Grapefruit

[Will Reyer]

Grapefruit
12/23/15

My Dad used to have this saying he'd run out every now and then. I suspect it probably had several layers of meaning. He used to say “You can't tell by looking at a grapefruit how far it will squirt.”

Seems like I recall James Cagney shoving half a grapefruit in some woman's face in an old black & white movie. Dad was of that generation, Cagney's, so maybe the significance is just beyond me.

I like grapefruit a lot, juice or the actual fruit. Texas Red or the regular old Florida kind. I hardly ever have them, or the juice, any more as something about the juice makes the meds I take ineffectual.

I've been working for the better part of the year on building my fifth guitar. I'm making an attempt this time to not make minimalist machines, but to go through the real complete luthier grade form, with deeper lower bout, actual tonewood soundboard with rosette, radiused fingerboard, pearl logo inlay, etc.

I started this, as well as guitar #6 with sides still in the mold, way last spring but I'm having to make new fixtures and jigs to accommodate the more traditional forms.

Today I was in the process of constructing a new router table to cut the rabbets for the guitar binding, as unlike my first 4 guitars with parallel soundboard and back, the Orchestra Model plan I'm following has a lower bout that's deeper than the upper bout, the back curving to achieve this. Needs a new fixture.

This router table construction required a new Harbor Freight $26 laminate trimmer dedicated to drive the router bit, which in turn required a precisely sized opening in the table to recess it's base in. To do this I got out my oldest router, a Sears Craftsman that Pam says she bought me in 1969.

I've got more routers. Another HF laminate trimmer is converted to be a purfling plane. A big, professional grade Porter Cable with both 1/4” and 1/2” collets and a spare base to convert it to a plunge router. A good Ryobi, the cheapest router the big-box store had.

The old Sears came with 3 guide bushings of different sizes. I picked the one most useful to work with a 1/4” bit and did the math on the difference between the radii of the bit and the bushing, added the difference all around and made a female template for the bushing to ride in.

The Sears came in a plastic blow-moulded case that's largely deteriorated, cracked and broken over the years, and the router's caked with pitch and resin from years of doing carpentry projects using pine. What it has that the others don't have is a pistol-type trigger inset into the right handgrip, permitting hands-on starts and stops. All the rest of my routers you have to take one hand off a handle and throw a toggle or rocker switch, while the starting torque wants to move it out of your holding hand.

I taught Drafting for 9 years in a big city Junior High as part of a 5-man Industrial Arts Department back in the 1970's. Except I taught 1 hour of Wood Shop, during that teacher's planning hour. He asked for input on routers so I told him I liked that Sears model as the students could keep both hands on the control handles while starting and stopping it, a useful safety feature.

We bought some of these like mine for the School Shop. There's a cable running from the trigger to the motor housing, where the actual switch resides. Every year the cables would break on the school routers, mine's still going strong 46 years now, may well outlast me. You can't tell by looking at a grapefruit how far it will squirt.

And it's got nothing to do with brands. Sears didn't make routers, they took bids from companies that did. I did carpentry summers when I taught, my first year's teacher's salary being $4900. Sears tools were inexpensive. I bought a set of their socket wrenches. One of their rachets broke over the years, and they replaced it with a new one. They wanted to give me a rebuilt one, but I said no. The sockets all work fine, even driven by an impact wrench, something they weren't designed for.

I bought a Sears commercial circular saw, for framing homes in the summers. It ran two years and died. Sent it to California to be rebuilt. Ran another year and died. Bought a Milwaukee worm-drive saw to replace it that's easily run 40 years now. If you can get 20 amps to it it won't stall, even in green or wet wood. You can't tell by looking at a grapefruit how far it will squirt.

I bought one of the first Grizzly 10” builder's table saws made, with extension guide bars for the rip fence with the welds still showing where Grizzly pieced them together to get the length required to be able to cross-cut cabinet plywood sheets. The sheet metal base was flimsy, you could tip the saw over pushing 3/4” plywood through it until I screwed a piece of plywood on the bottom and we weighted it down with concrete blocks. Worked fine, only sold it when I retired to the current shop and bought a cabinet saw. Never had shop tools, just carpentry tools, as when I was teaching I could use the school's tools.

I've also got a Grizzly 14” band saw with tension release for the blade and better side guides than the Delta saws we always had in school shops, a great, inexpensive tool. I also bought a Grizzly combination 12” disc sander and 48” belt sander, the worst piece of junk I've ever owned. You can't tell by looking at a grapefruit how far it will squirt.

Tradesman's tools are like firearms, they both get used hard and put away wet. Buy inexpensive of either. If they die, buy a better one next time. It isn't what you've got but what you can do with what you have that counts.

[Dave Bagwill]

That's a well-done narrative, Will, thanks. Comes from real experience.

[ken cierp]

Good stuff --- Thank you