Ol' Sparky is Ready to Go

And ... the last part of the lathe triad is in place... my grinder is here! You need sharp tools to do woodturning. Dull tools are both inefficient and dangerous. And with some hard woods, you need to sharpen after each small project, or several times during a  larger one. The grinder had a back-order date of the 27th, but I got a shipping notice last weekend, and it arrived mid-week. Today I finally had time to set it up, and get the grinding jig base in place.

Woodcraft 8" Slow-Speed Grinder and Wolverine Grinding system

I ordered the Wolverine Grinding System (including the Vari-Grind tool) because I'm sure I'll suck at grinding free-hand and wanted all the help I could get. The black bases under the wheels... yep, that. It holds the tool at the right angle to grind the edge correctly. I already sharpened my spindle gouge before I used it on another bottle-stopper top, and it made a huge difference already. I'd really dulled it on the last one I did - Zebrawood - so having it sharp for the Carob was awesome. Dull tools suck.

More bottle stoppers

I still need to work at making sure the base is level so the stopper part sits right up next to the wood - EVENLY - all the way around.  And - see those rain drops in the stopper pic? The weather has been craptastic all day. I put off my morning run because I did the Elliptical Machine of Death yesterday, and just could not make eye contact with the dreadmill. And once I got started doing things, I needed to do ALL THE THINGS and just kept working through my mental to-do list.

So, last week's abbreviated run/EL list:

Tuesday: Garmin said 6.0 miles in 1:06:55
Wednesday: Garmin said 5.25 mi in 1:01:21 (5 mi = 58:20 - yeesh)
Friday: Garmin said 5.5 mi in 1:00:44  (5 mi = 55:00 - better)
Saturday: 5 mi on the Elliptical Machine of Death in 66:48 - way faster than last time
Sunday: pffft - blew off the run to Do Things since I'd already run in the rain on Friday