Gettin' Old

First I have the heart attack. Next, the Missus takes her fall. And last weekend I ran into a former student with gray hair on his temples peeking out from under his ball cap. Man, I didn't think it had been that long since I had him in school. Of course, I think he might have spent a couple of extra years in 8th grade. In fact, I think they promoted him to high school just because they didn't have a lot for student parking at the middle school. Regardless, it has now come to this:

I'm putting the little doggie coat on Larry before he goes out. In my defense though, it was snowing. And I told the Missus there's no way I'm putting doggie boots on him unless he starts pulling a sled this winter. 

I managed to get the lathe running over the weekend. I still need to move the light and make a rack for the lathe tools but I made a round piece out of a square piece, so I've got that going for me. I'm going to have to think about sharpening the tools as they become dull. I sharpened the set I've got at school before I retired so they're good now but that won't last long. I've got a grinder in the other shop next to my lathe but that's not the best wheel for wood lathe tools and it's not handy at all to go from building to building to touch up a lathe tool. I bought a Wolverine grinding jig for the high school when I taught woodshop. When I took the turning class at the Marc Adams school, the instructor said it's the best way to go and it does make it easy to sharpen the turning tools. It's less than a hundred bucks for the basic set-up but I'd need a grinder as well. I'll start doing a little research and see what I can come up with.

I did manage to drag out a couple of pieces for the 900 swing arm the last couple of days as well. I'm going to try and get that all tacked together real soon. I'd sandblasted the arm quite a while ago and it's starting to rust. I need to get it together and get some primer on it. When I get that finished I can put it back under the bike and tackle widening the rear wheel. I need to get on this stuff. I don't want to start experiencing the Zeigernik Effect again. If I've got time to dress the dog before he goes out, I've got time to do a little fabricating. I've got a couple of jobs that I need to get to for other people and then I hope to start cranking it up.