There has been a tool ban in effect since before Christmas. No new tools are allowed in either shop. It just reached the point that organizing was getting impossible…OK, I admit it…finding what I had reached crisis proportions. I did it because I had to.
The co-enablers, my wife, and my kids were warned not to provide me with new toys that would promptly go missing somewhere in the downstairs machine shop or outside the carving shop. Inventories, you say? Huh. You have no idea. I’m a carver; I have many, many small tools.
In any case, last night, I got around to the unpleasurable process of making more permanent frames for the most recent three or four ship portraits. The big miter trimmer has been pulled from storage and the boards rough cut. But something was missing. I couldn’t find my digital bevel gauge. I searched both shops twice, got down on my knees and, looked below the benches, checked a storage box or two. It was absolutely absent.
This morning I grabbed a cup of coffee, sat down to write this, and there it was, sitting on the shelf to the right of me by the computer monitor.
This migration of tools into the office has to stop. There is now a ban on tools in the office. That should resolve the problem.
Lou, a lack of such bans at our house ended up in our eventually having 7 studios in our house. Bob would get a new tool just so he had to build a new studio or vice versa–build on a new studio so he could buy more tools. I’ve probably told you this before….Just trying to ease your guilt. You once had a brother on this Earth that you didn’t even know about. I am still giving away his tools and supplies… Gave away an entire car full just a few weeks ago so he can continue to produce through the hands of others.
It’s a curse, but also a blessing, because the joy of creation is so intense. I would have loved to meet Bob – if only to start a Seven Steps Tool buyers Anonymous chapter with him – “Hi I’m Lou and it’s twelve hours and fourteen minutes since I bought a new tool.”
ha..Your studio looks a lot like all of his..evidence of frenetic activity and tools everywher. He did bigger projects, so certainly more sawdust and wood curls and stone chunks.
Funny you mention wood curls. The miter trimmer makes some impressive curls, so last night I took a bunch and started soaking them in shellac just to see if I might make something out of them. I no longer do bigger projects. Big trailboards, large eagles and such, I got tired of clamoring over ladders and such trying to mount them. Also the cost of getting the insurance needed to work in the boatyards was getting steep.
You and your tools and my husband and his computer parts. My argument is ‘if you cleaned up this place, you’d know where things are.’ That is met with stone-faced silence.
I have no idea what you are talking about, and I’m sure your sainted husband is a victim of persecution. We can’t help ourselves!
Tools have their own lives and very strong and powerful wills of their own.