Tuba Fours

I’ve completed testing the four chisels I wanted to test, but I kind of decided that it might be nice to add a Narex Richter, which by spec and by finish appears to be decent, especially considering it’s a straight forward drop forged plain steel machine finished chisel, and with the bloated network of distribution we see these days and to some extent always have, you can get such a chisel for less than $50.

Could I make something like that? No. If I ever make chisels, they’ll be at least $100 per.

Another set caught my eye discussing things and that was a horn tooting that I often do, which is if you can make aldi type chisels in china for less than $1 per, why can’t you spend five bucks in production and make something with a better finish, better heat treatment process (like molten salt or lead and some thermal cycles along with that) and surplus carbon steel instead of minus carbon steel. Minus carbon allows heat treatment that’s pretty much make it hot, quench and temper – plus carbon generally doesn’t.

So, I found out of curiosity a listing of chisels on Amazon from china that are about $10 each at retail or so, claim to be 100crv (generic name for a 1% carbon steel with minimal additions of chromium and vanadium – makes things a little easier and prevents brittle edges) and salt bath heat treated. And the chisels appear to be machine finished but more neatly than the typical china stuff.

They claim to be 59 hardness, but I suspect that’s just copying ad copy details. So, we’ll see how those do, too. I struggle all the time when someone says “what chisel would you recommend?” It’s not like five people ask that a day, but once a month maybe and I always bend my mind. I could make a nice set for about $100, but realistically that’s at my cost of materials and consumables for a set of five. I’m curious about these two, though – the richters, and then a 1% carbon set that costs the same in a set of five or six as one richter. there’s no reason that a good bench chisel needs to be expensive, it’s just there’s no reason for someone to retail a good chisel because …

…..how many people do you think buying aldi chisels are looking to make dovetails vs. walking past at aldi or harbor freight and saying “my chisels rusted, I need a new set” and then the next thing you know, those chisel are opening paint cans, scraping grout and chopping door jambs.

Good God, I cannot help going on. The point of this is something I found while visiting my parents. Tubafours.

Tubafours?

I think any of us who found a gift for problem solving and maybe not verbal efficiency or “rizz” or other such things probably have a fair chance of ending up on the spectrum – or being identified as being there. I’ve never been diagnosed, but the spectrum is a spectrum. I can write well for work and very to the point when being paid, and considering the respect for clients who are paying quite a lot for me to do what I would want someone to do for me about a subject that was important but I couldn’t learn and apply as the client.

One of the things that occurs in my head is connecting things. I connect Carbon V steel in old case or Camillus knives to 100crv. I connect statements of words that mean something but sound identical to something else or close that’s not implied, well, my brain explores both routes at once. By that, I mean it just happens, I don’t ponder consciously, it’s just there. It’s happened since I was a kid.

One of the things people who speak poorly say where I’m from is “TUbafours” (Two-by-fours). You’ve probably had that happen even if you’re not a little on the “problem solvey and not pattern recognizey” kinds of ends.

Two by fours have no great big place in my shop other than to make shelving. if I had left over offcuts, I’d use them instead. What’s a virtue of 2x4s and 2x10s and such in a typical shop other than being able to screw them if they’re not very old – and no pre drilling? they’re cheap. But when I think about how they end up in houses vs what barns look like and what the wood inside my parents’ house (1924, houses is stone with plaster walls) but inside some attic areas, you can see the lumber that was used. It’s hardwood in some places and all rough.

Dad’s burdened with taking care of mom, who is now no longer to process information or communicate or really recognize anything. It’s not really a pleasant situation, but it’s part of getting old and later years can be tough. As my mom aged, she gathered stuff because she was a crafter. her ability to see something and think of a use for it went haywire, and dad doesn’t mind much as long as it’s not in the living space. In getting rid of much of the accumulated nonsense, we’ve found things long forgotten.

One is oak tubafours.

This one was rough, so I planed it, but I spotted these laying in the upper part of one of the two garages that dad has (not a great situation for a parent losing their memory and wanting to keep everything! Two multi-floor garages)…the only thing dad has kept after the junk man went through is some original doors to the house that are still in good shape – just not wanted – and a stack of these. Oh, and the shiny bits at the top of it. out of curiosity, I want to apply varnish to it and see how it looks, so it got a first coat of varnish on the end.

So, these don’t have some kind of far off “back in 1924” story. Our hillside was a quarry for granite, and thus the house is granite. It was stripped clean at least once of trees and is now covered with all kinds of stuff, but the largest of the trees in a second or third growth forest like this are red oaks. There is no market for it, but when this wood was sawn – around 1982, it was at least used for utility wood instead of allowing it to sit and rot only to drive to home depot and buy wood that nobody would’ve used 80 years ago.

What’s the significance of this 2×4 besides that? nothing other than it survived. It survived because it has a knot in it. What was the wood in this case purchased for? it was purchased from Green’s saw mill to make a goat house. That’s right. This is “utility junk wood” and Greens probably charged the current equivalent of a dollar a board foot or so for these. On a few occasions, dad took logs to Green’s on his own. The saw mill no longer exists and I don’t remember it, I was too young. I have several things made from the wood sawn there and another local mill, though, from Oak to an old pasture walnut tree that my grandfather had sawn.

I don’t have any real big ideals to spout here other than that kind of nagging thing – we let wood like this lay on the ground now, and buy garbage at home depot out of convenience. If Greens operated anywhere close to where I live now, it would probably get zoned and taxed out of existence, and someone would complain about noise or the smell of wood. Even where I grew up, complaining about neighbors is probably much more popular – well, it definitely is. if someone was doing work when I was a kid, sawing wood or whatever it may have been, we looked the other way. “Leave them alone, they’re doing something”.

Too bad. It’d be nice to have this as utility wood now. Rift oak as a default construction lumber. Who could imagine that now.