According to wooden boat designer Howard Chappelle a moaning chair is a necessity in a workshop, whether it be a nailbox, a hammock, or a folding stool . It goes without saying that we all know what the moaning chair is for. . . drinking tea or coffee, maybe smoking a pipe, and moaning about bandsaws, hotcoats, swaylocks, or chickens in the shaping bay.
So this is the thread for the forgotten moaning chairs and kettles, please post them forthwith
Today I'm introducing our smoko kettle, which is now 7 years old. Originally this kettle was shiny and had a plastic handle and a knob on the lid, but both of these broke off, which was ok as the knob tainted the tea when the kettle was used over an open fire.
The handle you see today is fencing wire and was installed by Patrick 6 years ago. Now what prompted me to post this humble utensil was the new knob made yesterday, visible here on the lid and made from a gutter bolt and nut. What is remarkable about this knob is that the kettle went without one for 6 years. So, up until yesterday, for 6 years and at least 6 times a day the lid would be removed in order to clean the kettle out and also to add organic ground coffee or tea. This lid removing ritual could perhaps be seen as a kind of barbarian tea ceremony. It involved finding a sharp or thin object which could be inserted into the tiny hole in the lid, and used to lever the tightly held lid off. Of course this should be easy, given the plethora of knitting needles, tiny screwdrivers, nails and other pointy things in the household. Unfortunately this was not often the case due to an abundance of small gnomes on the property who have an endless number of creative uses for diminutive tools and suchlike . . .. . thus the kettle opening drama ( a pantomome in up to 5 acts ) was born. Act one: find the 'suitable object' used last time. . .. Act 2: Disappointment, object not found. . . Act 3: Look for new object. . . etc etc. . . Up until yesterday the amplifier plug which we plug into the laptop ( the laptop and the kettle have a thing going and are usually found together ) was used most often to open the lid, this resulted in some interesting AMPLIFIED kettle opening buzzes load scraping noises etc. The trick was to ping the lid off 'just so' without launching it into a ' hot kettle lid of mayhem' orbit.
The point of this story is of course the eons of time it can take to get around to making small improvements when the mind is on supposedly greater things
PS Mr and Mrs Paul Cannon have had tea from this billy
not with hotsauce though.
