

All that and he only uses superglue and sandpaper ...

[Double 0 Soul]

Not only do i buy those snazzy made in Sheffield 'Clifton' planes, i also make the pattern equipment for Clifton/Thomas Flinn & Co

...and the finished product

https://www.flinn-garlick-saws.co.uk/acatalog/HAND-PLANES-p1.html

Edited January 9, 2021 by Double 0 Soul

[Dr_Heech]

9 hours ago, Duke Mantee said:

All that and he only uses superglue and sandpaper ...

Sounds like our mechanic at work. Has all the tools in the world, yet most used repair kit consists of duck tape and cable ties.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Dr_Heech

[Geeman]

17 hours ago, Dr_Heech said:

They are all around 15 years old and have had numerous handles

Couldn't  resist

 

 

Forgive my ignorance,  what's a waller? You build old stone walls ?

[Geeman]

Couple more from me,

My stew pot from le creuset,  years of service and untold hours in the oven. The wife sees it as a crusade to get it as cleaned up as possible after each use. Completely replaceable but I'd be gutted if it ever broke 

My Thai rice steamer, used in my never ending quest to cook perfect sticky rice ( for mango and sticky rice or Thai curry accompaniment)

And my newest addition but seeing regular use a Dutch pot. Wife wanted more Caribbean food and the mother in laws cooking is legendary so I'm trying to add a few recipes to my repertoire,  bonus pick of the oxtail going in around 7.30 this morning. 

[Dr_Heech]

42 minutes ago, Geeman said:

Couldn't  resist

 

 

Forgive my ignorance,  what's a waller? You build old stone walls ?

 l was waiting for Maynard to give it the old Trigger broom handle meme but you beat him to it.

Yes @Geeman l trained as a drystone-waller around 15 years ago. After a short period of self employment, l ended up working on a golf course where l sometimes repair existing walls and sometimes l get the chance to do a complete rebuild.

[Double 0 Soul]

I like that Dutch pot Gee (i'd be interested in some recipes, the oxtail looks great) Ive got a little Dutch Oven which i use for outdoor cooking, you can sit it in the fire and put coals on the lid for all round heat or flip the lid over for a fry-up

..i just wish i'd bought a larger version, i misjudged the size over the internet and it was too heavy to ship back to Germany

...keeping with the tools theme, my Gransfors Bruks hand axe, this one was hand forged by Magnus Magnusson, his initials are stamped into the axe head

...and for something completely different, my David Shrigley Friendly Door Snake, Who doesn't need one of these in their life??

 

[Maynard Friedman]

6 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

my Gransfors Bruks hand axe, this one was hand forged by Magnus Magnusson, his initials are stamped into the axe head

Ahh, so he was the mastermind behind these..

[Maynard Friedman]

Not in the same league as the tools above owned by you fine gentlemen but here’s my old school ruler from the 1980s - a stainless steel Rabone Chesterman. It took on all comers and reigned supreme in ruler fights and still has the remnants of my Tipp-Exed initials on the back.

[Geeman]

OO, I'll DM you the recipe later/in the week. Pretty simple really. 

[H...crimper]

You can't beat Japanese wood working tools and I must admit I am totally obsessed with them, these ones our extra nice.

 

 

[ColonelAngus]

@Double 0 Soul

that mackinaw blanket is nice. As much as I hate the fit of Filson’s clothing, they do manage to put out some nice things. 

[Double 0 Soul]

Thanks @ColonelAngus i bought it around 10yrs ago, Filson have changed the labels since then but afaik, it's still the same blanket.

 

Those chisels^^ are lovely Crimp's but that little block plane you might as well make your own! especially when you have the nice chisels to work with, all of these block planes are home made..

 

they only take a couple of hours, folks used to have me making them as a 16yr old apprentice like some kind of tortuous initiation ceramony  only bit of advice.. when you carve out the escapement...

...fill the^ recess up with linseed oil and leave it for a week topping it up each day, eventually the end-grain will soak it up into the entire block, protecting it ...only then do you carve out the mouth for the blade from the underside. Most of those^ planes have a radius on the face, some have a 45° V for chamforing.

Ive got 100's of rules Martin and yes Rabone Chesterman are by far my favourite!

