This time I played making bobbin rafts using an old, yew wood, scale ruler. These were commonly used by designers, architects, machine inventors, model trains, draughtsmen and more when a large thing like a house had to be reduced and shown accurately as a drawing.
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| Bobbin Lace Rafts at Work |
They had to be excellent quality to take the lines marking the tiny fractions that each measure was split into. Yew wood quality far exceeds the beech wood used for making school rulers. I had to throw away an old ruler which didn't even measure inches properly for fear of using it by mistake!
Over the years I have squirrelled away a few light hearted tools in one of my craft drawers. I always enjoyed making things, but age has a way of making you more careful, avoiding injury is better than time spent recovering. The most useful is my little Archimedes screw drill. The incredibly slow speed is controlled by light pressure on the end and it will take the smallest of drill bits for my little projects.
Demoted several times, my big scissors have served me well and have been replaced several times so, I have no fear of using them in a way that will horrify most crafters, as you will see in this video.
The hacksaw has a fine blade. I see it as a necessary evil, it can make short work of skin! The trick is to draw it smoothly across the wood, not to 'saw' away like in the movies. Too much pressure simply tears into the wood and makes it hard to hold still. Watching a tree surgeon gave me the idea of cutting from both sides of the ruler, or using a saw on anything for that matter, because it reduces the splintered, jagged edge which often appears on the opposite side. The narrow 'hinge' in the very centre is the last bit to be sawn and can be snapped apart easily, leaving the edges neat.
Sandpaper is measured in 'grit', the size of the abrasive dust on the backing. Start with the coarsest (lowest number) grit, you can feel easily which that one is. They start about 50 grit which is like sand, and go up to 3,000 which is like hard velvet. Many places sell a selection in a pack quite cheaply.
Link to the video on youTube of my antics this time is here:-
