November 30, 2005

• the right fool for the job

  D’y'think that should have said, “tool”, up there?

  Maybe.

  I don’t know.  You tell me after you read this.

  After Doug broke the handle on his axe, we discussed our options. 
  One was to use other tools at hand, either the heavy maul we brought
  from Elvenhurst or the one Mark left here, or one of several old axes
  with cracked handles wrapped in duct tape.  In a pinch, if I
  hadn’t been able to get out to buy a replacement for his tool of
  choice, he would have made temporary use of one of them.  His tool
  of choice is the axe he learned with at age seven:  a “boy’s” axe
  with a short cruiser handle and light 3 1/2 pound head.  Using one
  of the others would require learning the job all over again because of
  the longer axis of swing and heavier heads.

  He is very good with that little axe, putting into his swing the
  body-learning of seventeen years of experience and some martial arts
  principles learned in Tae Kwon Do and Karate lessons.  I  had
  no objection to replacing it, and asked Doug if he had any preference
  between buying a new axe and replacing the handle.  He asked me
  what were the advantages and disadvantages either way.

  I explained that a new handle might last longer than the old one had or
  than one on a new axe might, because replacement handles are made of
  the best straight-grained hardwoods and axe manufacturers aren’t always
  that fussy about the quality of their handles.  He hesitated then
  said, “I have to admit I know nothing about putting a new handle on an
  axe.”

  I said it wasn’t hard, that the handles have a split end and come with
  a wedge to drive into that split to make a solid fit inside the
  head.  I’ve put new handles in old axe heads, and remember the job
  as quite simple and not too strenuous.

  We had left the matter undecided pending my trip up to the hardware
  store, where I would see what they had availble, compare prices and
  make a choice.  No choice was necessary.  They had no
  short-handled cruiser axes, and only one replacement handle of that
  length.  I returned home with it and my other purchases, happily
  planning to have the old head installed on the new handle by the time
  Doug awoke yesterday.

  When he got up around seven in the evening, I was still trying to get
  the remains of the old handle out of the head.  That was a part of
  the job I’d never had to do before, having only put handles into old
  heads I’d found lying around with their handles rotted away. 
  Initially, when I got home and realized what step one had to be, I did
  some tapping and whacking with a hammer, hoping at least to loosen the
  head.  No go; that head was firmly stuck on that old splintered
  handle.

  I got a cross-cut bow saw and cut the handle off flush with the bottom
  of the head, and tried with the tools at hand to drive the handle from
  the head.  Again, no go.  I looked over the job, thought
  about what tools would be appropriate, and decided that the most
  efficient course would be to clinch it in a vise, drill or auger a hole
  through the wood, and chisel or gouge the rest of it away.

  I don’t have a vise.  I left that at Elvenhurst along with the
  workbench to which it was bolted.  It’s gone now.  If it
  wasn’t Charley who took it, it had to be one of the sets of scroungers,
  looters and vandals who’ve been hitting the place each summer we’ve
  been gone.  Who took it doesn’t matter.  It’s not there.

  If I have a wood chisel or gouge, I don’t know where to find it. 
  I do have two electric hand drills that Greyfox found in the dumpster
  at Felony Flats, but neither of them has a chuck key.  That’s
  really no problem, because I don’t have any drill bits for them either.

  “The right tool for the job,” was one of my father’s favorite
  sayings.  Nobody in his household would drive a screw with a knife
  or pound a nail with a shoe.  Well, actually, my mother would, and
  that is when we would hear, “…the right tool for the job.”  My
  father laid some strong conditioning on me in childhood for appropriate
  use of tools.

  I actually used that phrase just yesterday in reference to my oracle’s
  tools.  In that department, I am well-set-up.  I have what I
  need to answer any question that doesn’t offend my sensibilities or
  defy universal law.  I even have tools that are reputed to answer
  those other types of questions, too, but I decline to try it.

  I have a fair selection of mechanic’s tools, also, and the skills to
  use them but not the inclination except in emergency.  In
  carpentry and woodworking tools, I have a tackhammer, a framing axe, a
  clawhammer… and sandpaper… oh, and wood glue, too.  I know how
  to use them, as well.  Most of my tools, however, are designed for
  the intricacies of jewelry-making.

  As I contemplated my lack of proper tools last night and considered my
  options, I immediately rejected jumping back in the car, picking up
  Charley and/or his tools and going to Ray’s house to use his heated
  workshop space and well-equipped benches.  I wasn’t put on this
  planet to make any male chauvinist’s day, though I’ll probably do just
  that for a Xangan pig or two.  Likewise, I rejected tossing the
  old axehead into the fire and burning away the remains of the wooden
  handle, lest I detemper the steel.

