Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments.....

[Dennis Peacock]

18 July 2011

Good Morning Everyone,

Well, I was more of a free man this weekend. I was able to go by and visit with fellow woodworker Mark Cothren who is a very good friend of mine. Really nice visit but IMHO was just too short. Next time I'll stay longer, as I sure did enjoy the visit.

Done a little cleaning up in the shop since the temps were in the lower 90's and a breeze blowing felt good too. Worked on the project for our family doctor. Simple enough but a project that allowed me to teach one of my boys about the process of making something from wood.

My dad is now on hospice care and his pain control appears to be a bit better than it was previously with home health care. I'm glad to see his pain getting under better control. IMHO, it's about time for another visit.

Last but not least, I've been teaching my boys about riding motorcycle and how to ride one safely. Both have taken and passed their written test and now have a motorcycle permit that lets them ride to learn and they get to ride when I ride to teach and observe. They both are doing very well and I'm very proud of them.

Well, that's it for me, so what did YOU do this past weekend?

Best of weeks to you all.

[Harvey Pascoe]

Lovely weekend here, starting with 16" of rain followed by my computer taking a dump so I spent all day yesterday reformatting the drive and reinstalling the OS and dozens of drivers and software. The only good thing is that I got the job done in record time - one day.

Which would I rather do, computer maintenance or shop maintenance? Hands down, the shop! I'd rather hone planer knives than do this stuff.

[Matt Meiser]

I flew home from a week of work in Kansas City on Friday night. KC was HOT. 97 when I got then at 9PM last Sunday. :eek: Monday when we went to lunch I could barely touch the steering wheel. Luckily we spent most of the time on site in an air conditioned office area but the one trip to the manufacturing area was more than enough. I don't know how the people who work out there do it. Saturday I made a trip to Woodcraft and picked up one of the Triton wood racks while they were on sale for some newly-freed wall space in my shop. I managed to get that assembled and mounted before heading out for my brother-in-laws wedding. Outdoor wedding. Ugh. At least it was casual so I could wear shorts and it wasn't too bad under the tent they rented. Sunday morning I helped a friend move all the big WW equipment from his old house to his new house, which has a basement shop. We were done by noon but I still sweated off a few pounds I think. He's giving up a nice new separate shop but his new space is nice and big and has amazing 10' ceilings. Once done with that we tried to adopt an outdoor cat for my daughter but the organization didn't tell us they don't do outdoor cats until after we chose one, she spent a half hour playing with it, etc. Needless to say my daughter was a little upset. If that's their rule that's fine, but I'm pretty ticked that's not listed in the policies on their web site. After dinner at my parents' we came home and just vegged in front of the TV.

[Gene Howe]

Spent most of Saturday cleaning the truck and camper. Most of Sunday loading same.
As always, just before a trip and on a week end, a minor plumbing hitch. The manifold on the softener developed a leak. Had to bypass it. No soft water for now. But won't be using water here for the next 25 or so days. Probably have iron rings in all the toilets when we get back. Oh well, can't stick around and wait for the plumber.
Today,(Mon.) take care of some last minute stuff, and maybe relax. We'll hit the road tomorrow at 05:00 headed for THE HEAT. First stop OK City area for two days. Then on to central southern IL for a week, then on to Jamestown KY to catch part of "The Longest Yard Sale along 127. Finally, on to TN pick up a few hundred bf of Walnut and QSWO. Then, head home to the cool mountains of N. AZ. Where we begin planning a trip to see our son and family on Okinawa before he's deployed to Afghanistan. Whew!!!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Last week our house was reroofed by a contractor. I/We discovered some facia in need of repair in the process. I bought the materials and machined the facia. The contractor installed it.

Our local Sears store doesn't sell paint anymore. I took our color chips to the local HD and they color matched it for the previously used Sears paint. I began painting the unpainted facia. I would have finished except I ran into a couple yellow jacket nests.

Want to see an fat old man run? Give him a nearly empty can of wasp spray..and turn him loose on a yellow jacket nest at at a height of about 9 feet. One second into the battle the can runs out and so does he! PDAMHIKT.....

So I started cleaning up my shop so I could get back to working on an entertainment center.

Sunday morning I fixed breakfast for the LOML and a visiting granddaughter.