..mine differ slightly inasmuch as they're rare as fuck, etched old school contraction rules, for example, steel contracts somewhere between 1/38 and 1/48 depending on carbon/stainless ect

so if i'm making something which will be cast in stainless steel i make it oversized using a 1/48 'contraction rule' so when the hot (expaned) metal cools it will contract back down to the correct size in standard rule. Iron contracts between 1/96 for grey iron and 1/120 for spheroidal graphite so for every 120mm it will contract by 1mm. Aluminium 1/70, Brass 1/80 ect ect... i have a rule for most contractions but some exotic metals/alloys have a mind of their own and i need to work out the contraction factor as a decimal and make the pattern accordingly. If i'm working in ceramics they tend to expand when baked rather than contract so the expansion needs to be accounted for so they're made undersized. Expansion rules are grail status

Most pattern makers rules are pretty hard to come by, especially the pre-1940's Chersterman rules which are engraved allowing me to set the point of my tools firmly into the groove for marking out.

...most modern rules are just etched which is no good for me... not only do i have 100's of contraction rules, i also need them to be 6" long 12" long 24" long and 1m long cos you dont want to be making something the size of a 50p with a 1m rule and you don't want to be making something 10' long with a 6" rule

[H...crimper]

2 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Thanks @ColonelAngus i bought it around 10yrs ago, Filson have changed the labels since then but afaik, it's still the same blanket.

 

Those chisels^^ are lovely Crimp's but that little block plane you might as well make your own! especially when you have the nice chisels to work with, all of these block planes are home made..

 

they only take a couple of hours, folks used to have me making them as a 16yr old apprentice like some kind of tortuous initiation ceramony  only bit of advice.. when you carve out the escapement...

...fill the^ recess up with linseed oil and leave it for a week topping it up each day, eventually the end-grain will soak it up into the entire block, protecting it ...only then do you carve out the mouth for the blade from the underside. Most of those^ planes have a radius on the face, some have a 45° V for chamforing.

Ive got 100's of rules Martin and yes Rabone Chesterman are by far my favourite!

..mine differ slightly inasmuch as they're rare as fuck, etched old school contraction rules, for example, steel contracts somewhere between 1/38 and 1/48 depending on carbon/stainless ect

so if i'm making something which will be cast in stainless steel i make it oversized using a 1/48 'contraction rule' so when the hot (expaned) metal cools it will contract back down to the correct size in standard rule. Iron contracts between 1/96 for grey iron and 1/120 for spheroidal graphite so for every 120mm it will contract by 1mm. Aluminium 1/70, Brass 1/80 ect ect... i have a rule for most contractions but some exotic metals/alloys have a mind of their own and i need to work out the contraction factor as a decimal and make the pattern accordingly. If i'm working in ceramics they tend to expand when baked rather than contract so the expansion needs to be accounted for so they're made undersized. Expansion rules are grail status

Most pattern makers rules are pretty hard to come by, especially the pre-1940's Chersterman rules which are engraved allowing me to set the point of my tools firmly into the groove for marking out.

...most modern rules are just etched which is no good for me... not only do i have 100's of contraction rules, i also need them to be 6" long 12" long 24" long and 1m long cos you dont want to be making something the size of a 50p with a 1m rule and you don't want to be making something 10' long with a 6" rule

Very nice, this topic should have been called show us your tools .

My old work shop in Shorditch is now home to STIK, the doors are the same colour as when I was there in the nineties. I can't go anywhere in the world with out seeing this image in trendy shops.

Edited January 11, 2021 by H...crimper

[Double 0 Soul]

I was reading a few weeks ago that Stik had given at his own cost 1000's of prints to Hackney council which he intended to be given as a gift by him accompneying a letter from the council to all Hackney residents but they "misteriously" turned up on ebay... police are investigating

It looks like a great place to work @H...crimper it's hard making a living in woodwork isn't it? i expect even more so in London, what did you used to make and why did you bag it off?

...or a living which can keep us in the swanky jawnz to which we've become accustomed should i say.

[Duke Mantee]

4 hours ago, H...crimper said:

Very nice, this topic should have been called show us your tools

I think that might be in the superpersonal forum 

[H...crimper]

53 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

I was reading a few weeks ago that Stik had given at his own cost 1000's of prints to Hackney council which he intended to be given as a gift by him accompneying a letter from the council to all Hackney residents but they "misteriously" turned up on ebay... police are investigating

It looks like a great place to work @H...crimper it's hard making a living in woodwork isn't it? i expect even more so in London, what did you used to make and why did you bag it off?

...or a living which can keep us in the swanky jawnz to which we've become accustomed should i say.

I like Stik makes me smile. I used to really like working around shoreditch and used to make fine furniture, clients including David Adjay who was just around the corner and the Chapman brothers who lived just of Brick lane. But like where you work in Kelham Island the area started to be taken over and most of the furniture maker have moved out. Still work with wood when i get the chance but have been working in rope access for the last 20 years.

