All of this points out,better than any other argument,why you should suppport you local merchants-hardware,pharmacy,bike shopbaker,etc.My village,for the first time in 120 years,has no hardware store-driven out of business by Home Demon.I drive 3 miles past it to get to a mom&pop hardware store.
> The inside of the hull of my Panache has been sitting partially
> sanded for a couple of weeks. I had gone as far into the stems as
> possible with my sander, but I was still left with about 4ft at each
> end where the sander wouldn't reach. I had put-off the remaining sanding
> partly because of the dreaded honey-do list, partly because of other
> self-inflicted tasks around the house, but mainly because I dreaded
> all the hand sanding I had left to do.

> This past weekend, I went to Builder's Square (our local, chaotic,
> unorganized home improvement store) to get a Surform plane. I knew
> it wouldn't reach all the way into the stems, but I thought it would
> help. I bought the plane, and on a whim, I bought a Surform Scraper.
> It's basically a plastic handle with a small patch of convex surform
> at the end. I don't know what it cost, but it couldn't have been more
> than a couple bucks. I didn't get around to using it until last night.
> I started trying to level the strips using the scraper with the grain.
> Unfortunately, I just got deep grooves where the sides of the scraper
> touched the bilge. Oh well, I didn't waste much money on it. Just
> for fun, I turned the scraper at a right-angle to the strips, and
> committed the cardinal sin of woodworking--I scraped across the grain.
> I had instant satisfaction. Here's all the cool things I discovered:
> the curve of the tool fits the curve of the bilge so does a good job
> of leveling, the surface it left on the wood was rough, but it didn't
> leave big gouges, the tool is feather-light but very effective, it
> cuts on the draw stroke and is very easy to control, it fits almost
> all the way into the 'V' of the stem so there's very little heavy-duty
> sanding left to do. I was in heaven. I turned up the Pat Metheny and
> went to town.

> I don't know if anyone else has used these little gizmos, but
> for me it was the perfect tool for the job. I finished the fore stem
> in a couple hours. That may not sound like much of a feat, but it
> was easy work (actually fun when I consider what I expected to have
> to go through). I'm looking forward to working on the aft stem tonight.
> Yahoo!

> Ross

> PS. I'm going to return the Surform Plane unused. That is, I'll
> return it when my frustration level with Builder's Square abates.
>