Dad always had one. I learned how to sharpen a hoe to a nice edge when I was 6. Jane’s dad had one. We just never got around to getting one, assuming they’d be really pricey.
Well, some are, if you want to lay down 300.00. This one, from Skil, is 69.00, and will save our joints—bigtime. I mean, swinging a big mattock/pickaxe combo and holding on as a blunt 1/4 inch thick/3 inch wide blade hits baked sod from an overhead swing, that’s worth your elbows and wrists. I pushed to get this thing, found it on sale at Lowe’s, nabbed the last one, and I’m in love.
The one I grew up with, that Dad owned for sixty years, was an old cloth-wired motor with a single grinding wheel, and one thing he was careful about was being sure there was good light on that wheel and he’d looked at it before I used it. [A cracked wheel, spinning at mega-RPM, is dangerous.]
Well, our new baby has 2 wheels, one coarse (garden tools) and the other fine (shears, etc, though I wouldn’t sharpen kitchen cutlery on this one)…it has little lighted plastic shields that throw an led light down on the contact between the blade and the wheel, and it has guards on the grinding wheels that only make them accessible between 10 and 6 o’clock, on the clock scale. I’d be really tempted to remove those guards and the fancy little shields, but—the shields do keep the sparks out of your face (they sting about like a 4th of July sparkler) and the light is nice; and most of all, the guards might save you some injury if you did have a wheel break. On the other hand—you have to hand-rotate the wheel to get a good look at it, for a safety inspection, so well…but I’ll go ahead and leave the guards. Lord knows, I learned to cope with a Skilsaw with a guard on it (Dad’s never had)…I consider the guard itself a bit of a safety hazard, but can’t figure out how to remove it, and Jane wants it, so there. I didn’t grow up with a safety-trigger, either, but hey…
Anyway, back to our new baby. It’s so steady it doesn’t walk at all with the use I put it to, so with our light use, I’m leaving it unbolted-down so we can move it easily. And thus far we now have a shovel that bites, and two mattocks that will not bounce off a dandelion root, or even a small growth of brush. Most of all, if we hit rock and ding the blade, we just walk to the garage and flip a switch, ch-ching, and we have a new edge.
Being a woman who builds things and works in the garden…I can tell you the next-to-last thing any woman needs are ‘light’ tools, like a dainty little hammer that makes you work harder than a blacksmith to get what a nice hammer with some mass to it will deliver without effort. A dainty little saw with a crappy blade. Etc.
And what EVERYBODY who works with garden tools oughta consider is a nice bench grinder.
It’s a bit of a learning curve—forget the nice little ‘guide’ for getting the right angle: the balance of the tool will tell you, and thanks to that helpful guard I can’t get an edge on both sides of the curved mattock blade, but I sharpen what I can reach, and the difference is that between a butterknife and a steak knife, on the job at hand. You simply take an easy stance, balance what you’re holding comfortably, don’t bear down hard, just let the edge kiss the wheel till you get nice sparks, and keep it moving across the grinding wheel so you end up with an evenly ground edge, same as if you were sanding it: you don’t want to bear down in one spot, but spread the action evenly and cleanly.
Snoopy dance. I’ve wanted one of these forever, and they can turn a crappy hoe or shovel into a real nice one.
One of the best presents my mother gave me when I got my first apartment was a Kenmore ‘portable’ sewing machine. I say “portable’ because while it sat on a table and had a case it weighed a ton, which was good because I could sew anything on it and it wouldn’t travel with heavy fabric. Years later when we were living off the grid 1st husband’s aunt bought me a Kenmore treadle machine. It was a beauty in a nice cabinet and would sew anything. I made a bunch of leather nail aprons for Christmas presents one year. The neat thing about the treadle machine was the discovery that it was a slightly simpler version of my electric machine. It even took the same bobbins. 😀
I also have a little Singer featherweight which was invaluable when I had clients who needed alterations, mending etc. I taught one woman to sew on it.
I have a very nice bench grinder my partner gave me when he became too sick to use it. I was going to remount it after studio alterations, but have found that I like being able to move it around. I do most of my grinding outside as I am slightly paranoid about particle suspension. Dry clay particles stay suspended for up to 72 hours. Wear a mask and eye protection!
Another tool that I cannot do without is my Dremel tool. They come with an amazing number of bits and blades. I originally got mine with diamond bits to grind and polish hard to reach pottery places, now I cannot imagine life without it.
My mother gave me a used Singer when I started out on my own. I remember so well the pair of curtains she walked me through by phone. (We lived 2000 miles apart, unfortunately). I’d call her up, and she would tell me the next step, I’d hang up, execute and then call her back for the next step. The curtains turned out very well. She was a gifted seamstress and a wise and brilliant person.
I didn’t use the machine for a number of years and when I needed to make some Halloween costumes (Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, as I recall) I traded in the old machine, which had gotten a bit stubborn and sticky, for a new one. I guess it should have been a signal for me that the trade in value on the old one was extremely high! I would have done better by having the old one retuned, I guess. Those are indeed good machines. My mother knew what she was doing giving me an old one.
@ kokipy….ah long distance instructions! Reminds me of the time I taught Proge how to make a quiche when he was in SF and I in RI. He said the quiche was delicious! 😆
Those old sewing machines are worth their weight in gold. No they don’t have bells and whistles. But on the other hand they are pretty straight forward to maintain and are real work horses. 😉
I still have one of the old Singers, somewhere in a box. I think it has cloth wiring. I loved that machine: when you wanted to back up, you flipped the stitch-adjustment up, and it went backward…flip, flip, flip and you’d roughly sealed your seam. When you’re a kid, neatness on seams no one will see does not count highly.
My mom and sister 3 both sewed beautifully. My mother made all of our clothes until I was about 12 (for those of you who know my facebook moniker, some of the outfits are in my photos. Five girls, all dressed in matching outfits.) Unfortunately, when I *look* at fabric, it wrinkles; the patterns tear, and I can’t sew a straight seam to save my life, no matter how sophisticated the sewing machine. I was the bane of many a home ec teacher.