[Maynard Friedman]

There used to be a lot of reproduction furniture makers on Hackney Road, my neighbour at my old flat in Bow was one. Have they all gone too?

[Double 0 Soul]

13 minutes ago, H...crimper said:

I used to really like working around shoreditch and used to make fine furniture, clients including David Adjay who was just around the corner and the Chapman brothers who lived just of Brick lane. But like where you work in Kelham Island the area started to be taken over and most of the furniture maker have moved out. Still work with wood when i get the chance but have been working in rope access for the last 20 years.

In which case i'll retract that advice on making block planes, i was teaching your grandmother to suck eggs..

[fre-co]

Since this thread has morphed into tools, here is my favorite tool of my trade. This is a genome sequencer that has revolutionised the world of genetics. To give you some context, the competition for this device is the size of a big American fridge freezer and costs a few hundred thousand at least. This little guy cost me less than a grand and fits in my pocket. 
We have even been using this to sequence all sorts of stuff even including some uk hospital isolates of coronavirus genomes. 
It’s portable, so even in lockdown I can keep sequencing at home (not virus) with limited access to my lab. 

 

[H...crimper]

58 minutes ago, Maynard Friedman said:

There used to be a lot of reproduction furniture makers on Hackney Road, my neighbour at my old flat in Bow was one. Have they all gone too?

Hackney road must be one of the trendiest places in London right now all them repro places our now coffee shops

[H...crimper]

1 hour ago, Double 0 Soul said:

In which case i'll retract that advice on making block planes, i was teaching your grandmother to suck eggs..

nothing wrong with a bit of advise

[fre-co]

4 minutes ago, H...crimper said:

Hackney road must be one of the trendiest places in London right now all them repro places our now coffee shops

My granddad was a French polisher around hackney road until the mid sixties 

[JDelage]

2 hours ago, fre-co said:

Since this thread has morphed into tools, here is my favorite tool of my trade. This is a genome sequencer that has revolutionised the world of genetics. To give you some context, the competition for this device is the size of a big American fridge freezer and costs a few hundred thousand at least. This little guy cost me less than a grand and fits in my pocket. 
We have even been using this to sequence all sorts of stuff even including some uk hospital isolates of coronavirus genomes. 
It’s portable, so even in lockdown I can keep sequencing at home (not virus) with limited access to my lab. 

You can sequence the Coronavirus with this? ID the English variant?

[fre-co]

Yes indeed. Much of the sequencing has been done with this exact equipment. 

[smoothsailor]

My tools are collecting dust. They are nice things though. 
meanwhile some more stuff from my walls.

1930,s Japanese festival flag/banner.

its twice the size you see in the picture. About 5m. Long. The other half is all Japanese writhing .

Other one is a woodblock print edo era from kunichika.

 

[Unnmd]

Buff Monster x Brian Ewing “Eye of the Serpent”

Wish I could have picked up more of BMs art when I had the chance. Le sigh

[Thanks_M8]

While we're on cookware. Got this beauty about 4 years ago, most used cookware I got right now. Also got a 12“ version laying around at my parents place, but that's just too big for most burners. 

Tried around with all those cast iron myths about never using soap and so on, but this thing is as nonstick as it gets since I'm just using it regular and washing it with dishsoap. Oiling it once in a while helps aswell, but is not that necessary.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Thanks_M8

[Double 0 Soul]

Cleaning my cast iron grill is a pain in the flippin arse, this thing. ...it's way too big to fit in the kitchen sink..

The first year that i owned it, i put it away in the shed for the winter without cleaning it after a summer of heavy use (the last thing i cooked on it was mackerel) in the spring it was grim af, it was rusting with a layer of congealed fat combined with putrid food particles in the bottom, i'll not make that mistake again thought I.

I cleaned it in the garden with a bucket of boiling water and a stiff brush, it took an age so the next time i bought one of those stainless chainmail whatchamacallits.. took the pot plants out of the large butler sink in the garden and filled it with mad hot water but within a few mins the chainmail was gunked up with grease and completely useless so i had a brainwave.."i know i'll fill it with silver birch logs, set fire to it and burn it clean  it was glowing red but when it cooled, i'd removed all the precious seasoning and the lovely protective blackness had turned gray like an untreated iron casting..fuck! i had to dismantle the damn thing and reaseason it, one piece at a time in the oven?

I'm open to suggestions as to what the flip i should do at the end of this summer??

[Thanks_M8]

^how about heating it up on hot coals without anything put on it, should burn off any food residue. Then clean it with hot water and a sponge, once cooled off, anything should come off easily. Dry it with a towel, re-oil, store it in a dry place, so it doesn't rust, indoors would be best imo.