A few days ago I contacted the editor of the newsletter for Esperanto-USA, the national organization for Esperantists in the U.S.A. I sort of know the guy from a few contacts over the years. I basically queried if he’d be interested in articles in Esperanto about woodworking. The answer was yes.

As it turns out he wants the sort of articles that I would be putting in my book, a basic how-to approach. While this is not a paying gig, I think it’s advantageous for me as it gives me access to an editor who reads my work, corrects a few of my errors and suggests ways to improve the article. Even in English I need an editor, so this is a great way for me to improve my language, writing style and expose woodworking to a different peer group.

My first article is a rerun of the earring box I made last year, but future articles will be about all new builds, though a few of the items are things I’ve done before.

Today while working on this, I needed a way to describe the ‘grits’ of sandpaper. I knew that I had figured this out before the harddisk on my last laptop bit the dust. The info went with it. After a few hours of looking up words and trying to remember my past genius solution, I remembered! The best word for coarseness as regards abrasives is ’raspeco ’. From there I can basically describe the general kind of grit to use for sanding.

Coarse is: raspega

Medium is: mezraspa

and fine is: raspeta

There are also ways to describe the grits between, above and below those. This time I’ve written it down outside of my harddisk, so it won’t get lost again.

The numbers that we enjoy on our sandpaper sheets don’t mean much aside from describing degrees of grit. There are two systems in the U.S. alone, so I’m sticking with the generalities. If you’ve read this far I thank you. Dankon !

-- Ni faru ion el ligno!