Do you ever get into cleaning frenzies, and spend hours scouring and scrubbing around the house, including those areas that often don’t get their fair share of loving? Well, that’s how I’ve been feeling lately, but it’s not our house that is getting the attention… it’s all of our tools. Recently, I’ve been spending a goodly amount of time sharpening, oiling, de-rusting, and tuning to get all of our gear ready for the upcoming Timber Frame Workshop in June. This year we’ll have some newcomers on the tool front to try out, including two antique boring machines we obtained last winter that haven’t seen action yet.

All of this sharpening and cleaning is good practice on its own, but it’s also getting my enthusiasm going for the upcoming work. We will be focusing heavily on hand tool practice during our course. There is still a lot to learn even after building our timber frame house. Really, the learning doesn’t end with hand tool proficiency, and I have really been appreciating that.

I am particularly excited to see how our two “new” boring machines work. The one in the middle is our newcomer Millers Falls machine. We had a blacksmith friend fabricate a new leg for it, and it looks great. I made the new wooden base last winter, and between that and the leg… it’s about all this guy has needed to get back to working condition.

The machine on the far right is a James Swan boring machine, and I haven’t yet tried my hand at some test holes yet, so I’m unsure how well this one will perform. It takes somewhat of a back seat to the Millers Falls machines, but hopefully we can get some good action out of it, too.