Follow up to previous post.

Kane the owner of CFP has asked me to leave and not come back. Imagine my surprise. The following was my reply.

 Fat chance. It's a term many use to distinguish between decent hard working honest blacks and the criminals who lack any measure of decency and self control. I don't hesitate to call whites with the same problem cracker trash either. I dare say I've spent more time working with blacks and dealing with their everyday problems than you ever will.

Tell us then how many times have you been sued by blacks for trying to protect them under contractual obligations just because the final legal decision didn't go their way or they didn't want the rules that applied to everyone else to apply to them?

So maybe try to prove my contentions wrong. Or have you just become another sanctimonious fool pounding his chest saying "look at me I called out a racist?"  Or are you just another coward afraid of being cancelled by silicon valley?

Truths can be ugly and they don't know color or race. I thought you knew that but I guess I was wrong. The 13-50 problem is real and it is racial not racist, like it or not. Refusing to acknowledge it is a form of racism far worse than saying groid because it perpetuates the suffering of the victims, both black and white and creates even more of them. The sooner we admit it and address it openly the sooner if can be fixed.

You need to do some serious thinking. You're either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. That problem being refusing to face ugly truths head on and instead pretending they don't exist.

The Moderation Disease

During the last election cycle and new news aggregate site called "Citizens Free Press" came on line as an alternative to the Drudge Report. Up till very recently it has been unabashedly conversation and open and freewheeling. But now they seem to have become infected with the silicon valley disease of "moderation" and are apparently afraid of harsh truths that some might take offence at and call racist. Below find a post I put up in there open comment section. It almost immediately went into the "awaiting moderation" pile where it will no doubt remain.

Is CFP now going woke? I’m not a racist by nature. Never have been. I spent a good piece of my career as a shop steward and union president in an over 40% black industrial plant. BUT, I am among the growing number of people who are sick and tired of governments giving a free pass and or making excuses for all manner of not just bad behavior but outright criminal behavior especially to blacks.

Nobody but nobody wants to admit or discuss the fact that we have a serious 13-50 problem. It’s not even a 13-50 problem. More like a 5-50 problem.
50% or more of murders and violent crimes are committed by blacks. And no it’s not all blacks. It’s primarily young black males between 18 and 35.

If white society is to bare any blame for this it’s because for a long time there had been an attitude if as long as they were victimizing each other we didn’t care. And yes that’s wrong. But it’s also wrong that black society in general has largely refused to cooperate in ridding there own community of the criminals in their midst.

Mix into this bleeding heart judges and prosecutors who file reduced charges and hand out probation etc. for violent crimes. Of course then these criminals become even more contemptuous of the system and turn right around and commit more crimes. And those they prey upon don’t believe there is any justice either when they see the thug that robbed them or assaulted them right back on the street.

As a result many inner city black families end up living in conditions of fear and criminal oppression worse than the conditions of any plantation of the antebellum south.

If the problems in black communities are ever going to be solved it going to have to start with them and yes more policing not less. Blaming whitey and demanding more welfare has failed. Time for another path to be found.

If this little rant gets me banned from CFP so be it. It needed to be said.

The Latest From The Workshop. Part 3.

 So what good is a vanity table or a desk without a place to sit? As no chair or stool was found with them this question necessitated my venturing from furniture refinishing and into furniture making.

The legs are made from pine 2x2 stock. The corners are routed with a cove bit and the faces routed with a 1/4" straight bit these face cuts were then inlaid with strips of Bradford Pear. These legs were then fitted into a plywood and pine top frame. As the legs we cut at a compound bias of 5° the frame parts had to be cut at matching angles to create tight pockets that the legs were fit into. 

After applying lots of glue in the pockets the legs were further secured with a 2-1/2" screw through the top of the frame.

The outside of this frame was then wrapped with pieces of poplar recycled from the drawer sides mentioned in the previous post. A centerline support rail was also added made from the same 1/4" poplar. These were a left standing proud by about 3/8" to facilitate the attachment of the seat slats that are made from the same Bradford Pear that was used on the leg inlay. These are attached with glue and brads set below the surface and filled with plastic wood stained to match the color of the stained wood. As with the previous pieces numerous coats of polyurethane were applied and then polished with 2500 grit sand paper.

The distinctive grain of this wood makes for eye catching detail on the finished piece.

The Latest From The Workshop. Part 2

 This second piece was a more complicated task. It was also in far worse condition. It suffered from years of abuse as well as some poorly executed previous repairs.

As can be seen below the finish was all but gone and there were numerous stains and splits in the wood.

The pulls on the side drawers were about as cheap and featureless as could be imagined

 Those on the other drawer were missing entirely. In short there was nothing that set this piece off or gave it any visual appeal. 

