Come winter, I miss the heated garage we had in North Battleford. While our Estevan garage is relatively warm, the small ceramic heater I used to employ in my old rusted out camper just doesn't put out enough heat to make it a shirtsleeves workspace.
It's in this garage where I am once again becoming familiar with my hand tools.
There was a time when I didn't leave the house without a toolbox in my vehicle. Initially that was because I drove unreliable vehicles. My camper van died on the side of the road no less than four times. In my starving university days I bought an old Volkswagen Rabbit from a friend for a loonie, spent three weekends under the hood and got it going again. I drove it for about four months until I sold it back to him for a toonie, and made a 100 per cent profit.
Later I would need to cart around a toolbox to keep my excavator and company truck going, doing things like oil changes and minor repairs. This came especially handy when two of the dual tires disintegrated on the same side.
Since then I have been able to afford reliable vehicles, and the toolbox ended up on or near the basement workbench.
Today I spend a few days a month woodworking. In particular, I build frames for very high quality canvas photo prints. The printer itself weighs 350 pounds and is the size of a love seat. I've just put together three of my largest frames to date, 96 inches (eight feet) by 36 inches (three feet). This has meant a different skill set, and extensive sanding.
It's possible to order pre-made stretcher bars, as these frames are known, from a manufacturer in Ontario, but the shipping is almost as much as the product. Looking at a $1,000 quote for these bars led me to picking up a table saw instead.
I'm slowly but surely figuring out how to rip exceedingly expensive lumber into 1-1/2 inch by 1-1/2 inch pieces. I learned the hard way one needs extra 90 degree clamps, because you will drop and break one right when you need it most.
The most important tools for this work are the electric drill and palm sander. I just discovered my quarter-sheet palm sander is starting to give up the ghost. Since this is also mission-critical, a replacement was picked up immediately.
My step dad was asking the other day about picking up a cordless drill. I pointed out that with a few hundred feet of electrical cord, I will outdrill him any day of the week after his battery dies. My power source is the coal-fired power plant six miles from my house. I don't expect it's going to die just before I drill my last two holes. Good point, he acknowledged.
When my daughter recently asked why I have so many tools in my workshop, I told her I have used every single one, and to never feel sorry for having tools. If there is one regret, it would be not having initially bought higher quality tools. I simply couldn't afford them. But then again, I'm not making my living with my screwdrivers these days. That means I have Canadian Tire Mastercraft, not Snap-On. If I was a mechanic, it would be Snap-On, and IF I was a carpenter, the Lee Valley catalogue would be the go-to place. This is the same reason, as a photographer, I use Nikon. If you make your living with it, using the best will pay for itself.
There's one problem with working in the garage. Taking nearly 15 minutes to scrape the windows on my wife's truck while it warms up was a good reminder that the garage needs to remain a garage, not a workshop.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
