Steve's blog

Every presidential inauguration year seems to kick off another round of local secessionist talk. In 2001, it was about New York City seceding from New York and becoming its own state. I admit to a certain degree of sympathy for that given the fact that NYC is the revenue cash cow for the state. But few people took the talk seriously. Short of NYC becoming a hostile nuclear power, there's no way Albany would agree to let us go.

In 2005, the local news was about Staten Island secession. Its promoters have a different plan. They want to leave NYC and become part of New Jersey. I didn't have a problem with that. For me, Staten Island is mostly just an obstacle to be navigated on the way to New Jersey anyway. If it became part of New Jersey maybe it would get better malls.

Now Long Island wants to secede and become the 51st state. What kicked this off is a $1.5 billion payroll tax to bail out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Never mind that the MTA is underwriting the money-losing Long Island Railroad which brings over 250,000 Long Island residents into NYC every day to earn their livings while they contribute little to NYC's tax base.

It was a set up for one of the funniest videos I've ever seen lately: a Daily Show piece with the hysterically sarcastic Samantha Bee.

A couple of weeks ago one of my stained glass designs was picked for the Dragonfly Design of the Month, May 2009.

I don't consider myself an artist in the visual sense so I was kind of embarrassed by the attention and decided to keep it to myself. But I wanted to publicly thank Michael Wilk, president of Dragonfly, for the honor. So here it is. I know I probably wasn't the most cooperative candidate he's dealt with.

I also wanted to give a plug to Michael's Glass Eye 2000 stained glass design software. Believe me, if it can make a graphically challenged person like me create a nice looking design, someone with real talent will be able to do amazing things with it.

One more announcement. I've been blogging for Old House Web for the past couple of months -- my first paid blogging gig! Unfortunately, I've been neglecting my own.

So I also wanted to apologize to readers of this blog for the lapses in posting here. I've been very busy with Childrens Health Fund the past couple of months and it's looking like it will get even busier as I've been assigned a new childhood nutrition project. Fortunately for the kids, I won't be teaching them my personal food groups (Cheetos, General Tsos, Diet Pepsi and margaritas) but building the software.

However, my next project really, really will be to start constructing some of these stained glass designs. Really.

I ran across a story today about a new health threat from a strange source: drywall.

My first thought was, "you've got to be kidding!" My understanding from watching the How They Make Stuff TV shows was that drywall was about as inert a product as you can find: gypsum slurry, a fiber binder and recycled paper. How can that possibly be a health threat?

Tell that to the dozens of families who have been forced to evacuate their homes in Florida thanks to outgassing of drywall allegedly imported from China during the home building boom. Residents of these homes talked about a foul rotten-egg smell in rooms built with this drywall and, worse, whatever is causing the smell is also corroding metal in the homes: wiring, air conditioning coils, faucets, even table lamps.

Testing agencies have tentatively identified the smell as being sulfur dioxide, a toxic gas which can cause breathing disorders and be potentially fatal to those already suffering from asthma. The chemical is also consistent with the metal corrosion found in these houses.

Over 300 million square feet of this drywall was imported to the US and may be installed in as many as 100,000 homes and renovations constructed since 2001. Most of this drywall apparently ended up in the south, mainly in Florida, where the heat and humidity aggravates the outgassing.

The federal government is taking this seriously enough that it's alleged President Obama fired his legacy chairperson of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy Nord, over the controversy.

What strikes me about some of the photos I've seen, like this one, is how quickly metal is being corroded by the sulfur dioxide fumes. I've worked with chemicals like muriatic acid (dilute hydrochloric acid) and know what those fumes can do to unprotected metal. It rusted my new hammer across the room in literally two hours. It's scary to think what it could do the wiring inside a wall. Corrosion creates resistance and resistance creates heat, especially at fixture connections and pigtails. So there's potentially a third danger with it: fire. And, if I recall correctly, sulfur dioxide is itself highly flammable.

My unanswered question is why this Chinese drywall is outgassing sulfur dioxide. Testing agencies have found at least three sulfur products besides gypsum (calcium sulfate) in it. Perhaps it's used as a foaming agent to make the slurry? Who knows?

There's a central information clearinghouse set up for it at http://www.chinesedrywall.com/.

Shop owners love to brag about the incredible tool buys they've made on eBay, at flea markets and at estate auctions. Like my $50 Hitachi framing nailer and $125 radial arm saw.

But most of us have also made purchases we're less proud of, like the $100 "miracle corner clamping system" I bought at a tool show which turned out to be utterly useless for anything besides building the tiny box the salesman demonstrated at the show. Naturally, we don't talk much about those overpriced white elephants, which is probably why these hucksters are still in business.

Then there are those purchases that fall somewhere in the middle: useful tools with staggering price tags that don't really justify the tool's performance. When I purchased the Tormek T7 wet grinder at the International Woodworking Show in New Jersey, I was afraid I'd made just such a buy. After purchasing the optional jigs and accesories I needed for my planer and jointer blades, knives and scissors I walked out of the convention center almost $700 lighter.

Indeed, there's not much to this tool. It's basically just a slow-turning motor with a couple of wheels, a plastic bath tub and a steel frame. But it does an excellent job. Over the past four years I've taken for granted how much it's meant to always have sharp blades, chisels and knives in the shop.

Sure, experienced old timers can accomplish this manually with a sharening stone but it's a skill I don't have nor am I particularly eager to learn it with my expensive blades. There's more to it than just rubbing a blade against a block, like maintaining the precise bevel. Get this wrong on a 12" planer blade and you might as well toss the set and buy new ones.

That's how I balance -- or possibly rationalize -- the cost of the Tormek. I was spending a hundred bucks a year on new planer and jointer blades before the Tormek but I haven't bought a single set since. As an added bonus, I have scary sharp chisels, scissors and kitchen knives too.

In fact, if you've never had a knife professionally sharpened before you don't know how sharp they can be. Perhaps for liability reasons, brand new, store bought knives are usually pretty dull by comparison.