Fortunately the rolltop itself still worked fairly well with only some minor sticking. When I disassembled the top from the base the canvas strips on the back of the slat sections was still intact. They was a big of fraying of the edges but there was no evidence of cutting or dry rot. Not having to replace them was a great relief. The refinishing it then became just a matter of careful manipulation while sanding, re-staining and polyurethane finish.

Where the vanity had been made entirely from pine the desk was made entirely from poplar. Even the side, center panels and back were made from single pieces of 3/16" poplar. The edges of the side and centers there were edge reliefs on both sides to fit into 1/8" slots in the legs. 

Unfortunately for me, unlike the vanity table most all the joints were glued as well as nailed together. This made made disassembling of the base a slow pains taking task. 

 One of the panel edges broke off completely necessitating both having to fashion and carefully glue up a replacement edge as well as having to chisel out the broken edge from the slot.

Two of the drawer supports were replacements were made from pine and both poorly made and poorly attached. These I replace with poplar. The finished drawer slides were all lined with strips of UHMW so that everything moved with ease.

The back panel was to far gone once I got it disassembled. One corner was missing and it had several splits that were beyond repair. This was replaced entirely with some  5mm plywood.

The other parts that had to be replaced were the side panels of the two main drawers. The original's dato joints broke apart when disassembled. These were replaced with 1/4" plywood. The original sides were to find a recycled use to be seen in part 3.

The pigeonholes inside the desk were very plain and non-descript. This I addressed by fabricating  a small drawer to make it more useful and eye appealing. 

The pull was made from a hollow wood button that was drilled out for a screw and covered with a small disc  and then painted. This design was also used in the other drawer pulls.

As with the vanity all the parts were sanded with increasing finer grit and finished with 1500 grit before reassembly, staining and finishing with polyurethane. The main desk and rolltop were finished sperately before being reassembled. 

All in all it came out very nicely and will make a nice side table until my grandneice gets older and starts school.

The Latest From The Workshop Part 1

I found a couple of discarded pieces of children's furniture by the side of the road a while back and have had them in my shop covered up in a corner for a couple of years. 

Now that my niece has a daughter of her own I thought it was a good time to do something with them.

Both pieces appear to date from the post WWII baby boom era and we're quite well used if not abused.

Although of that age they weren't exactly built with a fine eye towards craftsmanship. Such would not be the case in rebuilding and refinishing them.

My grandneice is going to get a surprise from Santa!

First up was a child's vanity table. There wasn't a bit of glue used in the original manufacturing, just nails and a few screws. The years of use left the piece wobbly and loose. This was something of a blessing in disguise as it made the disassembly quiet easy. The refinish and reassembly was pretty straight forward. With lots of sanding, working my way down to 1500 grit.

All the parts were then lightly stained and the given another finish sanding to remove and raised grain coming from the staining. The reassembly was done using modern wood glue, finish nails and clamps. Places that had previously been held together with screws were carefully drilled out and filled with wood plugs and sanded smooth. Exposed nailheads were set and then filled with plastic wood and sanded smooth along with the plugs.

The finishing was done with spray gloss polyurethane and polished with 2000 grit between coats and then 2500 grit after the final coat.

Next up was a far more complicated child's rolltop desk.

To be continued...

So What Comes Next?

Somewhere out there in the vastness of America's political landscape there has to be a dawning taking place. Not just that the insistence that the supposedly vaccinated must continue to wear masks is not just absurd but defies all logic and common sense and that beyond that the reason for it has nothing to do with science but rather is purely political.

Posit it then that they are waiting for the software and documentation to be created for the Federal imposition of a vaccination passport system in defiance of those states that have already banded the very notion. They feds will of course argue that federal law supercedes all state laws. 

Think it's not possible? Look at all the fool's that already think your rights and freedoms come from government and accept without question what ever the "experts" tell them they can and can't do and where and with whom they can do it.

And where would that lead us to next? Why a vast and growing network producing forged vaccine certificates which has already started of course.

Critically then this will lead to one of two things. Either the revelation that the "vaccine" leaves a distinct genetic mark that can be scanned for with a simple blood test like something out of the 1997 movie Gattaca. Or by the CDC suddenly determining that you need yet another jab to "protect" you from a newly discovered "mutant" strain. A jab that will contain this marker that the passport system can track... Or maybe they will just go full "Mark of the Beast" and demand we all get chipped like a family pet.

The intersection of Orwell and Huxley is truly frightening. But now that the education system has been so systematically dumbed down how many out there have actually read Orwell and Huxley never mind know of Saint Augustine's question; "If justice be removed, what are governments but great bands of robbers?"