Matusalem

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My place is a real mess right now, as my teak grating photos show in the other post. You can see scraps from flooring in the corner. However, I have built my basement shop *specifically* to make furniture. I am a wood guy, as well as a modelmaker. We industrial designers need places to prototype stuff. My arsenal is as follows: 5X8 worktable with two 4-box power outlets...single most valuable shop thing I own, allows me to make fake pirate shoes, weapons, etc. two 4X6 workbench, one with a very large vise floor standing drill press router & table Bandsaw table saw combo belt & disc sander air compressor with 20 gallon tank paint spray gun fiberglass layup tools &chemicals (...modern boatmaking stuff) 4 ft wood-bending setup using 6-inch dia pvc pipe, a propane camp stove & kettle, though now I discovered the steam has now permantnly kinked my pipes various hand held tools: 4-inch grinder, sawzall, drills, belt and 4x4 sanders, clamps, etc. ...and a boatload of antique tools acquired from my great grandfather such as these drawknives (a.k.a. spokeshaves) though, I may say Islandcutter has one on us all...he has a computerized CNC router table that's like 5 ft by 10ft .

Actually, I made my life more difficult because the hole spacing is 1". Most dado blades such as mine's are maxed out at ¾", so I had to compensate very carefully. Honestly, I thought 1" spaces were the standard till I measured some examples after the fact. This is is a prototype...basically my first shot. Take a look at the deck of the HMS Bounty, though I gather the hole spacing is like 2½":

French privateer René Duguay-Trouin (1673-1736) served 1690 - 1736

Thanx again, all o' ye!

Back in the old days, sailing ships had hatches which were latticed wood. I remember a few decades and a fortnight ago when I used to work for a yacht manufacturer, seeing some of the skilled carpenters making such things out of teak. This is really tricky. I am embarking on a side business of various furniture. This is the beginning of a prototype one of a teak folding table. it has not been fine sanded yet.

I overheard recently in a conversation of a stranger "....yeah, his old lady finally karked it". I have never heard this term, but found myself trying to hold back my chuckles from hearing it. So, anyway, I wnt searching for various slangs used for death: Death Slang

No MadL, it's the US Customs. I would bet that you could smuggle an elephant past Canadian customs and they wouldn't even notice. I'm in the shoe business, and I have returned from Asia many times with samples of shoes by the bagful, and I get the 20 questions while under the hot lamp everytime. Once, I was held for 3 hours fo no reason at all ....just because US Customs likes to make people's lives miserable. Never once had I ever had a problem in another country. Well, the Brits are kind of anal but they let me pass through.

Everyone keeps saying that. I would have to agree. Lately, POTC movies have gathered dust on the shelf ,but M&C is usually in my dvd player at any given moment. I would say I've watched itat least 20 times, and found myself often saying "here we go again, scrape scrape screetch screetch ...it's never a tune you could dance to, as if they were drunk as Davey's sow" .

I kind of did the exact same thing, but I took an old pair of Frye boots and tried to replicate the shoe found on the 1717 Whydah shipwreck. I took the pieces of the boot shaft and sewed the monk strap style buckling, with cheap buckles from Walmart. This is the pinnacle of my fine great hand stitching ability, and of very fine quality(...ahem *cough*). Basically the Frye boot has a square toe and the big tapered heel, similar to the shoes of that day, which seemed like a suitable choice to work from. Now, I'm anxiously awaiting my new pair from Loyalist Arms, which I hope will come any day.

Thank Ye ladies, Thank ye. Rum solves all problems, we'll call it even!

17th century fish hooks

Wm. Red Wake wrote: Water in Utah?....it must've been pretty salty

Yeah, it was pretty sappy. Even my mom who (someone who was born there & knows a few of the people in the docu) watched it with us and got fed up also. The stuffiness of the family gets to you very quickly. There were a few people in particular that I had the inclination to kick down a stairway. I'd have more choice words to say, but I'd leave that to my late grandfather who worked at one of their factories back in the 1920's. I most dissapointed that it didn't focus on the trade itself, and instead it focused on the family's guilt trip. Sheesh! There weren't even any ships. Well, I will say I had to watch it because I was there. When the Bristol public schools (even Colt school is directly next to the mansion) taught that the major industry in town was the importation of rum, sugar & molasses, that's all we heard. Nothing about the slaves...even though we all knew.

MadL wrote I'm still watitng for mine. MadL, did you get this email notification? I got this notice last friday 2oth June

If you have the POTC1 dvd, set the language to french. Go to the climactic scene between Barbossa and Elizabeth in the captain's quarters somewhere about the time Elizabeth stabs Barbossa with the butter knife, and Barbossa blurts out 'bleeeaaaahh!' in french instead of the typical English "arrrr". It is the most hysterical thing you will ever hear.

I've had enough of the Heath Ledger film, it seems like it's on nearly every day. However jousting is making a comeback in Europe: Modern Day Jousting

Bill Moyers will be airing a movie called Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North on his show P.O.V. , which is principally about the Triangle trade route, which is basically about the dirty business cycle of making rum/bartering rum for african slaves/exchanging slaves for sugar & molasses in the caribbean/then back home to make more rum with the goods procured from the caribbean..so on & so forth. P.O.V. 10:00 PM (22:00) EST June 24th Tuesday night on your nearest PBS station Needless to say, it focuses on my old hometown, Bristol. R.I., and takes a pretty hard swipe at the DeWolf family, which we in town all know personally. After the end of the slave trade, some of them owned the very factories we worked for & looked up to. As for the actual slave trade itself, I will tell you that it was illicit and immoral business then and people then just looked the other way...which is how it was down in Newport a few years before with Tew, Bellamy, Kidd, Vane, etc when they showed up in town. It is an interesting fact when you are aware that your town holds a dark past, but this is not so honorable. Here's one of the actual rum factories: Our town historian on the dockside, 'tellin it like it was' to tourists: And the dock where it all went down. A good then&now picture:

That is a great site indeed! I found ministryofrum.com about 3 years ago. The site is owned by Ed Hamilton, a rum afficionado who lives on a sailboat somewhere in the Virgin Islands....I wish I could live a life like that. I have posted on their forum a long time ago. I picked up an issue of Caribbean Magazine a while ago and it featured an article about Ed Hamilton, and his top reccomendations, though I can't find the article. Though I seem to recall him mentioning things like Havana Club, which for obvious reasons, thanks to president JFK, we can't get in the states.

Of the 4 people in the United states with my full name, that leaves....4. Rogue, I agree. I share my father's name, and I also know that here are quite a few in New England with my name, and at least a hundred in Canada, of all places, particularly where the English language is frowned upon.

Us "grown-up kids"? us post-adolescent brethren/sistren? post-juvies?

Older folks should take getting carded as a compliment, not an insult. I like the dumbfounded look of the doorpersons when they see 1966 on my drivers license. I still remember watching tv, and seeing a live broadcast of Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon for the first time.

For those who are not familiar with the Chesapeake area, the Tangier island tongue is unique, you really have to hear it to believe it. They have spoken this way for over 300 years. and & a

Yes, my reference was off, on account, that if you look at the scale of miles in the lower left of the sat photo, the 10.92 mi sits right in that center mark. I would think that if you are going to create a scale measurement, it would make sense to put the number right on the mark, not on the whole distance as google did. It's kind of decieving. As for me, I am living in NJ, but it appears that there is a good chance that I am re-locating, by summer's end, to the Old Line State of Md, for which I am born and native to. Treasure the Chesapeake, as they say.