projects simple and not-so-simple

Sometimes projects skate along just as you imagined them, and sometimes—most times, I've come to believe—the project seems to grow in both breadth and depth the farther you get into it.

The Straightforward Project: Old Scissors

Last weekend DH and I decided on a whim to visit a flea market. We never do this, so it was extra fun browsing tables full of old dishes, board games, car parts and aloha shirts. On our way out I spotted this pair of giant scissors and bought them on a whim. They were old and rusty, but they were the largest pair of scissors I had ever seen. I wondered if they might be brought back to working condition. For $2, it seemed worth a shot.

A little steel wool, and some marks began to emerge:

R. Heinisch, Newark, NJ, USA

And on the reverse...

before sanding

"IF IT"S Detmer, IT'S THE BEST"

I think that's what it reads. Not so sure about the last letter of Detme-.

A web search on R. Heinisch mentions production between 1835-1914, when the company was bought by Wiss; and a glance at a 1915 Wiss catalog confirms that the Heinisch name was not retained. These scissors are around 100 years old.

After I had done all I could with the steel wool and chrome polish, I took them to a sewing machine repairman to be sharpened. His charge was only $9, but the scissors turned out to be for paper, not cloth. The difference, apparently, is in the angle of the bevel: dressmaking shears are angled at 30-45 degrees, while paper scissors are angled at 15 degrees. This is why one never cuts fabric with paper scissors and vice versa. Who knew?

In any case, it was a straightforward little project, just a bit of elbow grease and a visit to the repairman. Now what will I do with this humongous pair of office snips (shown here with our regular scissors for comparison)?

The Expanding Project: Old Refrigerator (part 1)

Another Freecycle find. I saw the listing once and ignored it; but when it was relisted, I couldn't resist saving it from the dump. The woman who offered it assured us that surface rust aside, it worked just fine. 

Indeed, the inside was quite clean:

I assumed I could sand down the rust and give it a new coat of paint; and my first efforts seemed to bear this out (color differences are due to photographing before and after photos at different times of day in a poorly lit garage):

the front

the latch

the side

Several coats of paint later, the fridge seemed good to go:

DH replaced the frayed power cord and I figured a good wipedown of the inside would do the trick.

Then I got to the gasket.

To be continued...

violin case to ukulele case

Once the Grizzly was made, it needed a case. My first plan was to try and revise the Gaspar gig bag, but then I lucked into this old violin case on freecycle. It turned out to be a perfect fit for a soprano ukulele.

As with the Grizzly, my documentation is spotty; but it's a fairly straightforward conversion. The old lining comes out and a fitted, padded lining is glued in its place. I used wood glue to attach fabric to plywood, but Super 77 made a smoother, stronger adhesion whenever foam was involved.

Some notes if you make your own version:

• try to keep the nap of the fabric running the same direction
• dry fit all the parts before you commit to glue
• don't be afraid to revise along the way (pictures below show how much revision I ended up making to the neck support before I was happy with it)
• feel free to substitute your preferred materials or what you have on hand.

materials used
wooden violin case
1/2" velcro strapping
piled fabric (mine was a scrap of Minky), about a yard
1/2" high density foam, about a yard
particle board or thin plywood scraps
wood glue
Super 77 spray adhesive
leather scrap from an old belt
short wood screws
corrugated plastic scraps
decorative paper

Mod Podge

lining removed from bottom half

cross-section: fiberboard, foam, fabric

wood glue brushed inside case

new lining added around edge

the old lining pulled out easily

small compartment under neck; lid is pressure fit

a broken belt used for the compartment strap

belt cut down and attached with short wood screws

the fully padded body area

Above the headstock, a removable container made from coroplast scraps and covered in origami paper 

Another compartment in the lid can store spare strings and papers

If you do make your own case, please consider linking to it in the comments below. I'd love to see other designs and ideas.

In other ukulele news, my ukulele group has grown over the last year, so I started a new blog for us here. If you enjoy uke talk, I hope you'll visit.

buying a singer 301

A Bay Area friend mentioned that she was looking for a Singer 301 and as luck would have it, there was one available in our area again. It was being offered at a garage sale on a day I couldn't make, but DH happily went in my stead—he loves anything mechanical, and he loves a good garage sale.

Knowing how solid these machines are, I was pretty certain he'd come home with it; and he did. It's a beautiful beige tone.

With the exception of a couple of tiny chips in the paint (one is visible in the photo above at the upper right near the handwheel) and a dark ring on the cabinet, it is in very clean condition. Look at the inside:

DH added some lubricant to the gears and oiled the moving parts, and the machine was ready to sew.

When buying a 301, it's important to be sure the bobbin case is present. The bobbin cases sit vertically and can easily drop out when the machine is moved.

And if you're a nerd, you may also want to check the serial number to date it.

Singer's site lists this machine as being made in 1956 in Anderson, South Carolina.

