I just bought a book...

....from the newsagent over the road. I've flipped through it and it
seems pretty good.

"Highside - Our love affair with the motorcycle", by Bruce Williams
and Reece Scannell.

It's 130 pages of stories and photos about various Australian bikies,
everyone from accountants to grandmothers to despatch riders to
farmers to Dykes on Bikes. And marked down from $39.95 to $5.95,
bargain!

The cover photo is of a group of Ulyssians from the Glasshouse
Mountains - if anyone knows Ski, XT, Pharaoh, Cookie, Axe Woman or
Flying Dutchman, this is where their 5 minutes of fame came from.

There's a few left, if anyone wants me to get them one.


BTH

 

My son gave me a copy for Chrissy a year or two ago. I went to get
another for somebody else and found it out of print, so they must be
remaindering it. Time I went to BigW bookshop again. Get me one if you
can and I'll get some money to you, I think you should still have my
address in Bathurst.

Kim

 

Fark, have I been asleep ? When did you get back online ?

JL

 

Looks like a trip to BigW then....

Kim

 

I wasn't away, I was sick, mate. I had a pretty bad anapylactic episode from
breathing the sanding dust from Brazilian rosewood while making a new
guitar. Turns out the stuff is highly toxic and it blistered my skin, raised
all sorts of lumps, ulcerated my lips, got stuck into my nasal cavities so
they filled up with blood clots several times a day, shut down my voice, and
tried to shut down my lungs. I wasn't really into bikes or newsgroups while
all that was happening. :-(

Anyway, the guitar's a great little beast, lots of fun to play, and I'm
getting back into circulation while waiting for the respiratory physician to
work through his waiting list and see me standing in the queue.
http://www.users.tpg.com.au/kkmiller/other/Guitar02.jpg
The rosewood that did the damage is the square bridge plate. An hour or two
sanding it from 5mm to 2.5mm thick, nice and even, perfect finish with 1500
grit, lots of fine dust.... Innocent looking thing, isn't it?

Kim

 

Fark! It looks horn but you better watch them hot licks!

 

Shit, man, these guitar things are mighty dangerous!
I'm sticking to motorcycles from now on.

----sharks

 

Jesus H Christ !!!

JL
(who'd a thunk sanding a bit of wood would do that to you !)

 

....and you thought dropbears were something to worry about when camping...

 

Do a Google search on toxic and rosewood, see how many sites come up. I've been
hobbying with wood since I was a kid and never had a reaction to anything, and had
no idea that these timbers could do anything like this. First time I get to lay my
hands on some really exotic stuff and it poisons me. Next time I want to make
something out of wood I'll go out riding instead, it's safer.

Kim

 

I've been wondering why you didn't plane it. Surely removing 2.5mm of any
wood with sandpaper is going to create a lot of dust.

 

I bought the plank at 12mm thick. The part I was making was about 70mm by 100mm
and I didn't want to have to plane a piece any bigger than that as the plank
also had to provide a new fretboard for another instrument. I cut the piece
close to size, planed it to 5mm where it got difficult to hold securely while
planing. Rosewood is very tough (which makes it good for certain items) but it
is also brittle and can split and chip very easily. Planing a very thin slice
had too much danger of damaging the piece. So it was a matter of sanding, 80
grit for starters, and working down to 1500. And it had to be done carefully so
the piece was even thickness over the slice.

It would be good to have a thicknesser, but my equipment is limited to hand
tools.

And, as stated, I've been working with wood for years and never a problem. This
stuff took me by surprise.

The bike lives in another shed. It is dust free still very healthy. I am hoping
for health by osmosis.

Kim