The Silver Whale

Some time ago, never mind how long precisely (funny how this Moby Dick reference gets more useful as my memory for details fades), my wife gave me a large box, and told me to get my junk out of her drawers.

Maybe I should rephrase that. The box allegedly contained a rolling toolchest, and she asked me to get my tools out of the drawers she wanted to use for her junk.

The box weighed approximately 400 lbs and was constructed to withstand a simultaneous earthquake and H 5 tornado, so just getting it open was a bit of a challenge. When opened, what was revealed was parts, 11,347 of them by rough count or actual estimate, of which only 11,017 were screws, in 33 varieties. What I had, in short, was not a toolchest, but a project.

Now my wife claims that she was unaware that the chest came disassembled. Lending plausibility to that notion is the fact that she clearly remembers a much younger, stronger, keener-eyed, and clearer-sighted me struggling into the wee hours of Christmas morning trying to assemble a couple of big wheel racers consisting of exactly three parts each. On the other hand, she is eager to get me out of the house and into the garage.

Lo these several months later, the project does seem to be taking shape. There is now an actual, rolling, box-shaped silvery metallic object in my garage, and I have even finished assembling the first drawer (less than 200 parts). When I attempted to insert that drawer, though, I met a peculiar obstruction. Further research revealed it to be a part, screwed in place, that didn't seem to belong there. I wonder how much of the box will need to be disassembled to remove it.

I have a friend who is building a jet aircraft in his garage. Aside from the heliarc welding, his task may be the simpler.