Thursday, March 13, 2014

A little shaving mirror

There were quite a few mirrors at home.  Yet, I got kicks from creating one of my own, when my shaving years had arrived. I did not want to remove the vintage mirrors from their places for my beard shaving programme, each time. So I wanted one to be in place and it needed to be a compact one, which I hung from a hook fixed to the window frame.  

I had a rusty stand from a cheap mirror that had obviously broken. I had a rectangular piece of unwanted rosewood that suited the size of a possible mirror.  As soon as a decision was taken to make a new mirror out of these, I went to a glass cutting shop and got the mirror from a waste piece paying a penny [in Mysore, kaasu!].  I had taken the wood for size.  How to fix the mirror to the wood?  My Mecannos toy set had its small accessories. I picked up four 'Ls'. Screws of suitable size were with me.  It did not take long to create a mirror stand that can be hung from a hook or kept at any angle resting on the adjustable stand. 

Here it is:


Tuesday, March 11, 2014

A hand trowel for gardening

There was an old pair of hedge-pruning scissors which I tried to use in my early gardening days when I had no proper tools.  I used to try and cut small twigs with it and it was not in good condition.  It must have been from the 1930s.  We had no hedge, at least in my time. This huge pair of scissors was junk for a few decades, now one of the two cutting parts was minus - it had broken.  It was time to unjunk.  One handle of wood was good and just fine for attaching something.  There was a rusty mason's trowel, quite a wide one, which a mason had left behind because it had got separated from its rivets.  

Idea!

I took them to my friend Ramu to join the two together.  He did it simply by making two holes to the flat portion of the scissor handle [see picture] to match the two holes on the trowel and drove two screws in them.  Lo, a crude trowel.was ready!  It is a very handy tool to lift soil. I bent the trowel slightly on the sides to keep the picked up soil in place. 


Right behind the trowel is a Charaka [spinning wheel]. 

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Recycling old broken pots

The neighbour has many big clay pots, many are in their balcony garden.  They had discarded a couple of cracked and broken pots outside their house.  They looked strong enough and their bottom quarter were still in tact.  Why not I use that as shallow pots?  I brought them in with the help of cousin Subbu and while they were being carried, I felt the weight! They appeared old, good and strong.

In this picture, I had already worked on one, by breaking away the damaged portion carefully. 


Trimmed the second one too.  Where I worked and the tools I used are visible.


In a short while, two sturdy shallow pots were ready. They can be used either for growing the smaller rain lilies or for starting seeds. I further trimmed the broken pieces which will be useful for covering the drain holes in the pot, before filling with soil. I have already reused smaller broken pots into rain lily holders.