It pays to keep an eye on Craigslist...

[Jon Toebbe]

Note: What follows is an entirely shameless series of gloats regarding recent tool purchases of a galootish nature. Viewer discretion is advised.

Since going back to grad school, we've rented out our house, moved to a much smaller apartment and (*sob*) sold off most of my tools. The theory was that I'd be able to replace them all down the road, and I wouldn't have time to do much woodworking while writing a dissertation anyway. So much for theory. Pinched for time or not, I've discovered I need to do something tangible and physical and real with my hands to preserve my sanity -- especially while spending my days puzzling through quantum mechanics. Long story short (too late!), I'm turning our front porch into a wee little neander shop. My workbench is a weighted-down Workmate (pretty good, actually) that gets tucked behind the grill when I'm done working for the day. Fool that I am, however, I'd sold off my lovingly restored and tuned vintage Stanley planes in the mother of all garage sales (*sob* *dopeslap*). In other words, I've been "in the market."

I purchased a set of Mujingfang planes from a fellow in China advertising on fleaBay. The wait for the Chinese Postal Service, Customs, and the U.S. Postal Service was interminable, but the wait was worth it. Those babies sing! The irons were a little rough around the edges, but that cleaned up easily enough with some coarse sandpaper. They're really lovely planes -- especially for the price! Gloat no. 1.

In the process of sharpening the irons I discovered that I hate dealing with spray glue and changing sandpaper on my wee little marble tiles. ScarySharp works, and works well. It's a great way to start out, but I was ready to get some "real" sharpening kit. Since I'm studying a Colorado School of Mines I toddled up the road to the Spyderco headquarters and factory outlet store to check out their ceramic bench stones. Having read about flatness issues with these stones, I came prepared with a good straight-edge... but all their product was packaged, and the salesman wasn't too keen on letting me open every blister pack in the store. He assured me that he'd happily accept a return or exchange if I wasn't satisfied, so I took a medium (brown) and a fine (white) stone home with me.

Out came the chisels for a touch up, and I quickly discovered that the medium stone was perfect, right from the get-go. It cut quickly, and with a sprinkle of water to keep things from clogging up, works just beautifully. Then I took a close look at the white stone... ugh. Back to the store it went. The salesman I spoke to earlier wasn't in, but the store manager took a look at the stone and said "wait here a sec. We just got a new shipment in." She returned with a case of freshly fired stones, un-blister-packed. I spent about 10 minutes checking all of them and found several that were as warped as my first, several that were a bit better, and two that were perfect. Voila! Back to the chisels, turn the burr, snicker-snack and off to the strop. Nose-hair-counting sharp in no-time with minimal mess and none of that wretched spray glue residue everywhere. Bliss. Gloat no. 2.

If you've held on this long, you're probably wondering why this thread title mentions Craigslist. Patience, dear reader... we're getting there. To whit: amid the usual piles of "$75 table saw, WORKS GREAT!" and "Black and Decker Circular Saw, $25 obo, no power cord" listings, I spot... no, it couldn't be... *double-take*

Veritas Block Plane, new-in-box, $140

Not just any block plane mind you, but the new DX60 low-angle block plane that I've been lusting after. Play it cool Jon... I send off an email offering $120, and the seller writes back: "Sure, I don't have any use for it. Come and get it." Woo-hoo! Quick as a whistle, I'm stuffing $20 bills into the man's hands and cackling like a maniac. My own! My precious! It was, as advertised, brand-spanking-still-in-the-rust-preventing-paper-not-even-a-fingerprint-on-it-new.

The machining was perfect, the iron was dead flat, and it fit my hand like the proverbial glove. I sharpened up the iron in (no joke, I timed it) 30 seconds to a truly terrifying level of sharpness, and put it to some pine end-grain for a test run. There would be the obligatory photos, but it was already dark when I got it home, and did I mention my workshop is a porch? Let's just say the lighting wasn't the best. Regardless, the result was magnificent, and nearly effortless to achieve.

All of a sudden I see a lot of edges in desperate and immediate need of chamfering... Gloat no. 3.

I'm afraid I have no really profound insight to share here, no kernel of woodworking wisdom gleaned from the dross of thousands of hours of labor. But I'm glad to be woodworking again, and feeling chuffed about my recent tool purchases. Just thought I'd share.

