Now, Rochester...cut that out!

For those of U Fthfl Rdrs who have been wondering about the status of the sunroom project, you're in luck. Ve haff ze updates, da!

And if you want to see Other Stuff, ve haff dat too...coming soon.

Also, be forewarned. Yr Fhthfl Blggr is going on vacation and is taking his camera! Where's he going and what's he gonna blog blog blog about?

I dunno.

Finally we're reaching the long-awaited end to the tiling. One of the last tasks before grouting is to fit the tiles that go around the corners of the center 'mosaic' piece. I had been pondering how to do this for some time. It's a corner cut, so the wet saw won't work and neither will the manual cutter.

So I did what I usually do in these situations. I pondered. And I realized that the good folks at Dremel make a diamond cutter attachment for a roto-tool (aka a Dremel).

Off to The Despot. Upon arrival and perusing the tool section o' the stoh, I find dey don't have no diamond attachments. They are Out of Stock. So, I think to myself, "perhaps there is something similar in the tile section." And YES! SCORE ONE FOR ME!

What they have is a jigsaw blade. This will work perfectly well. And it's only like $3.50 as opposed to $20 (mmmm yep) for the diamond Dremel cutter thingy.

Armed with my new blade, I mark and clamp down Tile Number One onto my beyond-trusty Workmate 200. I put the blade into the jigsaw. I start cutting.

While I am cutting, I realize I need a picture of the fammis jigsaw In Operation Doing What It Does. So with one hand on the camera and one on the jigsaw trigger, I get an action shot. Wowee. Lookit that thing go!

It works perfectly. I'm able to make the two cuts reasonably cleanly. I do find in the process that ceramic tile just devours these blades though. I could have used two. By the time I'm on the third tile, things are progressing very slowly indeed. But I muddle through and have four cut tiles in the end. The bit of uneven edge on a couple of them will clean up easily with a file - a tile file - a file for tiles.

A quick final word about the Workmate. This thing is indispensible. I've used it for a work surface, as a vise, as a table, as a seat...you name it.

What a brilliant design. It also folds fairly flat for storage (although mine is rarely if ever folded). I actually got mine for the princely sum of ze-ro dallahs! My sister of the feminine persuasion had Black and Decker as a client way back when and they GAVE her one. It sat in her garage until one day I rescued it. Now it has a happy life doing what it was designed to do. I can't recommend it enough.

As an aside, the Workmate was designed by Englishman Ron Hickman. He also designed the loverly little Lotus Elan (good background here as well), that mouthwatering little sports car. When I had my first MGB, the Elan was one of the cars I aspired to. Another example of Colin Chapman's genius.