  Knowing I lacked the right tools, I started thinking over what tools I
  do have.  A few years ago, having picked up several shed moose
  antlers, I decided to try my hand at carving.  I bought a Ryobi
  carving set consisting of a rotary tool with abrasive burrs and brushes
  for polishing and little abrasive cut-off disks the size of quarters;
  and a vibrating carving tool with various chisel-shaped
  attachments. 

  I had done enough carving with it to develop the necessary skill, and
  to decide that I don’t enjoy carving as much as I deplore the mess in
  my kitchen or the “dining-room” where I do my jewlery work.  The
  case containing the kit was put away pending acquisition of a
  workshop.  I dug it out, along with the sturdiest and most
  chisel-like screwdriver I have, a sharp and sturdy tactical fighting
  knife, and a can of Diet Coke with Splenda, a pale and pitiful
  substitute for the drugs with which I once would have fortified and
  consoled myself for such a task.

  I sat down yestereve on my kitchen stool where the light is best, with
  the axehead in my left hand (a barely adequate substitute for a vise)
  and proceeded to carve the handle-stump out of the head with a v-shaped
  vibrating chisel.  The work went quickly, in geological
  terms.  I soon learned how far I could push it before the tool
  became stuck in the wood.  Even sooner than that, I started going
  numb in both hands from Raynaud’s phenomenon.

  After one or two geological ages, I’d bored a hole into each of the two
  sides until they met in the middle.  I don’t know how long it
  took, really.  The last thing I want to do when engaged in boring
  or arduous labor is to notice how long it’s taking to get it
  done.  I started my life as a wage-earner when I was eight years
  old and developed a stupid and nasty habit of equating time with money,
  stopping occasionally to think how one task or another stacked up in
  $-per-hour terms.  What finally cured me of that was gardening,
  where my produce was costing me hours per dollar in its retail value.

  After chiseling my way through the head, I started gouging away the
  wood from around the bore-hole with my screwdriver and fighting
  knife.  I got up once to find a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull
  the shreds and splinters out.  At some point around then, I
  cleaned up the tool spill from my cats knocking the Ryobi case off the
  water bucket where I’d left it lying open.  The tube of cut-off
  disks had popped open and they scattered like coins, except that coins
  don’t shatter on impact.  The next time they knocked it down the
  noise startled me and I left it lying on the floor, having thoughtfully
  packed away all the parts in their compartments and latched the kit
  shut.

  I was close to finished when Doug got up.  I was in the process of
  trying to burn away a few stubborn shards of wood still jammed (and
  probably glued, I finally concluded) in there by putting little chunks
  of trioxane (Army surplus:  “fuel: ration heating: compressed
  trioxane”) in the hole and igniting it.  I had moved to the old
  cast-iron griddle on top of the wood stove for my fiery work. 
  When Doug came wandering out fresh from sleep, I had just managed to
  put out the carpet fire that resulted from the axe-head’s toppling over
  and spilling flaming trioxane. 

  That was interesting.  Whacking at it with a fireplace tool to
  “smother” the flame splattered the liquid fire.  I was chasing
  little blue flames around for a while.  Koji showed interest, and
  the cats apparently didn’t like the smell of burning carpet.  If
  you’re starting to feel any regret, sympathy or pity over the carpet,
  don’t bother.  I’m not the first person to burn holes in it, and
  as long as it surrounds the woodstove and receives the muddy bootprints
  of everyone who enters here, I’m not likely to replace it with an
  unsullied rug.  In this dump, that would be like putting a new
  paintjob on a wrecked car.  A new roof, yes, I’d go for that if I
  could afford it.

  Once I had cleaned out the hole in the old axe-head, I found that the
  new handle didn’t fit.  My fighting knife was effective in shaving
  it down to fit, and I got some good use out of an abrasive belt for a
  power sander that Greyfox got from the dumpster… I mean he got the
  belt, not the sander.  To me, it’s just odd-shaped
  sandpaper.

  [edit:  almost left this out, and it's probably the most telling
  point on which to judge whether I used the right tool or was the right
  fool]
  While I was whittling away at the too-thick axe-handle, standing in the
  kitchen with blood sugar in the minus numbers due to my having
  forgotten to eat, I had a little flash of insight.  As I reported
  it to Doug, the only thing that was getting the job done was my
  obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I was OCD-powered!   It
  worked.  Finally, after a brief break to nuke some Thanksgiving
  leftovers and eat standing by the sink, I got the head on the new
  handle.  Now, before you start thinking that the job and the story
  are done, there’s more.

  It was such a tight fit that the slot for the wedge was pinched tight
  shut, no way to force the narrow edge of the wedge in there.  I’d
  carved away so much wood that I began to feel I’d compromise the
  handle’s strength, so I used a method I’d seen used before.  I
  drove three wood screws into both ends and the middle of the slot where
  the wedge was to have gone.  Doug used the axe last night and his
  only problem was that the new handle is slippery, giving him less sure
  control on his striking angle.  We’ll work that out, I’m sure.
  

  • 7:05 pm
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