So I mentioned in an earlier post about not going into detail about the little restoration projects I do. One of the main reasons, and perhaps the biggest is simple. I do them sitting at my desk or on the couch to relax after work or in the middle of the night when I wake up and my insomnia is kicking my arse.
I’ve got PTSD, ADHD, I’m clinically depressed, bi-polar, and generally a mess that heat has been applied to make something that was once messy even messier. Toss in my rare defect of hemiplegic migrains and yeah. I take a ton of meds ( clearly visible in some of the pics shot on my desk ) but most of the time they don’t work and I find myself sitting at my desk in the middle of the night while everyone else is asleep… tinkering on something, or several somethings at the same time
Add to that, I follow the videos of a lot of people like Rex Krueger, Paul Sellers, etc. and in regards to making a video of it, it’s a dead horse that doesn’t need anymore beating. There’s quite honestly a metric butt load of videos on how to restore a plane on YouTube that making one more or not making one more is not going to cause any change in the world as we know it. Now if I do discover some way of doing something during a restoration that I have never seen, you can bet I’ll make a video or at least document it in a post on here.
I have a very topsy turvy job that keeps me on my toes. My days off are rarely my own and just because I’m scheduled to be off does not mean I will be able to stay that way and can be called in at any time… “welcome to management” is the running joke. Keeping that in mind, I tend to keep a multitude of projects around my desk that I can pick up and work on.
I call these my desk projects. They generally don’t require me to go into the shop at all and I can sit in my chair, watch videos on YouTube or in front of the TV and just work on them. Things like sanding the rust off planes or polishing irons, etc.. They’re also projects with no set time line for completion, it doesn’t matter when I actually finish them so there’s no pressure to get them completed in X amount of time so it’s stress free.
It’s just a way to relax, not have to worry about anything, and for me, it can often be fun. So in a nutshell, that’s why I won’t make videos of my little restorations or other such projects. 9 times out of 10 it’s already been done to the point I would be just another brick in the wall.
“But Stephen, there’s already videos on making a Leather Stitching Pony, why did you decide to do that one?”
The answer to that is simple… I needed one, it’s quick and simple, and my way of doing it was different than the present videos out there. Comparatively there were not a lot of videos on the subject either and several of them were done with machines that most people wouldn’t have such as the CNC machines, or the beautiful walnut ones… I wanted to show it can be made from wood available from a local store without a lot of tools AND look good.
Hopefully this is starting to make sense and I know the pony wasn’t a desk project but I reference that as another why I will or won’t make videos of certain things.