Sunday, September 04, 2011

Finishing Touches

We proved to ourselves that it really IS the little things.

The sheep yard has been in a temporary state of partial completion for some time now. It is a job that has been at the end of the to-do list WAY too long, all for the lack of a saw that will cut metal.

I visited Bunnings on Thursday last week and bought a bow pruning saw and a hacksaw. My expectation of the pruning saw is to make cutting down trees faster and easier, an upgrade, if you will, from my trusty wood-saw. The hacksaw, oh the hacksaw, I can do many, MANY marvellous things with such a creature.

For example I could cut the gutter to the right length, or put a notch in that piece of plate metal, or a myriad of other little jobs.

I chose to cut a bolt to make a gate latch. You see the gate has been hung, the fence fixed, and a chain to latch it found, but I was missing two crucial components. The screw in eye to hang the chain from and the bolt to close the chain onto. Then the planets aligned and I happened upon a screw in eye, and I had put "just the bolt" aside from a previous project(demolishing a fence).

All was going well until I had cut about a 1/4 of the way through the bolt, and the saw blade snapped. What was going to be a 10min job suddenly morphed into an hour job, it's lucky (MY)time is free.

I managed to struggle through and finish the job. It really is nice not to have to tie the gate closed with baling twine constantly.

Today I hung the second "drafting" gate in the sheep yard, but this is another temporary fix. I hope this one isn't temporary for too long!

1 comment:

  1. I feel your pain! to get a job done is equivalent to the heavens opening and hearing the celestial choir! May I suggest..... buy a mid range jig saw and then get different blades for it. You can get blades for wood, metal and plastic. I LOVE my cheap jig saw... just wish it were heavier duty.

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