The old man made a beautiful riempie bench, modeled after an old one he bought. He thought he’d make two, so that along with the old one he’d have three, the thought being to give one to each of his three beloved children. Here’s mine, newly re-riempied after the originals vrotted and frayed:
Made of blackwood; thickness’d on his big thicknesser and planed on his big plane; also blackwood legs, turned on his big lathe.
Then olive wood turnings for the backrest uprights; yellow wood inlays routed into the backrest with one of his routers; dovetail joints to hang it all together.
The original leather riempies were from a kudu he had shot in old South West Africa on a cousin’s farm. He had it skinned and brought the skin and the horns and the meat as biltong home to Harrismith in 1969. Then he took the skin to Marianhill monastery where it was tanned and cut into riempies. Apparently the monks n nuns like them some leather.
Quite something! No wonder he suddenly wants it back, some forty to fifty years after the kudu died. Here he is with Mom in his woodwork shop/haven/retreat.
~~oo0oo~~
He’d be so proud to see his grandson following in his footsteps, ably taught by his talented son. Bella, inspecting our work, is not so sure about the ‘talented’ part. She thinks maybe this helicopter will fly with a pronounced yaw.
~~oo0oo~~
Aside: While watching the riempies being cut the old goat decided, ‘I can do that’ so he had a riempie cutter made for future use.
Never did happen, but then a huge part of his fascination was the tools. He once spent ages totally rebuilding a thicknesser someone had discarded and he had salvaged. It didn’t ever get used again, but he loved taking it apart, fixing it and putting it back together. Metalwork friends made some replacement parts for him and he changed protective covers from aluminium to plexiglass so you could SEE the parts! It was a shame to craft new parts then hide them. The finished tool looked great, wish I had taken pictures.
~~oo0oo~~
vrotted – rotted, just more impressively. Well, they were over forty years old before they were even used, then did service for – I dunno – about ten years. Very seldom sat on, must admit. Mostly just looked at and admired.
