Some days ar diamonds. Some are just s**t.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

I made the trip into town today to buy some timber stain.

Normally I make my own, but for this job plain ol' Walnut would do nicely; it's a simple matter to get the shade I want from that. So, over to the shelves, grabbed a half-full tin and, as I walked back to the workbench, started unscrewing the lid.

Promptly tripped over a 4mx900x50mm slab of Himalayan Pine that I've been working around for months now without incident... and dropped the tin smack bang in the middle of it. It may only have been 125mL or so, but it's amazing the coverage it can get when poured liberally over an otherwise pristine slab and shed floor. AAAAARGH!

Grabbing the nearest rag, I didn't notice my favourite 1/2" chisel resting on it. Of course, that had to hit the floor point first and chip out a corner.

Almost an hour later, wasted in cleaning up, not that you could tell I'd even tried apart from a pile of stinky miscoloured rags now filling my litter bin and some 15 minutes grinding 4mm off my chisel, I decided to start again. Except now I didn't have any suitable stain whatsoever.

Into town I trotted, where I had a look at the shelves... and all I could find - apart from the tinted poly masquerading as a stain - were 1L cans of Cedar, Dark Mahogany, Teak, Golden Oak, Jarrah, Rosewood, Teak, New Maple and "Contemporary Maple," whatever the hell that is.

What the...??? Where's the Walnut?

(I should point out that this is the Wattle Craftsman Traditional range. For various reasons that's all our local stocks for dye stains.)

So I called over the timber & paint dept's clerk, who is fairly competent (Yay!), and asked for assistance.

He walked over, reached behind all the 1L cans and extracted three 250mL tins. One of each Maple variant and one of Walnut. He told me to treasure them, then asked me if I saw any Walnut in the 1L range. When I replied in the negative he snorted and came back with "That's the full range available now."

Then he added, in a disgusted tone of voice as he walked away, "Worse, they're discontinuing the 250mL tins. 500mL is the smallest they'll send us and we can't get the full range of colour in those."

Seriously? For some colours I need to buy 1L minimum? And Walnut isn't an option?

Come on, Wattyl! What do you think this stuff is? Paint? Or is your product so watered down nowadays that you need to apply it that liberally?

Dunno. I haven't opened the tins yet to find out... while in town I checked the post and found the rego/insurance renewals for both cars. It has been an absolutely, perfectly ^%$# morning so far and I don't want to risk ruining it.

[BobL]

Sounds like a bit of bastard.

Nowhere near like your day but my day yesterday was fine up until I opened up the pantry to put away some groceries on the top shelf and while doing that I knocked over a full open 500g packet of bicarb. Apparently it was here to absorb odours. The stuff went everywhere including out onto the kitchen floor - initially I walked away from it as it was SWMBO who had put it there without notice. SWMBO was out all day and I kept walking past the mess and notice the dogs had started tracking throughout the house so I cleaned up the stuff on the kitchen floor. Then the mess got the better of me and I cleaned up the pantry as well.

[ian]

Almost an hour later, wasted in cleaning up, not that you could tell I'd even tried apart from a pile of stinky miscoloured rags now filling my litter bin and some 15 minutes grinding 4mm off my chisel, I decided to start again. Except now I didn't have any suitable stain whatsoever.

if that Walnut stain is oil based get that litter bin out of your shed now -- not tomorrow morning but right now

[Handyjack]

Not a good day, but at least you are able to talk about it from home.

Could have been a lot worse. Could have tripped over the slab, put your arms out, broken bones, hit head and then chisel falls and lands point first in you. A couple of hours latter you are being prepped for surgery and a couple of nights in hospital. Unable to do anything in the shed for a month or more.

As the song goes, "Look on the Bright Side of Life".
Hope the rest of the year goes well, and the New year is better and healthy.