Haven't had much garage time lately. What I got I used for some other projects. Christmas is coming and every year I try to figure out some kind of gift for my wife that she won't expect or have a clue about. This year was tough. Nothing was coming to mind. Then this last weekend we spent together and in one of the shops, hanging on the wall was a frying pan with a clock in it. I've got the craftsman saw blade clock in my shop, why not something kitcheny for her shop (before any of the chauvenist comments come, she actually loves the kitchen and cooking).
So monday I found a clock at the thrift store that would work great. After a few more thrift stores without any luck finding a good fry pan, I stopped at the local antique shop (I know the guy). At first he said he didn't have anything, then as we were walking out he spotted one on the wall. It was kind of beat up, but it was a copper pan with a blacksmith formed long steel handle held on with copper rivets. And the price was right, I'm trading him a scythe I got for a dollar.
I straightened it out, cleaned up the copper, bent the handle so it would hang on the wall nice and put it together. The bright shiny copper wasn't the look I wanted though, so I got my propane torch and started playing around with it. Its got some bluing and darker copper and other colors mixed in there. I'll post a pic later. I think she'll love it.
While trying to find some other ideas monday I went into a shop that was going out of business. They were selling everything, including the shelves. My wife has a rather large collection of pez and is always complaining that she doesn't have enough display space for them. This shop happened to have a perfect case, good size, adjustable glass shelves, glass door (keeps the dust off, very important) and a good price. So I loaded that up. Not content to give it as is, today I pulled all the hardware off and prepped it for paint. The shelf is kind of a dark teal, all of her other shelves are white, as this one will soon be. I'm not leaving it at that though.
Last year I had custom pajamas made for her. Just found some of the style oversized tees she likes without any lettering or pics already on them (not as easy to find as you might think), then had a screen printing shop put on phrases that she is known for (the kids helped with that). She loved them. So I stopped back at the printing place and asked them to make me some PEZ font letter decals for the shelf. It should look great.
Since I'm on a roll here describing my wifes Christmas to be, I'll blab one more surprise about it. She said the other day that she had never had lobster claws, just tails. She loves lobster, it makes me gag. We normally have crab legs and steak for our Christmas Eve meal (we grill the steaks no matter the weather). Well this year she'll get her lobster claws (and tail, and head, and spines, and everything else). Turns out it's not so easy to just get claws. When the lobster is processed, they break off the tails and send the rest to be cooked and the meat from the claws is sold in packages. The only way to get whole claws (in MN) is to get a whole lobster. The only way I could get a whole lobster is live. Now today, I'm at the seafood market learning all this and trying to figure out how I'm going to get lobster claws for my wife on Christmas eve, when I can't get back the the market (100 miles away) between then and now. It's not like I can keep it in a tank in the garage for 5 days (well, ok, maybe I could). So I remember that I need to bring something to my daughter who lives up there and I have a thought (yeah it hurt a little). I tell the market guy, bag one up, then call my daughter and tell her to get her biggest pot filled with water and get it boiling. The market guy says, boil for 7 minutes, then I can freeze it ok. For some odd reason I felt it was better to boil the live lobster to death rather than just let him freeze to death in the trunk of my car, which would have been acceptable too.
So I get to my daughters, the water is boiling in her biggest pot. It's not so big. I pull the lobster out of the bag and he stretches the claws out and I put him over the pan and its going to be a tight fit. I've never done this before. My daughter is acting like I'm going to murder the thing (well technically, sure, whatever) and can't look. I'm wondering if there is going to be a struggle (with the lobster, not the daughter) and I dip him in. No thrashing about, just meekly surrenders to the caldren of doom. Just enough room. 7 minutes later he's ready to be eaten. Instead he's in my daughters freezer and she CAN'T forget to bring it home with her this weekend or there will be some thrashing about and a struggle.
So my christmas plans are almost complete, just need to paint and pick up some stickers and figure out how to present the gift.
Oh, and just so you know, I did some good garage stuff too and even one thing chevy related (a distant 4th cousin). I fixed my snowblower and made some foot locker keys, using some old chevy key blanks I found at one of the antique shops. Those foot locker keys are hard to come by, good thing they are easy to make.
Thanks for following along. I hope you enjoy my story. I only have 3 work days between now and January 2nd. Jimmy progress will be in high gear soon.