What are you doing right now?

[Mrs Pingu]

Wev are listening to an Ozric Tentacles (new to me) album from 1993 and I am thinking how tremendously plastic and cheesy it sounds.

[ElyDave]

Just finished mowing the lawn for what I hope will be the last time this year.

I did that the other day.  A whole new crop of late-season weeds had appeared.

Resisted the urge to over-indulge in what my dad referred to as "destructive gardening" while coppicing the growth at the base of the remaining BloodySycamore.  If I had the tools and slightly less sense of self-preservation I'd fell the bloody thing.

The coppiced wood, if kept til next summer will be good barbequeue fuel. 

[lou boutin]

Recovering from a night out. I went to see an Abba Trubute band in the local Town Hall.  I hadn't been in the Town Hall since my late teens. It was a giggle, the band were great, but my ears are ringing still. 

[T42]

Savouring my second breakfast cuppa while the clock tells me that it's sooner than I think. Maybe I'll have a third.

[tiermat]

Ironing.

Rock and roll!

[Gattopardo]

Recovering from a night out. I went to see an Abba Trubute band in the local Town Hall.  I hadn't been in the Town Hall since my late teens. It was a giggle, the band were great, but my ears are ringing still.

Dancing queen?

[andrewc]

Nomming beer & peanuts during the interval. “Die Walkure” broadcast from the ROH. Good stuff 

[lou boutin]

Recovering from a night out. I went to see an Abba Trubute band in the local Town Hall.  I hadn't been in the Town Hall since my late teens. It was a giggle, the band were great, but my ears are ringing still.

Dancing queen?

very much so   

[rogerzilla]

Grinking GWR about the dysfunctional bike facilities on Class 800 trains.

[Torslanda]

Sitting thru the Festival of Remembrance and quietly seething.

I feel like the traditional service has been hijacked and repackaged as government propaganda.

In 'honouring the fallen' they've somehow completely missed the message and instead are encouraging people to emulate them instead...

[T42]

Looking at the beautiful weather and wondering why ICBA getting changed & going for a ride.

[Beardy]

Sitting in a pub on my own drinking a pint of Tribute and playing games on my iPad. And when I say on my own, I mean it literally, I’m the only person in the pub. The landlord is in the kitchen baking tomorrow lunchtimes puddings, but there are no other customers.

Ok, so Dr Beardy (Mrs) Is upstairs in bed as we do have a room here for the night, and I think the landlords bf is also upstairs in their rooms, but even so I’m surprised just how dead it is given it’s a Saturday night. It’s odd to think that places like this still exist, and it’s even stranger to think that Ms Beardy the elder (now Mrs E) actually lives here given her previously stated loathing of anything that did not resemble THAT LONDON

[andrewc]

I was a little behind on my ironing.  Just finished 24 shirts , 2 pairs of trousers & a  few other bits & bobs.  Now relaxing with a glass of white burgundy.

[Kim]

Now relaxing with a glass of white burgundy.

Not too close to the pile of clean shirts, I hope...

[Beardy]

Now eating s free piece of chocolate cake I blagged by complaining about the cruelty of allowing baking aromas free reign of the pub. 

[Kim]

Now eating s free piece of chocolate cake I blagged by complaining about the cruelty of allowing baking aromas free reign of the pub. 

 

[andrewc]

Now relaxing with a glass of white burgundy.

Not too close to the pile of clean shirts, I hope...

White, doesn't matter so much.  And the clean shirts are in the wardrobe anyway. I don't usually drink in there......

[Butterfly]

I was a little behind on my ironing.  Just finished 24 shirts , 2 pairs of trousers & a  few other bits & bobs.  Now relaxing with a glass of white burgundy.

You are far too keen. I once ironed over 30 shirts for my dad when I'd been away for a bit. My mum doesn't iron .

[T42]

Been trying to find out how to set the sliding table of my table saw level with the rest of it - there's a 0.8 mm difference.

[TheLurker]

Now eating s free piece of chocolate cake I blagged...

You are a cyclist AICMFP. 
Well done that cyclist. 

[andytheflyer]

Been trying to find out how to set the sliding table of my table saw level with the rest of it - there's a 0.8 mm difference.

There will be some bolts somewhere!

I bought a second-hand 10" SIP table saw a few weeks ago for not a lot, and proceeded to dismantle it to see what sort of condition it was in - good as it turned out.  It's taken me about 3  weeks to fully fettle it: making a dolly on castors so I can move it around easily, getting the extensions the same height as the cast ali table, the fence to slide and clamp freely, and sit square to the guide rail and parallel to the blade, getting the blade true to the mitre slots, and adjusting the verticality of the blade.  Then I had to source ali strip the same width as the mitre slots (5/8 as it turned out) and make a cross cut sled, a mitre sled and a mitre gauge.  I waxed the table and the slots and sliding parts and it all works very smoothly now.

