I woke up earlier than usual this morning, if 8:00 a.m. can be called early that is. But since I was awake anyway, it seemed like a good time to get up and get going. Had a nice breakfast and finished reading another book I had started yesterday. It wasn't a great book, but pretty entertaining over all, and really, what more can you ask of most books?
    I was off on a road trip  by 11:00, heading west out of Portland and through the suburb of Beaverton.... home of the original NIKE shoe. My destination was a little museum like place out near the town of Elsie, that showcased old logging equipment. Called 'Camp 18', it was a collection of stuff that one guy who grew up in a logging family had been buying up for many years.
    He had bought a few acres along Highway 26 and left most of it to rust out in the bushes. In the past few years however he has built a huge log building on the site that he has turned into a restaurant, and has cleaned up the site enough that you can actually see some of the stuff he has collected. And if you are at all interested in the logging industry and how it is done, there is some stuff there for everyone to look at. I found several examples of old 'Dolbeer' 'donkey engines' as well as 'big wheels', 'Barnhart log loaders'  and even a 165'+ tall spar pole. I took pictures of everything I could, and will try to get some of them posted in the next day or two, but it will take me a while too sort them all out.
    I had some lunch there at their restaurant, they do a very good mushroom and cheese burger, and that building alone is worth stopping and looking at. At the peak is one single 85 foot long, 3' diameter, Douglas Fir ridge pole that holds up the whole roof. I read somewhere what it weighed, but then promptly forgot, but it was many, many, may tons in total. At each end is a 3' dia. fir post that holds up all of that weight.... it's pretty impressive.
    I drove north out of that area, heading up towards the town of Rainier on the Columbia River and then east towards the town of St. Helens and then on to Portland. I wanted to stop in at St. Helens to see if I could figure out where a lighthouse on the Columbia River was actually located. The web site I usually look at said it was located on the end point of what is known as Sauvie Island, and that you can actually walk to it through a wildlife refuge on the island, if you don't mind trekking through at least 3 miles of often wet and muddy wetlands. So I could actually see the lighthouse from the marina there in St. Helens, it was upriver on the south side of the channel, and I could also see that it looked pretty much like the picture on the web site showed. In other words, it is basically a square box of concrete up on the bank with a new style acrylic Fresnel lens mounted on top. So not really that scenic to look at. Seeing it from that point, and then looking at the 1/3rd size copy of it there in town at the court house, I determined that it wasn't worth the effort. There will be many more lighthouse pictures to come that look a lot better, so don't worry.
    By that time it was getting on to late afternoon, so time to head back to the trailer for the evening. I'm just hanging out right now listening to the sound of rain on the top of the trailer.... it sounds pretty nice, especially when I'm inside all warm and dry.
    Below are just a couple of pictures from a couple of days ago. My sister and I drove into the town of Centralia Washington and wandered through a bunch of antique stores there. Lot's of things to see... and buy if one isn't careful. I have to keep reminding myself that I live in a trailer with a finite amount of room in it, most of which has already been taken up with other stuff. So I usually limit myself to very small things. In deed the only thing I ever buy on a regular basis are shot glasses with the name of some place I'm visiting. For instance the one I got today says 'Camp 18' on it.
    But these woodworking planes seemed like a pretty good deal, so I broke my own rules and bought them. They will be refinished someday when I have a place to work on them, and then I hope to use them on real projects for a very long time to come.

Antique Wood Working Planes - Oct 9, 2014

I found two planes that day. The one on top is a #5 Baileys/Stanley Jack plane and the one on the bottom is a #8 Baileys Jointer plane. Both are a little rough with some rust on some of the parts, but all of the parts are there and it shouldn't take much to get them back into usable condition.

One other view. The only thing broken on either of them looked to be the handle on the Jointer plane. That seems to be so common as to be amazing if it isn't busted. I'll make a new one when I work on the rest of it. I'm thinking either black walnut or black locust even though rosewood or maple seems to be more traditional.


    The Jack plane is used to cut with, as well as across, the grain of things like panels, to level out their surface quickly. Think cutting boards, door fronts, table tops. That is often enough to even up a surface, but if it needs to be even flatter, the longer length of the jointer will even it out ever further, although it is more often used to put a straight edge on boards so that they can be glued together. Hence the name 'Jointer'.

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