Four Bells

Four bells. That's quittin' time around here. I hope you ran the brief video to hear this wonderful clock. It's my shop companion these days, mostly because the noise from the fluorescent lights drives my dog nuts. And to think, that's the reason I got her.

Back to the clock. It is a Seth Thomas 30-hour Ship's Bell clock made in 1919. These early versions of the ship's bell clock featured an external bell. Later the bell was housed inside the case. I do prefer this version as it is cool to look at and I think has a better sounding bell than the later version. Because its a 30-hour clock, part of my daily routine is to wind it. But I don't mind. I like the idea that it needs my help to do its job.

So, you may be asking what's with the four bells. For centuries the passage of time on a ship was signaled by ringing a bell every half hour. An hourglass kept the time. The ship's watches are divided up into 4-hour shifts; six per day. Therefore, at the completion of the first half hour of your watch, the bell would ring once, the first hour, it would ring twice, and so on until the end of the watch which was signaled with eight bells. Because I knock off at 6:00, the bell tolls four times.

Oh Scrap!

Scrap, waste, and off-cuts, (not Cut-Offs, those are old jeans turned into shorts) are all terms for the wood left over from a project. Some woodworkers believe that there is no such thing, that its all usable down to the dust. That may be but they must have a lot more space and organizational skills than I do. I generate serious volumes of this stuff. What you'll find in my scrap bin includes cherry, walnut, pine, mahogany, oak, and maple. A medley of the great cabinet woods.

So, what do I do with it? I burn it. Its great kindling for the nightly fires we have in the house fireplace between September and May. In the off-season I save it up for the fire season and I usually have just about enough to get us through.

Dinner guests are often heard to exclaim " you can't burn that, its beautiful." My standard response is "unless you take it home with you, its going to be burned." We have one friend who takes me up on the offer and carries it home. I suspect that after they realize there is not much that they can do with it they burn it in their fireplace.

By the way, I did not win the auction for the windsor chair. It sold for $350.00. It wasn't such a sleeper after all.

Greetings

Howdy,
After spending many years passionately pursuing the craft of woodworking, I thought I might share some of that passion with like-minded individuals and anyone else, really, who is interested in wood, tools, antiques and the frequent cool objects that come into my shop for a visit. My intent is to mainly provide a visual glimpse into my world with illuminating (hopefully) words. I've never done this before, so bear with me as I navigate the blogosphere, and hopefully we'll all get something out of this adventure.

Today's image is to the right. It's my shop, which I built on my property in 1995. Its a two-story wood frame building 20' by 30'. The deal I struck with my wife to buy this property was that I "need" to build a shop before I could do any work on the house. She shrewdly agreed. We both think we got the better end of the bargain. She definitely is not the shoemakers wife! As luxurious as it appears, and it is, I often feel cramped for space, the result of lots of ongoing projects, materials, and way too many tools (did I actually write that?).