Size matters: Time for a bigger piece of wood

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As I started putting together the initial Polar RC3 and Garmin FR10 reviews a few weeks ago, it became clear that in order to accommodate all of the watches I wanted to picture together in my typical size comparison photos – I’d need a bigger rolling pin.

And in fact, I do actually have a really big rolling pin I bought a year or so ago.  The problem is it turned out the smaller women’s watches just couldn’t handle the girth of that piece of wood.  Form over functionality.  A common problem I’m sure.

So I set about to fix it by going to the one place where you can find a cheap solution to just about everything: Ikea.

There, I found two new rolling pins – almost identical to the current rolling pin I use today:

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I took these home and then grabbed my bike for a few mile…err…kilometer ride to the hardware store.  Here in Paris it’s called Castorama.  Basically it’s like Home Depot, but without the crazy forklift people trying to run you over.

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I bumbled around for a while, trying to first figure out where the wood glue was, and then trying to decide whether or not what I was buying was actually wood glue.  In the end, I bought the below and hoped it would work.  With a name like ‘Multi+’ – I figured I was in good shape.  Plus, it had a wooden duck on the front.  Can’t go wrong there.

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Next, I pulled out the dowel that the two handles sit on.  Turns out this was super easy, it’s just two pieces of wood on a metal stick.  Like a kabob stick really.

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From there, I added a bunch of the magic glue.

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Perhaps too much glue – it came squirting out the sides.

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No worries, a quick wipe with a business card fixed it up pronto!  OK, so it was one of The Girl’s DCR business cards…but hey, it was the first thing I saw.  And at least it wasn’t something like a special baking spatula or hairbrush or other womanly thing of hers. (As you’d likely never have heard from me again if so.)

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From there I let it hang out and dry next to some leftover fancy cupcakes she had made.  A little voice inside of me thought it would probably have been funny if it had tipped over in the middle of the night and taken out one of the poodles, but, for better or worse it stayed upright.

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With that, it was time to test it out.  No better place than her mini-cake stand!  Well, at least in my mind it was no better place.

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A bit of finagling later – and I had the whole thing lined up with watches!  The below is sorta a Noah’s Ark of watches.

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Yup, a beauty indeed!

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With that, it’s gonna be a whole new world for rolling pin comparisons in the future.  Good times ahead!

Hope everyone has a great weekend, and thanks for reading!

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18 Comments

  1. Colnagasm

    As low-tech as this post may be, it’s one of the most enjoyable I’ve read on here. How on earth did you turn a post about, well, sticking two rolling pins together into an amusing, illustrated short story? 🙂

  2. …And when you’re done with that, I have two pictures to be hung and a floor that needs sanding and polyurethane! 😉 lol

    Looks good! The Holy Grail of watch displays!

    Sarah
    http://www.thinfluenced.com

  3. DL

    How mean to hope that the cake would be crushed!

  4. Anonymous

    The problem with your approach is that the camera lens will introduce a distortion. When all the watches are in a row on your double-wide rolling pin, the watches in the middle of the pin will be closer to the camera than the watches on the edges, which means that it will be difficult to make accurate visual size comparisons. You’ll either have to shoot the picture with a very long telephoto lens to minimize this effect, or you’ll have to correct for the distortion using high-end image processing software like DxO Optics Pro. A third possibility is to make a new web site like camerasize.com.

  5. Abel

    You truly are worlds best sports blogger, no matter what scoreboards may tell you!

  6. Quick translation for what you can use it:

    Our Multi+ glue glues in all cases a lot of materials such as : rubber/metal, cardboard/epoxy, leather/bakeliet (black hard plastic, Belgian invention!!! Yey Belgium 🙂
    The Multi+ glue is recommended for: plastics (except polyethylene, polypropylene and PTFE), PVC, ABS, leather, rubber, cork, cardboard, tissue, metal, aluminium, wood (interior and exterior), cement, epoxy, marble, stone, plaster, canvas, skin, daim, bakeliet, glass, neoprene, polystyrene

    As you can see, a lot of English words came from French (history you know).
    I guess your French lessons aren’t going so well? 😉

  7. Next step, I suggest you take the rolling pin with all watches and take them for a bike ride sitting on your handle bars. I’d love to see a set with all of them going at one time! Ha!

  8. Nice! What’s the watch model second from the left (between the FR70 and rcx3)?

  9. That’s the new Garmin FR10 (men’s edition). Check out the sidebar for the latest review on that.

    Enjoy!

  10. Hi Ray,

    I currently own a 310XT that I’ve had for quite some time. Seeing your extra long rolling pin prompted a question in my mind: if the 310XT works well, is there a good reason to upgrade to the 910XT?

    Richard

  11. Love the watch setup.

  12. Hi Richard-

    The primary reason is really swim metrics in the pool. There’s some additional swim metrics within openwater (stroke primarily), and slightly improved openwater distance metrics.

    Also, for power meter folks, there’s TSS/NP/IF.

    Beyond that, they are pretty similiar watches.

  13. Daniel

    hey ray

    weird question, beside of the Comparison part, what do you do with so many watches ?

  14. Companies often update the firmware on watches, so I end up updating to be able to update reviews/etc as applicable. As well as answer questions on all the review posts. Some of the posts have 500+ comments/questions on them that I try and keep up with.

  15. If you used a basic wood glue you’ve have gotten a joint equally as strong AND I’d still feel safe using it for rolling mega-pastries

  16. It’s only a matter of time until it will be too small for your ever growing collection 😉

  17. Iain

    Ideas for future expansion… Broom stick, tree branch (hone those whittling skills) or a table leg… Good luck because we as consumers want to keep seeing new developments which means many new models… Plus you’re well on the way to creating the rainmaker museum…. 20 years fom now when we all laugh at the size of the old technology

  18. Anonymous

    Speaking of updates, do you have updated thoughts on the Timex Global Trainer by chance?