Inkie's Hammer and Saw: Exercises in Home Improvement
Wherein Inkie, who remembers too much of Miss Manner's third-person personal-improvement column from his troubled past, yet incorporates those demons into his current repertoire, works on exterior improvement. At any rate, Inkie has decided he lacks a Self, and it is not worth the bother to go and find one, and so he will stick with the third person like glue.
Inkie has been studying woodworking, not because he thinks he'll be any good with it, but because, like Mount Everest, it is there. And besides if he learns enough about it, he won't have to pay other more professional persons to perform his woodworking needs. Specifically, he would like to learn to do house trim, make trellises, and put those doohickeys together that foresters use for sawing logs -- not sawhorses but sawsomethingorothers whose name he conveniently forgets. He might even construct a work bench. For certain though, and for his own safety, he will never aim to construct a chair or something that might be tempted to bear human weight.
To this end, he's purchased a few books, and as Dave Berry would say, this is absolutely true: He now owns The Complete Book of Woodworking, Trimwork 1-2-3, Trim Cmplete, and Home Repair Guide. When he gets his fireplace in order, cleaned of excess creosote and all, these will provide excellent kindling, which, after all, is the ultimate in woodworking: the carbonization of dead tree pulp.
This issue of the PanHistorian, we'll concentrate on a few tools of the trade.
Saws. There are several types of these. There's the drywall saw, used for cutting drywall to shape. There's the jig saw, used for making jigsaw puzzles, preferably out of wood rather than today's degenerate cardboard. There's the circular saw, used for cutting circles. The hand saw, used for cutting off hands, painfully as this is also hand-powered and thus slow. The miter saw is used to cut bishops' miters, those things they wear on their heads. Chain saws cut chains, but be forewarned: the backlash can be something fierce! A table saw is the height of luxury; Inkie will probably never have one, but with these you can full-form tables and the like.
There's hardwood and there's softwood. And seriously, he's also not making this up: hard wood comes from deciduous trees and softwood comes from evergreens. So that dead cedar that stands impervious in your yard to blasting attacks is a softwood, while that old live basswood that slices like butter is a hardwood. Reading this in The Complete Book of Woodworking sent a slivering shiver up Inkie's spine, let him tell you. It was like finding out Pluto isn't a planet, after all those decades of indoctrination. Why they didn't call them deciduouswood and coniferwood is beyond Inkie -- maybe too many syllables?
Vises. This more properly should be spelt "vices". Inkie has plenty of these. These are things that are supposed to hold bits of wood in place when you want to do something to them -- saw them, glue them, admire them. Actually, though, vices are things mortals get in trouble with when relating to whatever gods might be hovering over their shoulders. Inkie hears that his own major personal vice is slovenly behavior and appearance. To this he's attached many a proud timber! And that is what vices are about, whether spelled as vice or vise: they're about attachment.
Enough until next time. Inkie will now entertain a question or two about home improvement, construction, or anything vaguely similar:
Q.
Dear Mr. Fix-it,
What I have here is a warped board atop the railing on part of my upper deck. When the sun shines it looks like this.
In the winter, it's somewhat flatter. Notice the wicked looking fasterners there. One's a screw, one's a nail. Who knows why. I've tried beating it into submission, with no
success. I've also tried to pry up the other end and dispose of the whole problem. I can't do that either.
Any suggestions? -- Zoe
A. As they say in the software biz, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." It looks to Inkie like some previous inhabitant of your abode had this problem once before, and hammered in a nail to take care of the difficulty until he could flee to another part of the world. Apparently your nail and screw have since colluded and decided to rebel together. Adding in more nails and screws will cause your entire deck to go into revolt as they will instigate ALL the nails and screws to rebel.
After scratching his noggin at this conundrum, Inkie respectfully suggests you take those flowers he sees blooming in the background, and transplant them on and around the railing. You could place a wooden shelf of similar wood about ten inches below the railing on both sides of the railing, and set up boxes to hold your plantings. This will cover up the eyesore, at least when it is not winter, and who uses their deck in winter? Simply don't grow anything you'd want to pick close to that deadly-looking nail.
Alternatively, a well-aimed wrecking ball will solve that matter once and for all.
Q. My house insulation is shocking PINK. Shocking PINK. Is there something I can do about this? It is hidden behind neutral sheet rock, but I know it is there, and I know it is Shocking PINK. I'm ashamed, no matter that I'm the only one who knows it is there. Oh, the guys who installed it, is there a way I can track them down and remove them from existence? Can I turn the PINK to some other color? -- NO PINKO HERE.
A. They sell stuff in garden supply stores to change the acidity of soil so you can choose between pink or blue hydrangeas. Inkie suggests you buy the stuff for the blue hydrangeas and sprinkle it along the foundation and interior wall space. Your hidden insulation will turn blue, trust this. And keep in mind that removing people from existence is more bother than it is worth: you may end up in a pink prison cell.
Dr. Inkompotep Neferbath is by day a physician, but at night a
home improvement guru.
Please leave him your
home improvement questions to be answered in the next issue of The PanHistorian.