OK, so that weasel ratted me out last week for not having a clean reference area. Fine. You want to play the game that way, I’ll play along. So, this week when i got home from work, I decided it was going to be time to clear out some items which had been accumulating in my reference storage area for a few years to see if I couldn’t neaten a few things up.

It was not going to be easy. I mean, I had books and magazines going back to the late 1990s on these shelves, and in those cabinet there, and near the nightstand… well, you get the idea. It was going to be cruel, but I knew it was going to be for the best. After all, without a way to catalog these items, how was I ever going to find anything that I needed?

So, I went into full purge mode. My rules were simple:

• Reference books, I kept
• Magazine special editions with design or shop ideas in them, I kept
• Plans I was given or bought, I kept
• Magazines I had actually built projects out of, I kept
• Photos of old projects, I kept

I was stunned by how many things I had gotten and forgotten about years ago. I mean, there were plans for projects I see every single day around my house, and plans for projects I no longer have. My son’s rocking horse. The half-round table at our entry. My youngest son’s bookshelf. The Halloween coffin we put out for the holiday.

I tucked those carefully into a holder and kept them for the day I may want to build them again. I also spirited away a few other choice magazines with plans for projects that caught my attention. You never know…

The rest? Well, the rest of the material went into three piles:

• Magazines and books I didn’t need anymore went in piles to the library
• Crap I accumulated over the years that had no value, I put into a recycle pile and
• Winning lottery tickets, I cashed.

There were not a lot of items in the last pile, but the kids spent most of yesterday trucking scores of magazines off to the library for others to learn the craft. I feel good that’s where they went.

Now look at that shelf. It’s easy to find the things I need, and it gives me some room to put a few more quality reference books. I’m liking the new space,

Now with that done, I can turn my full attention to what lies within these boxes from Bell Forest Products. And, is it ever beautiful… But, that’s another post for another day.

I loved – and still do love – the original Star Trek series. It was so forward thinking in its scope. I mean, it had Earthlings exploring deep into space, encountering new civilizations and attempting to make peace with them to bring them into alliance. Trying to avoid war at all costs, but not afraid to kick butt when it was important enough to do it.

Of all the character in the show, DeForest Kelly’s Bones McCoy was one of my favorites. He was grouchy, excitable, moody – but there was no one in Starfleet who was as skilled as he was. He could diagnose and treat just about anything that ailed the crew, and his country doctor mannerisms endeared him to the crew.

I must be getting the same reputation for fixing broken chairs. Back in 2011, I fixed a chair for friends who brought an antique model back from Sweden. Now, this year, I got a call from a couple of friends that Rhonda and I know very well. It seems they had a similar issue at their house where someone had broken one of their dining room chairs. Ooops. Could I fix it?

Damnit, Jim, I’m a woodworker, not a furniture repairman. But, knowing that our friends really needed the chair fixed, I agreed.

Wow, was it busted. The chair was held together with hanger bolts through the front legs and some wooden corner brackets screwed into place. What had happened was that someone had bounced onto the chair and snapped the corner brace, which loosened the entire assembly. OK, I had to think how I was going to do this.

The rails of the chair were held in place – well, there was no joint holding them in place. They simply butted to the leg, with this corner brace system. This was a blessing in disguise, because I knew I could help rebuild the joint using some other system. After scratching my head for a while, i thought that dowels would be the best option. So, the first thing was to take the piece apart.

With them all apart, I broke out my Joint Genie doweling jig and set it up to cut a series of holes in the rails and the legs. The jig gave me good alignment and made drilling matching holes easy.

With the holes bored in the rails and the matching holes in the legs, I filled the holes with dowel pins, but no glue. I figured that the chair may one day need to be broken apart again for repair, so using the dowels for alignment and joint reinforcement would make sense.

With the dowels in place, I clamped everything together and mounted the corner braces back in place. They had enough material left over to lock into the grooves on the rails, and I screwed them back into place and bolted everything together tightly.

Once I had that taken care of, I then reattached the seat to the frame with four long screws, and voila, the chair was ready for a test.

It’s actually a very comfortable chair, and it looks like it’s ready for many long years of service at the dining room table.

In the immortal words of Bones McCoy, I’m beginning to think I can cure a rainy day…

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Gino D. Weasel, and I am one of the regular shop weasels who loves to keep Tom and Iggy on their toes.

You have no doubt read of my exploits, and you know that my brethren and sisteren (?) enjoy nothing more than to hide tools. (Well, we also enjoy vanilla ice cream and Barry Manilow songs, but that’s another post for another day. After all, we can’t smile without him…) Since Iggy has cleaned up Tom’s shop, I need fresh territory to plunder from, and believe me, I found just the place.

Just look at this mess. Tom has been subscribing to woodworking magazines and buying woodworking books since many years before I was just a wee pup. They are a great resource, full of plans, techniques, tool reviews and woodworking wit and wisdom. But, man, he has absolutely no idea what’s buried in here.

Not only is the bookshelf packed, there is a SECOND hidey hole off to the side of his TV where he stashes even MORE woodworking goodies. Articles he printed from – get this – America Online when that was a big deal. I hear stories about it…

The funniest part is that I know both Tom and Iggy frequently refer back to this library of goodies. Now, wouldn’t it be funny if I had my way with the items in here and made a few of the more frequently referenced materials just – I dunno – vanish?  Oh, that would be worth tons of laughs for me!

So, here’s the deal, Tom and Iggy. You guys need to go through your reference materials and get them cleaned up, or they will continue to disappear just when you need them most. In fact, I’ll start with this book from this other Goombah woodworker. No one will miss this one!

Might I suggest, perhaps, that you be a little altruistic and consider donating some of these moldy oldies to the local library, or find a shop class that could use a little reference material for the students? Not a terrible idea if I say so myself.

Of course it’s a good idea. I’m a weasel, and that’s my job!

(A special thanks to Steven Iovino for his hard work on this post.)