Later I discovered a major flaw in my design for an entertainment center. Then I fretted the rest of the day trying to decide how and if I want to recover from it or throw out $150 worth of oak plywood and start over. Grrrrr!

[David Hostetler]

We finally got a few days of rain here on the Texas coast this weekend. So I spent a lot of it just hanging out with LOML... I did get a few things done though...

#1. Finished milling and gluing up and cutting to size a solid PT SYP block for my back stoop. Long story, but the one that was there originally was not treated, and rotted away. The new one is sitting on my bench waiting for primer and paint before final installation.

#2. I knew I was going to be out of the shop for most of the weekend, so I took the time to wash out both the primary, and secondary filters in my overhead air cleaner. It's been nearly a year since I bought and installed the thing, and the filters were getting nasty. This just proves that I have GOT to get more serious about dust collection at the miter saw.

#3. The P trap in the kitchen on the disposal side had started leaking. I went to Home Depot, got a new P trap and down tube because everyone knows that everyone plumbs a sink correctly right? WRONG.... Instead of thin wall stuff, I ended up finding my drains plumbed with schedule 40, merely slip fitted together! The ENTIRE assembly! Now there were the reducing thread adapters that you usually see at the wall but these were mounted up on the tailpiece out of the disposal. NO GLUE was used anywhere else under this sink! Okay back to Home Depot. Disassemble the NASTY pieces, thoroughly clean them, glue what needed to be glued, get new friction washers for the parts that used them, and go from there... I would love to give my home inspector a piece of my mind, but he passed on a few years ago...

#4. I replaced the drivers side headlamp, polished the passengers side as best I could, and replaced the radiator fan motor in my Saturn. LOML was driving her brother to the hospital last week (no emergency, he is a transplant patient, and does a LOT of follow up stuff) when the headlight lens became un bonded and fell off (it had previously done so, but I was able to recover, and use RTV sealant to glue it back together.), and then the car started overheating... Oh well, it's fixed now... I really need a new passenger side lamp to make it all match, I spent 30 minutes with Plastix, and my drill / buffing bonnet trying to get the scratches out of it. Forget it, too far gone...

#5. Built a display / photo stand for some work we are doing for the same said BIL. He is selling small keepsake sorts of doo dads, and some of this stuff needs more natural light for decent photos than a photo tent / lamps can provide. So we are turning the bed of my pickup into a photo booth...

#6. Not sure if I mentioned this from the previous week's weekend accomplishments, but I fully re-organized my lumber racks and stocked with some great 4/4 (actually 5/4 but who's counting!) Black Wallnut I came across on Craigslist. I got a pretty fair deal on it. Not dirt cheap, but about $1.50 bd/ft cheaper than the sawmill, and no 150 mile drive in my 15 mpg pickup truck to get it... The guy was like 4 miles from my house... Nice fellow too... I figure I will go back to him soon for some oak... He has some REALLY nice QSWO for the same sort of deal...

#6. Spent some quality time online looking around, I was considering making a magazine drilling guide, so that I can organize, protect, and keep my magazines and books in the shop in binders. I have however discovered they make nice sized little boxes for just a task. I guess I could build some magazine boxes, but I want to get the job done FAST and at a reasonable expense. I found these corrugated plastic type for not much more than cardboard. I have several years of Wood Magazine, Popular Woodworking, and Shop Notes I need to keep organized... I will build a ceiling hung book shelf to house these, and my books... That way I can keep my woodworking, and automotive libraries out of the regular household library, which means more room for LOMLs cookbooks, and both of our I.T. books...

#7. Discovered the cat-5 cable I have strung from the home office to the master bedroom is no good. I need to back pull this thing, but that requires getting up in the attic, and I am NOT going to do that during the summer, anyway, I will be spending a lot of quality time up there after September. I have insulation to finish rolling out, and then a radiant barrier to install...

Lastly, we went to services yesterday morning, but I wasn't really paying attention. Not that it was a bad sermon, but with all this wet / dry stuff lately, whatever has been putting off blooming is in high gear right now, and my allergies were trying to kill me. I have had a sinus headache since yesterday morning... And honestly, it has been coming and going for 2 weeks now... Makes me REALLY miss living in Arizona...

Hope all have had a good, productive weekend. And I hope you were able to spend some time with your loved ones.

