The Year My Vice Broke

A story about a carpenter’s lament
I’m now well into the third room (which sounds like a university department – something like the Centre of the Third Way... I digress) after a very intense day in 42 degree heat. At least it would be, were it not for the beauty of ducted air conditioning.

There I was, eight feet up a ladder indulging in the fun sport of sanding yet another ceiling flat (painters the world over, I’ve noticed, are incapable of painting a ceiling without leaving large blobs and drips all over the surface as if the wood was infected by some hideous wart), taking off planks and gripping them firmly in a vice (or, since this is a vice from Aldi, loosely and wobbly).

And then suddenly, the lethal sander (see the post: The Fatal Chore) went Phutt, and was no more. An hour long repair job on one half of its switch, half an hour more sanding, and Phutt... again! Now the other half had disintegrated. That put a monkey in the wrench.

I had no option but to bite the bullet and grit my teeth. Or, since this  would involve taking the bits of bullet out from my teeth, taking a trip to Bunnings and asking for a new sander, cos this one is no more, and it ought to be six feet under, pushing up the daisies.

I really didn’t care for the salesman’s smirk when he asked what I’d been doing with the battered old sander that looked as if it had been in a war zone, as opposed to being just 2 months old, and just sanding down 200 square yards of planks. Upside down. Oh, he explained, the Ozito Sander is only designed for sanding down a few windows, not heavy industrial use. Hmmm... I didn’t tell him I’d already sanded down four windows already.

At least I’ve come up with a new way to do the ceiling: paint the grooves with a brush first, and then paint the planks, which means I can see where I am, even if this gives a unique striped effect for a few days.