In part one of this set, I discussed how I acquired my Gerstner tool chest and the how I started the restoration process. I carefully taped over the hardware I couldn’t remove and cleaned the chest with Murphy’s Oil Soap and with a rag. I scrubbed it fairly hard to get all the dirt off. A bit of linseed oil to brought the shine back up on the chest.
Month: January 2023
A few years ago, Walt and I were at a model engineering show checking out the many cool engines and tools. There were a couple of dealers who had older Gerstner tool chests for sale. I managed to sweet talk one of them down in price a bit and walked away with a rough looking but solid tool chest – for my studio.
I had originally planned to write about the anniversary of one of Walt’s great-great aunts, Rhoda Hole. Our information had her marrying John Christy on January 13, 1861. But it turned out not to be the case.
The family information we had told us that she was John Swisher Hole’s younger sister, born in 1846. The notes also mentioned that she had been married twice, the second time to someone with the last name of Monroe, but that was all the information we had.
Have you ever had trouble with an ordinary slotted screwdriver, and the screws it purports to drive? Did it slip, and mar the object you were working on? Perhaps it left the slot scarred up, promising an even more difficult job the next time you have to take out that screw. I have had those troubles too. And the reason is simple: ordinary screwdrivers aren’t made to fit screws! That’s where gunsmith screwdrivers come in.
You most likely noticed that there have been a bunch of documents showing up on the blog lately – census reports, marriage certificates and the like. We have a temporary subscription to Ancestry© and I have been using it to gather information. Using an online genealogy service like Ancestry© has the potential to provide huge amounts of information. They have family trees, census records, marriage records and other resources located in one place.
We enjoy food from a variety of cultures, Indian, Asian, Italian, German, and Mexican. It’s always nice to make foods from scratch and I like this basic red sauce with tamales and enchiladas. I talked about cooking up meats for use in Mexican dishes in this post. I may do a post on making tamales at some point, but I will have to make them when Walt is home to help with pictures. Tamales are a three-handed operation at the best of times.