The mighty sort out gets under way...

Stuff with the intention of sorting it out later...  Well, guess what? Later is here!

For the past few years the workshop has been badly neglected. A lot of 'stuff' has been dumped all over the place in various boxes with the intention of sorting it out later...  Well, guess what? Later is here!

The roof will get re-roofed as soon as we get some better weather and, if the weathermen can be believed, that will be this coming week. There are rolls of felt stacked and ready, felt nails awaiting a good bashing and all I need now is the odd sheet of structural ply to patch in any rotten bits where the water has been getting in. I will tell that story as it happens, but for now I have a bit of a mission on inside. Due to lack of use a lot of my tools have suffered from the lack of use. Nothing a spot of elbow grease and some polishing will not cure.

Before...

...and after a few minutes work with with a wire brush and wire-wool

A lack of use has allowed some of my steel tools to grow a light coat of rust, nothing serious but something that needs attention before it becomes so. Wooden shafts and handles have become dull and grubby. Even the resin handles of my joinery chisels have become dull and have a coat of grubby damp dust that feels horrible.

That's better, nice clean tools feel so much better in the hand

I started with some hammers. A couple of upholstery hammers had grown orange jackets. The handles were feeling very rough and somehow sticky where the previous finish had reacted badly to the cold and damp conditions. This process of decay is usually staved off with constant use. A long break away from the tools has allowed things to slip and I hate it when a tool feels unpleasant to hold, and look at for that matter. A few hours spent cleaning and polishing here and there will sort this out as I clear the floor and find a home for all this 'stuff'. Hmmm... Wanna buy some stuff? I think the listings of eBay might be swollen somewhat over the next few weeks.

The next job will be to evict the selection of squatters that have made it there job to make their home in every nook and cranny as well as covering the place with their waste - yes spiders do poo! At ground level the little fury fellows have been making nests out of anything they could find to chew on and make holes in the bags of stuff they can't actually eat. I picked up a bag of M6 bolts that poured out of several chew-holes all over the floor. That was an amusing moment, full of words I can't repeat here. The little fellows even found their way up the back of a chest and into the top drawer that was full of model railway scenery supplies in nice tidy packets awaiting use, by me not the department of mousing intent on providing accommodation for local transient rodent population. I am not sure what has happened but I have not seen any mice for months. I think the local cat and fox population may have wiped out our local chapter of little chewers. No evidence of their presence either. We never had a problem when we we were honoured serve our own cats, but since our last cat, Smokie, died back in 2012, we have been pestered by the little fellows on odd occasions.

The turning shed has not suffered the same amount of neglect. I have been in and out of there more regularly over the past few years and I re-roofed it last year as it was starting to let the water in. There is also not so much stuff in there to get damaged by the damp. The lathes are covered up and the tools are put away in boxes. There was the odd bit of rust here and there but nothing that would not have happened whatever the usage had been. The biggest problem here has been the damp making anything made of cardboard soft. The boxes for some of the jigs and accessories had become misshapen. A couple of days in the airing cupboard with make-shift formers inside soon got them back to shape and feeling solid again.

At the moment all this is ongoing. I am tidying and cleaning as I go, getting covered in dust, wire-wool shards, oil and other cleaning fluids and heaven knows what else, but it will be worth it in the end. Next job will be the bandsaw. Although this has seen regular use over the past few years it is time to give it a good clean, service and a blade change before it is press-ganged back into service.

Ralph.