An early Christmas gift

A few weeks before Christmas I was doing my usual blitz of ornament making. This year I chose to use the scroll saw which I’ve neglected for the last couple of years. Turns out there was a reason for the neglect.

I’ve had difficulty for the last few years with blades pulling out of the holder when I was half way through the cut. A few people have looked at it and others have suggested solutions. I’ve bought and replaced parts and thought, in the end, my problems were due to operator error. So I’d try again.

Then I couldn’t even get two centimetres of a cut made before the blade would pop out of the bottom holder. I’d put it back in, try again and out it would pop. In addition the saw was making a rather unpleasant noise that scroll saws shouldn’t make. Fed up, I got out my jeweller’s saw and cut several of the ornaments by hand. It took longer than it would have with a co-operative scroll saw, but I didn’t have one of those.

Richard wanted to help me so he volunteered to take the saw apart to see if he could figure out what the problem was. He got the saw apart and determined that there was a bearing that was completely seized. That wasn’t necessarily the reason the blades kept pulling out but it probably accounted for the noise. We found the number of the bearing on the parts page of the instruction manual but weren’t sure where to go from there. Since the part was fairly small, and Jake is very good at figuring out how to fix things I took it to him. He did a bit of searching but wasn’t able to find anyone in Didsbury who had bearings small enough. He said if I could find a bearing I could use the drill press to press it out and press the new one in. I wasn’t too keen on that solution but I did start looking on websites of Calgary companies to see if I could find the proper replacement bearing. I found one place that had it in stock.

To the rescue!

As soon as I could, I headed off to get a new bearing. The person I talked to said he didn’t think they had anything that small but he looked in the computer and found what I needed. First problem solved. I asked if he knew where I could get the bearing replaced and he suggested I’d need a machine shop. I got on my phone and searched for machine shops in the area. I picked one that had been in business for quite a while and advertised that it was a family run company. I called, explained my problem and asked if they could help. He suggested that I bring the part in and he would look at it.

The door into the shop opened onto a dark hallway with a concrete floor and a sign pointing to a door down the hall to the right. I opened that door and saw a small room with a desk, a computer and various parts of machines on the desk and on the window sill. From the office I could see part of the shop itself with welding tanks, a drill press and other machines I didn’t recognize.

I waited for a few minutes until a short stocky man came around the corner. I explained what I needed and he took the scroll saw part and the new bearing out of the bag. He asked if I had a new bushing and when I said no, he turned the part over carefully in his hand and declared, “We make this work. We use the old one.” He asked me when I wanted the job finished and I told him I’d like it in the next couple of days. “I try my best. I do it as soon as I can,” he said. I wrote down my phone number on a pad of paper and he said he would call me when it was done.

I was a bit surprised when I got a call the next day saying the part was ready. It was late in the day and I told him I couldn’t pick it up then, but I’d be by the next day. When I arrived at his shop the next day I saw the part in a plastic bag sitting on the desk on top of the pad on which I had written my name and number. He came out of the back room and explained to me that he had found a new bushing and replaced the old one. He put the new bearing in and showed me the old one he took out. He also explained that he looked at the other bearing in the part and found it wasn’t seated properly so he pressed it back into the middle where it should be. I thanked him and asked how much I owed him. “No, no,” he said, “nothing.” I protested that it had cost him time and asked if I couldn’t pay him something. Again he said no but suggested that I write a Google review if I was happy with his work. I thanked him again and said I would write the review as soon as I got home. I also told him I would recommend his shop to anyone who needed a machine shop. He wished me a Merry Christmas and we were both smiling broadly when I left the shop.

I wrote the review when I got home and have had occasion to recommend him to one person so far. Getting the part fixed was a wonderful Christmas gift. I cleaned up the scroll saw, Richard was able to put the saw back together. I was then able to finish the ornaments much more quickly than I could have done with my jeweller’s saw.

Cleaning up the saw for reassembly

Sometimes when I watch too much of the news I’m convinced that the world is going to hell in a handbasket but then I meet someone like the machinist who, right in the middle of a busy time, was willing to spend his time to fix a niggly little part for me. He did more than I asked because he takes pride in his work and wanted the saw to work for me. It might not have taken him very long, I don’t know. What I do know is that he was generous with his time and skill and added something special to my preparations for Christmas. There is a story behind all of the objects I make and at the heart of this story is a man whose name I don’t know but whose smile I will always remember.

