I was pretty sure as I walked toward the shed this morning that I’d finished what I set out to do in there. Basically, I made a good space better and more my own.
Still, the floor needed sweeping — when I’ve taken the Ranger out into the wet woods recently and splashed through puddles on the road, it’s come back with muddy tires. Work in the shed wouldn’t truly be done ’til I cleaned that up.
Which I did.
And then there was the buggy itself. I didn’t wash it, but I did do a round of checks — oil, coolant, tire pressures and such. I cleaned the windshield, inside and out.
I unloaded the bed and swept it out. Last, I did the cab the same favor.
It’s always surprising how much grit and debris collect in those places, and how fast it builds up.
And then I was done — sort of. (See below.)
But it’s all right now
Rick Nelson, “Garden Party” (1972)
I learned my lesson well
You see, you can’t please everyone
So you got to please yourself
The pair of Fiskars loppers I carry around in the bed of the Ranger might be the tool I use more than any other. They’re effective and, now in their fifth year of service on The Mountain, they’ve held up remarkably well to the abuse I inflict on them, especially considering the price (less than $20).
They don’t stay sharp forever, of course. Before closing up the shed this morning, I sat down with a flat file and gave ’em some long-overdue love.
(I forgot to take a “before” picture.)
These are “bypass” loppers — like scissors, except that only one blade is sharpened, and only on one face (again, like scissors, or a wood chisel). It cuts when the edge “passes by” the unsharpened jaw, or anvil.
Bypass loppers are best for cutting green and live material. I think they’re the better all-around choice (compared to a strictly anvil design, which crushes rather than cuts) because they’ll work even when dull.
I opened my loppers, rested them in my lap, matched the angle of the file to the bevel and took long passes over the edge. (Yes, a flat file works just fine on a curve.) The edge was badly rolled near the pivot, with a couple of small chunks missing, so I made sure to erase the roughest spots without removing too much material.
Then I flipped the blade over.
Filing the beveled side of the edge had raised a “wire” on the opposite side. If you have any experience at all with sharpening, you know what a “wire edge” is — it’s normal, an expected part of the process, but left unaddressed it makes the sharpened edge fragile and more prone to chipping.
To deal with that, I laid the file flat on the back of the blade, then raised the handle slightly and took light strokes to reduce the wire. (I didn’t want to create a bevel on that side.)
That inevitably pushed some of the wire back the other way, so getting rid of it required flipping the blade over multiple times, lightly dressing one side and then the other until I judged the result acceptable. Again, that’s normal.
This was today’s finished product:
Yeah, the chips, though considerably smaller, are still evident. But after testing these freshly sharpened loppers on nearby twigs and vines, I can assure you that they now cut like a Jedi’s lightsaber — big improvement.
Putting them right took only ten minutes.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable