This split was not as clean as the first one, mainly because it was horizontal and I did not have enough plug and feathers to go round all four sides. I do have enough actually, but I lent them to someone (I cannot remember who) and never got them back. The ones I am using here are borrowed.
I have nine sets but I could only borrow six. To buy another nine sets would cost around £400 but they are only ever used once every ten years or so. At my age it is not worth buying more. I would say never to lend anyone expensive tools, but if the person I borrowed these from followed the same rule I would be stuffed.
I still have a lot of stone to shift from this block but I am not going to post up any more pictures until it becomes a bit more interesting.
The Summer of Art has begun. At the gallery over the road all the hopefuls are submitting their work for the exhibition which will run through the dog days, when the director will probably go on a well-deserved trip, possibly to Venice. This show runs itself. H.I. is preparing for her Summer Schools, and the participants of them treat the week-long courses as their summer holiday. Pre Covid, our holidays to places like Venice were always as out of season as a teacher's can be.
I went to sleep listening to the local election news last night, and by 6.00am the journalists were all slightly slurred and hysterical through lack of sleep. They were not as bruising as Boris deserved, though they did lose Westminster which is something to be celebrated. Maybe there will be something approaching a decent opposition after all.
Horizontal a little less predictable split. Do you have to examine carefully to select the point at which you go for it?
ReplyDeleteYou have to examine everything constantly before you commit. Same with most things.
DeleteVacation when nobody else is vacationing is the best. How many more splits will you have to make? I'd imagine you and the customer have a certain dimension in mind for the finished piece.
ReplyDeleteThat was the last split. Everything else is done with chisels and points of varying sensitivity. I have the dimension in mind and the customer takes my word for it.
DeleteMy grandfather had tools galore but he refused to lend any to me - not for meanness but because he insisted that in buying my own I would gradually build a collection to last me a lifetime. He was right of course.
ReplyDeleteOver the last forty years I have built up a collection of hand tools which would cost £1000s to replace new. I stopped buying them about 25 years ago, because - ironically - despite having 100s of chisels, only about 5 or 6 are regularly used.
DeleteAre you joking with that last sentence?
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, but who am I to judge.
DeleteI think that a block of stone to hammer on might be a helpful thing during the election season. Can I borrow a hammer?
ReplyDeleteI know longer lend tools to people who want to hammer other tools.
DeleteBahaaaaaaa!
DeleteI love tools. There pretty much is one for every job, as you, know. I didn't feel bad borrowing my dad's tools; he was past using them, sadly, and my brother knew where they were if he wanted something.
ReplyDeleteMy father had old German guns which he used to hide.
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