Back in business

Another rabbit hole

One of the things I love about being retired is the ability to investigate whatever strikes my fancy. We had friends over for dinner the other day and the talk turned to book binding. Craig makes lovely books and I bought one of his journals for Richard for his birthday. As we chatted it sounded more and more interesting so the next day I spent way too much time on YouTube looking at bookbinding videos.

I discovered that I have all the materials I need to bind books and there are a number of videos for beginners. Most of the videos suggest that linen thread is the best for binding. Off I went to Amazon but most of the thread there is expensive and already waxed. The video I was watching at the time recommended that you wax your own thread. I don’t remember the reason but it made sense at the time. The preferred wax is bee’s wax. It just so happens that I have a couple of pieces of bee’s wax courtesy of Mum’s sewing cabinet. She, too, used to sometimes wax her sewing thread.

So, where to find linen thread? Of course the videos give other possibilities of types of thread but finding linen thread became a challenge. At my lutherie lesson the next Tuesday I mentioned to Jake that I was on the lookout for linen thread. He thought for a moment and then said, “I think I might know where you can get some for free. Let me make a phone call.”

Later that day we headed to Bowden to visit a saddle maker Jake knew. He had been given a number of spools of linen thread at the dispersal of an estate. He couldn’t use them and hadn’t been able to sell them so he was giving them away. I came away with two spools with enough thread to last me and Craig forever. Being the curious sort, I also came away with an appreciation of how western saddles are made and the impeccable craftsmanship of Ocean Front Saddlery.

I couldn’t wait to try out some of the newly acquired linen thread so the next day I started looking up more complex ways of binding. I learned that the sections of pages folded together and then stitched to other sections to make a book are called signatures. Many of the sites talked about book cloth so I went on a search for that. Of course, you can buy it but you can also make your own. The easiest way is to use iron-on facing material used in garment construction. There’s also a product that has glue on both sides that you iron onto the fabric and then iron onto some kind of paper backing. Neither of those appealed to me and besides, part of the fun had become to find things I already had that would serve as bookmaking materials. Some people used white glue and others used wheat paste.

That one took me back to my childhood so I started looking up recipes for wheat paste. Turns out there are a few minor variations in the recipes and methods but all are pretty simple. I haven’t made any yet but it’s on the list.

A while ago one of my favourite shirts sprouted a hole and the material is so thin that there was no point in patching it. I took it into the shop to use for rags. As I was looking at book cloth information I thought of the shirt and went to retrieve it. Mostly book cloth is used for the spines of books but you can also use it on the covers. I’ve decided that I’m going to make the shirt into book cloth and make myself a journal / sketchbook. Add that to the list.

Another track led me to look up paper marbling. I’ve always admired the swirly patterns on the endpapers of old books and there are videos on how to do your own. You need a medium to slightly thicken water which you put in a tray and then spatter or drop ink or paint onto the surface. The colour spreads out and then you can manipulate it with the end of a paintbrush or special tools called rakes and combs which you can make fairly simply. This is another thing that is on my list to try. I have a bit of experience in making this kind of print because when I was in high school my long-suffering mother allowed me to put a layer of water in the bathtub and then drop oil-based inks onto the water and take prints from the oil. I remember making a number of cards and papers using that method. I also remember that I cleaned up after myself.

Part of what I find so attractive about bookmaking is that I can use up a bunch of the art and craft supplies that I have very carefully kept over the years. Sketch books are a good source of paper and I have already used one up in the dozen or so books I have made so far. I also have most of a ream of legal sized paper that I hardly ever use. Most of the videos on bookmaking suggest that you start out with ordinary printer or copy paper, which the legal sized paper is. Because I have framed a number of my coloured pencil pieces I have a small stock of matt board that will well for covers.

Of course all of this begs the question of what to do with the books when I get them made. I’ll use some of them and give some of them as gifts although not to friends that Craig and I have in common. He was there first after all. I will likely end up with more books than I know what to do with but at least some of the raw material in the house will have been transformed and I will have had a heck of a good time in the process. In case you are wondering, this will not replace my woodworking: it will complement it. I love working with wood but don’t get the chance to play much with colour. Books will give me a chance to use my coloured pencils to make things other than cards and framed pieces. I’m also experimenting with using old calendar pages pasted to file folders as cover material. So far this isn’t a huge success because the file folders curl despite pressing them between two boards.

All in all, there are enough materials and possibilities to keep me entertained for quite a while.