We've been busy getting set for our fencing project. Our neighbor John has been hurting for work. He's not totally idle, but had several projects cancelled and hasn't had any large, custom framing jobs for some time. We had two fencing bids that were pretty high, so asked John if he & Ron would be interested in a few days work. They agreed & we ordered the materials & powdercoating. We had some freakish cold weather with large amounts of hail & short snow flurries but Tuesday the weather improved & work began.

I was also thinking of how I would fabricate my door jams & wishing I hadn't left my old Dewalt radial arm saw behind when we moved from Olympia. It had a frozen motor & was always shakey at holding settings, but perfect for the rabbet cuts I needed at the top of each door jam. I had been watching our local Craigs list but found nothing but large industrial models, DeWalts like I had before & large numbers of Craftsman copies of the Dewalt that were even lower quality. Tuesday while the guys were drilling post holes, I checked out a 9" Delta RAS that sounded pretty good. Although 50-60 years old, it was a quality tool, only lightly used & it still had most of the original wooden table top. Some of its paint was beginning to fail, & a bit of superficial rust showed through but all the machined parts were clean, everything moved smoothly & he was only asking $45! It was much sturdier than my old Dewalt & had a really solid steel base so I grabbed it. Later in the day, I bought some antique Stanley levels from a retired teacher here in Stayton. The levels are brass & mahogany, dated 1896 & 1910. He had refinished them but decided they were to big for the bookshelf he was displaying them on. Two 28" & one 12" for $20, such a deal.