Si600

I have up to a point. I don't have a wet grinder so I've got a honing guide. My waterstone fell off the bench and smashed the corner off whilst I was whaling away with the chisel earlier. Not happy about that.

It's also spruce, fir, pine, whatever. Is that a particularly brutal wood for cutting edges?

Stopped for coffee. I'm in danger of making a mistake at the moment, I can't seem to get the chisel sharp, or to stay sharp. Maybe I'm expecting too much but the first couple of taps seem to bite nice and deeply, but after that it just seems to be a struggle. I'm about to just whack the thing, which means I'll probably split the baulk, so I've stopped for a bit.

I've stared at it long enough, and although the screw hasn't arrived yet, and being a twerp I forgot to order the handle with it I've committed to the design and started cutting one edge of what will become a mortice when it's all clued together. I feel I'm making heavy weather of it, and wondering whether there's a better way than how I'm doing it. No machine tools are available before you suggest that

Not Skiffle?

Mine won't look nearly so nice! If the chop was wide enough to get the blank past the screw then possibly. But I really don't know.

@Richard R a leg vice is one of these: The bench I have is an ex Red Bull GP one from MK and came with a mismatched pair of metal legs. Because of where I want the vice I have to replace the old one as I can't cut through the metal without causing major structural failure. You also don't get Record type vice carcasses over here so I'd either have to buy new or get one from eBay.co.uk and have it posted, which will probably cost a fortune.

I'm building the legs up out of 18mm block board. They're going to have 5 layers with the middle layer being the stretchers. At the moment I've only glued the solid parts together so I have two two part laminations. Which my sense of 'humour' turns into four fifths of a leg.

It's a joke between Dad1138 and I. I suggested that Build Diaries could have a sub page so people like me who are mucking around with non musical projects could be quarantined from the genuinely talented builders. We decided that Build Diaries encompasses everything, as long as it's reasonably related to BC, so no Model A hotrods. Hence the name. Like all good in jokes, no-one understands it and the intended recipient hasn't, AFAIK, noticed. I'd like to have the desire to do a hotrod, rather than just own one, but I don't!

No further visible progress, but I've ordered a lead screw and I'm pretty sure I've finalised the locations of everything. At least until tomorrow. As you may have gathered I'm faking the joinery by making the mortice holes as gaps in laminated legs. As well as gluing the stretchers in, would you screw or dowel them as well?

I'm putting flats on my P-Bass, in fact the first flats on any bass I've owned this weekend. Are there any things I need to do/change or is it the same as changing like for like? D'addario Chrome's if that helps.

Released from captivity and planed the two (four) fifths of the front leg. I'm very happy with these, they're square on the long sides, parallel and a smidge oversized, 100.5 or something. Admittedly I've got fed up with cutting the other board into 70mm strips, and I've still got the vice chop to make. I'm now at the staring at it stage, trying to decide where the screw should go and the mortice for the cross mechanism.

I'll stop hijacking now 😉

Then you sir, are a seer or clairvoyant. I have only a vague idea of what my projects are going to look like, knowing is beyond me. Who wins the 3.30 at Kempston please?