For $125, the machine came with nine bobbins, a box of attachments, an original Singer screwdriver plus a couple of extra screwdrivers, a buttonhole attachment, a zig zag attachment, and a photocopy of the original manual (the woman selling it had two 301s, but apparently only one manual). Manuals in .pdf form can also be downloaded for free here.

But the best thing that came with this machine was its cabinet:

This is actually a No. 47 cabinet, originally sold with the Singer 15-91s in the 1930s and 40s. Almost certainly the original owner (the grandmother of the woman who held the garage sale) had decided to upgrade her machine in the 1950s but kept her cabinet. My photo makes it look like one leg is lighter than the others, but that's just the sun. It's truly a lovely piece of furniture, with turned legs and an inlay of burl in the doors. I don't even mind the water ring. To me it suggests that its owner regularly kept a vase of fresh flowers on her machine when it was closed; it must have sat in the living or dining area.

Open, the cabinet has space for its accessories and half a dozen spools of thread. It operates with a knee press, keeping the floor space uncluttered.

How does it sound? It sounds just like a 301 should:

—and makes a perfect stitch:

I so enjoyed sewing with the machine in the cabinet that I suddenly remembered this table we'd picked up on, yup, Freecycle.

301 tables are fairly hard to come by, and when DH answered the post he'd told the woman offering it that she might want to consider selling it instead. She didn't: she just wanted it gone. It had a broken leg mechanism, and all she cared about was that it go to a home where it would be repaired and used. DH was able to fabricate the part, but I was so used to my 301 as a portable that I had not gotten around to trying it until yesterday. What a revelation: instead of bumping up out of our awkwardly round kitchen table, the 301 can sit flush in an uninterrupted sewing surface. I may even use it to finish the star quilt.

freecycle

A donation of tools to the Young Makers group got me thinking about Freecycle and how much I love it. It's a simple concept: keep items out of landfill by passing them directly to other people in your community who can use them. You can offer items or ask for items; more often than not, a match will be made. A friend told me that the very first ad she saw on Freecycle was for 30 bobby pins. 30 bobby pins?! But within a few days there was a second notice stating that the bobby pins had been claimed. You never know.

Long before this blog, I considered starting one called The Freecycle Chronicles after I'd noticed how Freecycle was a catalyst to so many good experiences. I once picked up someone's extra plums, for example, and got into a long discussion on her doorstep about Village Harvest and Senior Gleaners.

Then there was the young woman who asked for canning jars and when I offered some I wasn't using, left me a jar of spiced pear butter as thanks. The same woman later picked up an old table I had refinished and no longer had space for and, at a different time, some wool for a needle felting project she was finishing; she only needed a little bit, and I happened to have the colors she requested. You tend to run into the same people over and over in the Freecycle community, which is kind of fun.

In the photo above, S hangs in a string hammock chair, given away because the cushions had gone missing. I can't imagine that he would love it any more with cushions. He sits in it nearly every day that the weather allows. He reads in it, draws in it, sleeps in it and simply looks out at the yard. 

In the background of the same photo, you can see the trampoline we also got from Freecycle. One thing Freecycle really encourages is being bold about taking things apart and putting them back together. We have assembled two trampolines (the first blew into a fence in a strong wind and crumpled like a piece of paper) without instructions; it usually takes all of us working together to do it, but that's a good time, too, isn't it?

Here's the cat tower we picked up for a friend who wanted one for her newly-adopted kitten. It came scratched up, but we asked on Freecycle for carpet scraps and amazingly, received some in a matching shade of blue. Then S and I learned how to recarpet a cat tower together. All except the lower three platforms were redone.

We have passed the kids' bunkbed to a young couple who had just received custody of their nephews; passed a vintage Singer sewing machine to a Renaissance faire costumer, passed along furniture, books, a secondhand trumpet, even moving boxes. Just as we finished the cat tower, someone else asked for carpet remnants and we were able to give them what we had left.

And we have picked up: the entire sound system for our outdoor movie theater, a replacement measuring cup for the rice cooker, and parts for DH's robot project—among many things, all of them remembered with gratitude.

Spammers do hit Freecycle with regularity, but once you learn to spot the telltale signs (an item too good to be true, usually paired with a generated-looking gmail or yahoo account), you can just ignore them. For homeschoolers, Freecycle can be a source of books, art supplies, building materials and the sort of indefinable inspiration one gets from thinking about, in a brief time period, a box spring, quilt batting scraps, parts to an electric door opener, a grapevine wreath, and a roll of shrink wrap (all of which passed through Freecycle this morning). For diy'ers, it's indispensible for odd parts, tools, yarn, 2X4s, and old cotton t-shirts for rags.

And for everyone, Freecycle is another way to be connected to the people in your community, to help and be helped, strike up a conversation, learn something new, save time and money, and step on a path which might lead anywhere.

My favorite Freecycle find? It's Maggie. She barks too much, is overly territorial, and often gets into things which make her stink. We were her fifth home in 2 years and 4 years later, she is still insecure. But she is also sweet and truly devoted, lying quietly on my lap as I type this. You just can't buy that.

Join Freecycle here.