Bagage irregularity report.

I signed on the ship yesterday, and as usual I brought my homemade green tool chest with me.

Since I have traveled with the chest for a bit more than a year now, I had intended writing a kind of review based on my experiences with the chest.

But thanks to SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System), the review is a bit different than what I had intended.

Upon arriving in Bergen I discovered that I was unable to pull out the handle for using the wheels on my bag. That made my alarm bells start ringing.

Today I tried to grab a clean T-shirt from my bag, and it was stuck to the tool chest. At first I thought that it had just caught on one of the corner guards. But when I looked  closer it was also stuck to another T-shirt. I examined the corner thoroughly and it dawned upon me that they were not simply attached to the chest - they were glued to it!

I unlocked the chest and tried to raise the lid - impossible.
So the sad fact is that the bagage handlers of the SAS have mistreated the bag in such a way that the small glass of white glue I had inside have been broken, and due to the bag being thrown around, the glued hadn't just stayed at the bottom of the chest, but had managed to seep along the side to the top, gluing everything on its way.

I brought the chest to the engine control room, and I have succeeded in opening the lid and removing the large till. But the rest is still stuck.

I have filed a report to the SAS, but I doubt that I will get anything out of that. So I will try to see if I can pry the parts from each other.

The chest now with the lid able to open.

The glued up corner of the chest.

This is the corner where the glue has seeped out.

Saw handle blanks from mirabelle prune wood.

Tomorrow Asger and I will take the train to Munich to visit Brian Eve of Toolerable. I wold have liked to bring a suitable slab for a table, but I doubt that the trains stewards will find it amusing if I show up with one. Plus it might make it difficult to navigate the various platforms when we need to change trains.

So instead I decided to make some saw handle blanks for him.
Last time I was home I trimmed a mirabelle prune tree, and the lowest part was large enough to yield a couple of blanks.

This morning I sliced it with the saw mill in 5/4" thickness.
There was a bit of rot in part of the trunk, which was partly the reason for the trimming, but there is enough for some saw handles.

I have read that apple tree was once common for saw handles, and it should be steamed while the wood is still green.
I have some apple wood, but it has been downed years ago, so it is close to bone dry. And the pieces are not sufficiently large to make a saw handle from the heart wood alone.
So the prune was still my choice.

The slicing was pretty fast, so in order to stretch the experience a bit, Asger and I rigged my small deep fat fryer up to make a steam chest that could be used for steaming the blanks.
It was a low tech solution consisting of two plastic buckets mounted on top of the deep fat fryer that was filled with water.

The wood steamed for about one and a half hour, and then we stopped to go in for some lunch.
I'll let Brian Eve take a picture of them once they are dry to see if the colour has changed at all.

Mirabelle prune, fresh from the saw mill.

The steam set up.

The outer bucket helps to keep the temperature high and the steam inside.