When I was a kid, one of the best ways to tell if my dad was in a fun mood was if he was singing a nonsensical song. He had several, but second to his favorite “chicken in the bread pan pecking out dough” was “do a little jig and zig a little zag, come on down for the Sugar Foot Rag.”
They made sense to him because he’d heard someone else sing them before. We didn’t have the internet back in the day and WTIX didn’t play them on the AM radio. We just thought he made them up.
And he kind of did, because he would change the words to fit his mood or whatever he found funny at the time and they rarely had the exact same lyrics each time he sang them. He still sings them today. But I digress.
I was singing one of my dad’s versions of Sugar Foot Rag this afternoon. I bought a little jig, a Kreg jig, to be exact.
Kreg makes lots of jigs. I first saw them on TV 10 or 15 years ago and thought it would be a great tool for someone like me.
When they were divvying up the DNA, I got my dad’s metalworking gene, but the woodworking gene went to my brother (who also got the metalworking gene. Hey, wait a minute.)
My brother has helped me learn, though. Once he suggested I buy a long 1×4 and two c-clamps to use with my circular saw, rather than spend all kinds of money on a table saw. In a day, I was ripping the straightest cuts ever.
I picked up a little Kreg jig at Lowe’s (Model R3) and used it to attach a base to my homemade TV antenna.
I’ve been wanting to add a base to my antenna for five years. But while my brother’s advice on straight-edges empowered me to install attic flooring several years ago, his advice on attaching a base to the long wooden pole I use for my antenna wasn’t as empowering.
“Just drill some holes through the base and countersink some screws,” didn’t have the same effect. I had a vision of the 7-foot plus thing toppling over because I didn’t countersink enough. So it has sat on a back burner for a while.
I saw the Kreg jigs gain more popularity on DIY TV shows over the past few years, but their $100 plus cost always kept them on the “neat to have” list rather than the list for “need to have.”
Watching the Woodsmith’s Shop yesterday reminded me that the Kreg jigs could help me. And I discovered that I could do it with a smaller, portable jig that didn’t cost $100. If you want the generic name, it’s called a pocket-hole jig.
Portable comes in handy when you live in an apartment and your workshop is 50 miles away, like mine is up on the ridge. So on the way home after a rainy-day visit to the ridge today, I stopped at Lowe’s to look at things I need for this coming weekend on the property and picked up the R3 jig and a 2-foot long piece of oak 1×12.
As soon as I got home, I did a little jig and zigged a little zag, and within 5 minutes I had a nice looking 90-degree connection between the antenna post and the base.
It’s not finished. I want to add some stiffeners at the base and then seal the wood and drill some holes to permanently attach the antenna top. But it’s operational and ready for the next Saturday that I decide to just lay on the couch and watch the Saturday DIY home improvement and cooking shows on PBS and the TV signal acts up.
One foot, two foot, slew foot drag, build your own antenna with the Sugar Foot Rag ….
Our dads definitely were brothers!