Miscellany
So far so good on the car; new radiator cap is on, and there’s no sign of a leak. We couldn’t find any water pump lube, and the only antifreeze was stuff Mr. Empire wasn’t very fond of … but he says that these days, water pumps come pre-lubed, so we have a couple of thousand miles to get another lube in. Since we’re going up to Dover tomorrow and planning a stop at Wal-Mart, we should be able to find one or the other.
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Had a real blast today, though most of you probably wouldn’t think much of it. I borrowed Audrey’s antique umbrella swift (hers is a floor model, not a table version), with the "If I can fix it, may I use it?" condition. She said yes, so I brought it home, dug up a really good on-line picture of a modern one, and put all the parts back together the way they belonged, plus adding something the old one had (I think, from its construction) that the new ones don’t, at least that I can tell from on-line pictures.
That was a blast and a half, figuring how it should work, then rigging the pieces so it did what it was supposed to. Rather to my surprise, except for some materials differences in a few of them (like plastic), new ones are made exactly the same as this one from (I would guess) the mid-1800s. String holding the slats together and all!
Once I had that done, I used it to wind the last four skeins of crochet cotton I’d dyed a few days ago. That was much simpler with the swift, I gar-on-tee, than any of the other methods I’d struggled with! I need to make myself a swift now, but it may be more like this one, since I’m not sure my woodworking skills with our current equipment are up to doing the top and bottom pivots for an umbrella swift. (Besides, you can use this particular version to make skeins as well, by using a fifth peg as a handle [wonder if I could find an old car "suicide knob" to use on that?], which would allow me to get rid of my ugly-but-practical PVC niddy-noddies in favor of something faster and probably better looking!)
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And on that note, since we have to be in Dover early tomorrow, I shall bid the Garden’s habitues good evening and seek my bed!