Been putting it to use making a mini router table - it's all just the same as making model aeroplanes, just that the tools are bigger!

It's been a bit of a journey, but it now cuts beautifully, and square.  What a revelation - should have bought one years ago. 

[T42]

I bought a second-hand 10" SIP table saw a few weeks ago for not a lot, and proceeded to dismantle it to see what sort of condition it was in - good as it turned out.  It's taken me about 3  weeks to fully fettle it: making a dolly on castors so I can move it around easily, getting the extensions the same height as the cast ali table, the fence to slide and clamp freely, and sit square to the guide rail and parallel to the blade, getting the blade true to the mitre slots, and adjusting the verticality of the blade.  Then I had to source ali strip the same width as the mitre slots (5/8 as it turned out) and make a cross cut sled, a mitre sled and a mitre gauge.  I waxed the table and the slots and sliding parts and it all works very smoothly now.

Been putting it to use making a mini router table - it's all just the same as making model aeroplanes, just that the tools are bigger!

It's been a bit of a journey, but it now cuts beautifully, and square.  What a revelation - should have bought one years ago. 

Now I'm jealous. Mine's a Bosch PTS 10, and decidedly lightweight.  Back before my bad crash in 2002 I had a 300-kilo Lurem that included saw, planer, jointer, mortiser and spindle shaper, but I sold it a few years later because I couldn't heave flitches of oak around any more. Just moving the beast on its castors was painful.

Still, the Bosch has a 1400W motor, and handles the wood I need for guitars quite easily. It's just the lack of adjustment possibilities and Bosch's obvious attitude of "it's just a hobby saw, what do you expect, you poor fool?" that gets up my nose. Not to mention the "you're an idiot who's going to try and cut his arm off" that's apparent in the vast, awkward-to-remove blade guard that makes it difficult to see what you're cutting.

Aye well. At least it works.

[andytheflyer]

Now I'm jealous. Mine's a Bosch PTS 10, and decidedly lightweight. 

That's quite a good saw for the money - better equipped than the old SIP.  I read a few YT reviews and the inaccuracies/frustrations you probably have are also there in the SIP, but you've been used to a much better saw and you make things to a very high standard.

The SIP is my first (and probably my last!) table saw.  I wouldn't have bought a new one as I couldn't justify the cost, so I looked for one on eBay that I thought I could turn into something useful.  The SIP attracted me because a) it has a cast ali main table (the side extensions are thin steel) and b) it was only 10 miles away!  I thought it was worth a gamble.

Many of the reviews I read of cheap table saws complained about the quality of the fence and the mitre gauge etc, and that lack of blade adjustment, but given a cast table (rather than ali plate) I reckoned I stood a chance of getting it fettled with patience and time (I am now retired), and since the mitre fences were missing I needed to make my own anyway.  The Lurker OTP reckoned that because I build model aeroplanes I must have patience and an attention to detail, so this was a project I could cope with.  My late dad would have been pleased to hear that - he was a woodworking perfectionist.

Had to have a couple of goes at getting the blade co-planar with the mitre slots, but managed that in the end (the bolts are damn-near inaccessible) and now it's cutting square.  I only have about £80 in it, so I'm very pleased with it. The wax trick makes a big difference to usability too.  Next job is to improve the dust collection.

Don't think I can get near your level of craftsmanship though!  But have you tried building model aeroplanes?  If you don't build them square, they don't fly - so it's a very quick test of your skills, that first flight!

[Beardy]

After two and a half days taking marketing photos at a software user group conference for a friend (long days, but lots of free beer!) I’m now back in the Beardy Bastion and I’m doing some recreational document formatting for Dr Beardy (Mrs). Multi authored documents can become a bit of a mess and Dr Beardy (Mrs) is not capable of the mental visual and spacial manipulations required to untangle it all.

She might have a big hat of cleverness, but she can’t park a car for toffee. 

[andrewc]

Drinking a beer from the mini bar in a Viennese hotel room. It’s been a long day & I can’t be bothered looking for a suitable dive.


Up at daft o’clock for the slow train to Manchester Airport. Total scrum at security & my shoulder bag got pinged for a manual search & swab test. Onto the plane & an uneventful flight but Jet2’s inflight announcements are cringeworthy. Through Immigration at Vienna quick enough, fast train to the city & a short walk to the hotel. Room is fine, but as it’s their cheapest the (private) shower & toilet are down the corridor.  Horrors! It’s one of those weird loos with a shelf 


Make a cup of tea then out for a walk, have a gawp at Stephansdom from the outside & the main shopping area, like Bond St on steroids, lots of expensive shiny stuff.


Soup & Schnitzel at restaurant down a side st, then onto the Musikverein, Absolutely beautiful hall, and Mitsudo Uchida playing divine Schubert.


Weather is cool, grey & windy. My back is hurting again