[David Nelson1]

Wow thats a lot of stuff!!!!!!!!!

[David Nelson1]

For the last 2 weekends I have been rearranging and adding shop furniture that I got from fellow creeker Chris Jackson. This weekend I finish the moble cart for the planer and lifted it to the new cart made from oak piths. Did go to well I forgot about a tab that secures the planer to the floor so it wont walk around. I also unloaded an 8 inch jointer I got from Chris as well. Made a cart and set it on it. Sunday was an easy day cleaned surface corrosion from the jointer and waxed it, put tools away, swept the floor, and edge jointed a few boards that where close to 7 foot long. Man that was a pleasure compared to using the 46 in tble on the old jointer.

[BOB OLINGER]

For us, a few small things _

- fertilized my tomato plants
- repaired an outside water fountain for my wife (ended up the water tube was plugged with lime build up)
- cut some quarter round for one room in the house (finishing up type of project)
- a little lawn work
- picked up a SawStop cartridge - I forgot to disengage when sawing green pressure treated lumber :(
- church on Sunday morning
- watched the womens world cup

[Jerome Hanby]

Actually used a hand plane this weekend. I haven't found my brand new 20+ year old record block plane since the move, so I dug out a Simmonds I bought off of the bay and have never been able to find any word about good or ill. It worked great. I was shaving down the poplar banding that surrounds the three layer thick MDF top for my wife's late stand. These curlies are addicting, I'm going to have to get my sharpening gear setup and get my other hand planes tuned up. After getting everything nice and flush, I got the table mounted onto the lathe stand and the lathe mounted. Still have to get the drawers mounted, false fronts added to them, build/install the cabinet door, and attach the levelers. I shellacked the top of the carcass, both shelves, and both sides and all edges of the top prior to attaching it, guess I'll also do the rest of the case, inside and out, the drawers and cabinet door also. Worked on the dust collection for my table saw, but I'm going to ask some questions about that in another thread.

[scott vroom]

I spent much of the weekend at the router table making rails and stiles for 28 doors....part of a kitchen reface job. The raised panels will be MDF....gonna be a lot of dust in the shop this week :(.

[Jim O'Dell]

I did spend a little time in the shop Sunday. Got 4 of the 5 ZCI cutouts laminated, 202298 finger holes drilled, and the bottom recessed so I can run the blade up through them. 202300 Got the leveling screws in one, and was trying to put the threaded insert in...broke 3 of the 4 I bought. I knew better than to get this style, but that's all Lowe's had. 202299 Will have to go to Ace and get some hex drive ones that will actually work. Made my decision on the replacement ROS...Milwaukee 6021-21. Ordered it tonight after making sure I was getting some money back to SMC. Jim.

[Jim Becker]

Busy weekend...lot of horsie stuff on Saturday, some landscape work on Sunday and a small barbecue at a friend's house Sunday afternoon and evening. But the best part was delivering my latest tack trunk commission (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?169480-Project-Latest-Tack-Trunk-Commission-(7-2011)) to it's new owner and she was very surprised...it was a gift from her husband. I like him, too...he handed me more than the balance due and didn't want change. LOL

Dennis, I'm glad to hear that your dad is getting some additional comfort right now.

[Jim Becker]

Busy weekend...lot of horsie stuff on Saturday, some landscape work on Sunday and a small barbecue at a friend's house Sunday afternoon and evening. But the best part was delivering my latest tack trunk commission (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?169480-Project-Latest-Tack-Trunk-Commission-(7-2011)) to it's new owner and she was very surprised...it was a gift from her husband. I like him, too...he handed me more than the balance due and didn't want change. LOL

Dennis, I'm glad to hear that your dad is getting some additional comfort right now.

[Peter Scoma]

Wife worked all weekend which gave me some good shop time. Saturday I did all the M&T's for my reclaimed oak Roubo. Sunday I hit Adamstown, PA in search of antique tools but didnt find anything worth purchasing. I hit another place on my way back to Philly and picked up a few old sandusky moulding planes and a pair of dividers. A quick stop at Woodcraft yielded the Veritas MKII and some great turning blanks for the dozens of vintage chisels i've amassed that need handles.

All in all a good weekend. First born will be here in 10 weeks so who knows what ill have time for he/she arrives.

PJS