Bee Frames

Today was the day scheduled for putting together my newly arrived bee-keeping supplies, specifically the frames to go in the hives.

OK, so everything is going well, I’ve got my nice new Porter Cable brad nailer, a nice clean working environment, and 20 un-assembled frames ready to be put together!

Now I would like to point out that the design of these frames is really nice, solid joinery, intuitive assembly. Until we get to the “spline”. This is a piece that is meant to be cut off the top rail on the frame, and then be nailed back on once the wax “foundation” is in place – to hold it in place.

The instructions say to “use a pocket knife to cut the spline off” and “make sure to clean up any rough spots” with said knife. Why they didn’t just cut the spline off completely with the same nice machines they used to shape the rest of the pieces, I don’t know. However, here I am, torquing it up with my swiss on some frail piece of pine when, don’t you know it, the piece splinters off, and my knife, loaded with power from my over zealous attempt to “clean up any rough spots” flies threw the air and slices into my wrist!

I was lucky, and did not need stitches. Just a wrap-up job with some gauze and tape, and I was back to cutting those splines off with my pocket knife, lesson learned 😉 .

Well, as you might expect, a pocket knife is not the best tool for a job that is more suited to a shoulder plane, or at least a good workbench and a sharp Swedish chisel! So, soon enough I’m target-fixated again when, slip-slam, a ram the knife into my thumb like an ax splitting a log!

AHHHHH! Curses! What a stupid design! What a stupid recommendation of tool!

I suppose I will learn my lesson for real now, and use the right tool for the right job.

Yours truly,

LM

First Post

OK, This is the first post.

I am Agent Landmine, and from time to time I will politely direct your attention to useful or interesting things I come across, and perhaps let you know what I think of them.

First up is a piece of software that I have been searching for for a while now. It is a command line network manager called Ceni. I say “command line”, however it is really a ncurses front end for iwconfig, wpasuplicant, etc… Whatever you call it, it takes the headache out of connecting to wireless networks with encryption.

I haven’t tested it much past loading it and seeing the interface due to not having an updated ath5k driver for my Atheros AR242x on my Acer Aspire One, but that’s another story.

However untested it may be on my part, I wanted to get the word out in case someone else is looking for a tool such as this.

Thank you for your time.

Yours truly,

LM