[Jim Koepke]

Yep, gotta keep looking everywhere there is a whiff of rust or in your case, wrapping paper.

jim

[Brian Kent]

I've never tasted the savory experience of the Lee Valley block plane, but I know those Mujingfangs can sing! Congratulations.

[Sam Takeuchi]

Nice purchase indeed.

I just wanted to tell you one thing about stones. You don't need to take straightedge on it or return it when it's not "flat". If it's not flat, you simply flatten it. Unless it's really warped to a degree of defect, you just flatten it with a diamond stone or toss it up on your scary sharp setup. Stones don't stay flat and you'll need to keep flattening it as you use them.

[Wayne Sparkman]

Pulling back to the Craig's List thread topic, I'll share that I had never used CL until I started watching the Creek.

Last week, almost on my first attempt, I found a fellow who needed to move out of his house quickly and get rid of some walnut. The photo looked promising. It turned out to be a mix of 2 x 4's and 5/8 inch thick x 96 long pieces, variously 3, 4 and 5 inches wide. A total of about 120 board feet for $50.00 !!!

[Jon Toebbe]

I just wanted to tell you one thing about stones. You don't need to take straightedge on it or return it when it's not "flat". If it's not flat, you simply flatten it. Unless it's really warped to a degree of defect, you just flatten it with a diamond stone or toss it up on your scary sharp setup. Stones don't stay flat and you'll need to keep flattening it as you use them.

From what I've been reading, these ceramic stones are a real bear to get true. Spyderco's claimed tolerance is 0.020 in (I'll leave it to the machinists to argue about precisely what that actually means, but I suspect it involves a straight-edge and a feeler gauge). When they fire the stones in the kiln, they can warp pretty significantly. Evidently it's not enough to trouble folks who freehand sharpen their knives.

You're right that all stones will wear, but ceramic stones are hard enough that I shouldn't ever need to worry about the fine stone, and the medium grit stone will wear much more slowly than any waterstone. In short, once these stones are flat, they'll stay that way "forever" (for values of "forever" much less than forever, but much greater than I'm likely to need to worry about ).

I could have lapped the stone flat myself... but the factory is just up the road, and the folks behind the counter didn't mind me rooting around their stockroom until I was happy. It sure saved me some elbow grease, if the lapping horror stories I've read are to be believed.

[Jon Toebbe]

Last week, almost on my first attempt, I found a fellow who needed to move out of his house quickly and get rid of some walnut. The photo looked promising. It turned out to be a mix of 2 x 4's and 5/8 inch thick x 96 long pieces, variously 3, 4 and 5 inches wide. A total of about 120 board feet for $50.00 !!!

Now that's one serious gloat! Congrats!

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

if they really are ebony they might be worth buying just for the wood.

[Josh Reet]

For anyone who is a CL junkie and uses an iphone, you might take a look at a program called Scout from these guys:

http://www.octopialabs.com/

Essentially you set up searches on CL and it checks for new items then alerts you when something new has been posted. It works pretty well and I have used it to get a few nifty household things (though, alas no tools yet).

Drawbacks are that you have to pick one CL to search (you can't give it an area like "Washington State" or "Southern California"). So if you are in the middle of multiple CL locations, you have to set up multiple searches. The alerts aren't instant, Scout checks CL at some predetermined interval that I'm not sure what the timeframe is. But I seem to get stuff between 10 and 90 minutes after it has been posted on average. Not perfect, but still faster than relying on checking it myself. And sometimes I get the same results "alerted" to me more than once after I have marked them as "read".

But overall, I like it a lot and it has helped me keep an eye on prices for a truck that I'm thinking of selling, keep an eye out for some specific tools amid the previously mentioned "cord missing" junk, and pick up a 'little tikes' slide for the toddler of the house. Not bad in my book.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I know the guy who wrote this program and call him a friend. I have no financial interest in the program, but one could say that I have a slight connection to it. If that makes this a spam post, please delete and no hard feelings.

[Philip Rodriquez]

John, nice snag. I saw the LV block plane, too. Fortunate for you, I aready have 2 LN BPs . Sorry to hear that you no longer have a shop. Where are you located? I am out by E470 and Arapahoe. PM me if you're close. I'm always looking for company in my shop... but my wife hates the noise.