Tool Talk

My cock up with the doors was resolved when the correct ones were delivered a couple of weeks ago. Last week's "evening" job was to hang one of them in the new bedroom's doorway.

I re-read my blog entry from last December because the first door-hanging exercise was quite successful and I wanted to follow the same procedure.

The one difference from last time was that this door needed quarter of an inch taking off of the bottom in order to fit. With the door balanced between the workmate (more on that later) and the ironing board I sawed through the stiles with a lovely tenon saw my colleagues bought for me when I left Ferranti (thanks again, if any of you are reading !). I then attempted to trim the excess quarter inch off of the bottom rail with a hand plane. Of course, the workpiece was on it's side, so this was really difficult - basically I was getting nowhere.

However, during the bleak winter evenings one year in the early 1990's I did an evening class in carpentry and I was reminded of the tutor's mantra about sharpening your tools a little and often. I took the plane apart and sharpened the blade by hand on an oilstone. I have one of those little clamps with a single wheel, that ensure you get the grinding angles right. I could not believe the difference it made. Short work was made of the quarter inch of remaining bottom rail and it now fits beautifully. Again I used loose-pin hinges, so the door can easily be removed if required.

As before, a barrel catch was fitted using a simple 22mm flat bit, with a corresponding cross-hole to line up the handles. I was a little surprised that drilling the barrel hole in the rail managed to hit one of the tenons from the centre rail. This is awkward when drilling with a flat bit as they don't work very well against end-grain. I thought the construction was supposed to avoid this problem. The centre rail has two tenons on each end, with corresponding mortises cut into the rails. The handle and lock mechanism fits between the tenons. It is not very clear, but you can see the ends of the two tenons in this picture :

I can only think that the two full-depth tenons must be joined inside the rail, by a half-depth tenon, which I hit with the drill. No harm was done - just a bit messy inside, but all hidden now.

My reference to the workmate, above, concerns a refurbishment I carried out. My old Black & Decker workmate has done good service, but two of the four springs that latch the legs were broken and most of the plastic feet missing. It was starting to drive me mad and I was on the point of purchasing a new one, when I discovered lots of eBay based shops that advertise spares. I was amazed. You can get all the parts you could possibly need. It wasn't cheap, but for a shade under 20 quid I had 4 new small feet, 4 large feet and four new spring catches. Certainly cheaper than a new workmate, and it is as good as new now (well it will be once I have cleaned and oiled the threaded jaw shafts !)

I have, however, had one recent casualty in my tool box. My Black & Decker jigsaw suffered motor burn-out while cutting a hole for the cat flap next to the front door. Fortunately my Dad stepped in and loaned me his variable speed Bosch so I could finish the job, thus avoiding stranding the cats in the chilly outdoors. The news gets better. Dad has since bought himself a new jigsaw, and says I can keep the old one. Thanks Dad !