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Re: How to make a board
Posted by Al Snow on 10/10/05
On 1/04/04, russ wrote:
> How to Make a Board
>
> by Dave Barry
>
> Most of what I know about carpentry, which is almost
> nothing, I learned in shop. I took shop during the
> Eisenhower administration, when boys took shop and girls
> took home economics--a code name for "cooking". Schools are
> not allowed to separate boys and girls like that any more.
>
> They're also not allowed to put students' heads in vises
> and tighten them, which is what our shop teacher, Mr.
> Schmidt, did to Ronnie Miller in the fifth grade when
> Ronnie used a chisel when he should have used a
> screwdriver. (Mr. Schmidt had strong feelings about how to
> use tools properly.) I guess he shouldn't have put Ronnie's
> head in the vise, but it (Ronnie's head) was no great prize
> to begin with, and you can bet Ronnie never confused
> chisels and screwdrivers in later life. Assuming he made it
> to later life.
>
> Under Mr. Schmidt's guidance, we hammered out hundreds of
> the ugliest and most useless objects the human mind can
> conceive of. Our first major project was a little bookshelf
> that you could also use as a stool. The idea was that
> someday you'd be looking for a book, when all of a sudden
> you'd urgently need a stool, so you'd just dump the books
> on the floor and there you'd be. At least I assume that was
> the thinking behind the bookshelf-stool. Mr. Schmidt
> designed it, and we students sure know better than to ask
> any questions.
>
> I regret today that I didn't take more shop in high school,
> because while I have never once used anything I know about
> the cosine and the tangent, I have used my shop skills to
> make many useful objects for my home. For example, I
> recently made a board.
>
> I use my board in many ways. I stand on it when I have to
> get socks out of the dryer and water has been sitting in
> our basement around the dryer for a few days, and has
> developed a pretty healthy layer of scum on top (plus
> heaven-only-knows-what new and predatory forms of life
> under- neath).
>
> I also use my board to squash spiders. (All spiders are
> deadly kill- ers. Don't believe any of the stuff you read
> in "National Geographic".)
>
> If you'd like to make a board, you'll need:
>
> Materials: A board, paint.
> Tools: A chisel, a handgun.
>
> Get your board at a lumberyard, but be prepared.
> Lumberyards reek of lunacy. They use a system of
> measurement that dates back to Colonial times, when people
> had brains the size of M&Ms. When they tell you a board is
> a "two-by-four", they mean it is NOT two inches by four
> inches. Likewise, a "one-by-six" is NOT one inch by six
> inches. So if you know what size board you want, tell the
> lumberperson you want some other size. If you don't know
> what size you want, tell him it's for squashing spi- ders.
> He'll know what you need.
>
> You should paint your board so people will know it's a home
> carpentry project, as opposed to a mere board. I suggest
> you use a darkish color, something along the lines of
> spider guts. Use your chisel to open the paint can. Have
> your gun ready in case Mr. Schmidt is lurking around.
>
> Once you've finished your board, you can move on to a more
> advanced project, such as a harpsichord. But if you're
> really going to get into home carpentry, you should have a
> home workshop. You will find that your workshop is very
> useful as a place to store lawn sprinklers and objects you
> intend to fix sometime before you die. My wife and I have
> worked out out a simple eight-step procedure for deciding
> which objects to store in my home workshop:
>
> My wife tells me an object is broken. For instance, she may
> say, "The lamp on my bedside table doesn't work."
> I wait several months, in case my wife is mistaken.
> My wife notifies me she is not mistaken. "Remember the lamp
> on my bedside table?" she says. "Yes?" I say. "Still
> broken," she says.
> I conduct a preliminary investigation. In the case of the
> lamp, I flick the switch and note that the lamp doesn't go
> on. "You're right," I tell my wife. "That lamp doesn't
> work."
> I wait 6 to 19 months, hoping that God will fix the lamp,
> or the Russians will attack us and the entire world will be
> a glowing heap of radioactive slag and nobody will care
> about the lamp anymore.
> My wife then alerts me that the lamp still doesn't
> work. "The lamp still doesn't work," she says, sometimes
> late at night.
> I try to repair the lamp on the spot. Usually, I look for a
> likely trouble spot and whack it with a blunt instrument.
> This often works on lamps. It rarely works on microwave
> ovens.
> If the on-the-spot repair doesn't work, I say: "I'll have
> to take this lamp down to the home workshop." This is my
> way of telling my wife that she should get another lamp if
> she has any short-term plans, say, to do any reading in
> bed.
> If you follow this procedure, after a few years you will
> have a great many broken objects in your home workshop. In
> the interim, however, it will look barren. This is why you
> need tools. To give your shop an attractive, nonbarren
> appearance, you should get several thousand dollars worth
> of tools and hang them from pegboards in a graceful display.
>
> Basically, there are four different kinds of tools:
>
> Tools You Can Hit Yourself With (hammers, axes).
> Tools You Can Cut Yourself With (saws, knives, hoes, axes).
> Tools You Can Stab Yourself With (screwdrivers, chisels).
> Tools That, If Dropped Just Right, Can Penetrate Your Foot
> (awls).
> I have a radial arm saw, which is like any other saw except
> that it has a blade that spins at several billion
> revolutions per second and therefore can sever your average
> arm in a trice. When I operate my rad- ial arm saw, I use a
> safety procedure that was developed by X-ray machine
> technicians: I leave the room.
>
> I turn off all the power in the house, leave a piece of
> wood near the saw, scurry to a safe distance, and turn the
> power back on. That is how I made my board.
>
> Once you get the hang of using your tools, you'll make all
> kinds of projects. Here are some other ones I've made:
>
> A length of rope.
> Wood with nails in it.
> Sawdust.
> If you'd like plans for any of these projects, just drop
> some money in an envelope and send it to me and I'll keep
> it.
>
>
> ![]() > src="http://www.angelfire.com/indie/russ/images/russSIG.gif"
>>
U are an Idiot, Good Luck
Posts on this thread, including this one
- How to make a board, 1/04/04, by russ.
- Re: How to make a board, 10/10/05, by Al Snow.
- Re: How to make a board, 5/09/08, by Kevin.
- Re: How to make a board, 8/31/08, by Lanie .
- Re: How to make a board, 9/23/09, by Dwayne Surdu-Miller.
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