Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments.....

[Dennis Peacock]

8 Aug 2011

Good Morning Everyone,
Well, it's been HOT here and I'm way past ready for fall temps. I'm looking forward to spending some time in the shop this fall & winter getting some stuff done that I just can't seem to muster up the want to in all this heat. It was 113º F in my shop on Saturday and I was in there because I needed to get some repairs done on my motorcycle before I have to make the next trip to visit my dad and help take care of things around their house. I was so glad to have all that behind me now.

I do have to up and coming ww'ing projects to do, but I refuse to even start them until cooler temps set in. The MIL has been visiting with us for 2 weeks now and we sure have had a nice visit. Her biggest battle is loneliness since her husband passed away almost a year ago. We all miss him greatly.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Jerome Hanby]

As far as the shop is concerned, spent the weekend working on the Shopnotes Dado jig. Cut a few slots, hack sawed some metal pieces, but mostly clamped up sub assemblies and waited for glue to dry. Did pull one bonehead maneuver and decided I could leave my Shopsmith jointer mounted on the "wrong end" (just a place to park it out of the way when I'm using the band saw) when I lifted into drill press mode. Would have been a fine idea if I had locked it down! Instead I dumped it about 2.5 feet onto the concrete floor. It was fine other that I broke off the knob that holds the pork chop to the table. Looked online and they have updated the jointer at some point and I couldn't order the replacement part, but I could order the upgraded guard kit, doh! So I took things apart so I could get a better look at the broken part and I think I caught a break. The threaded shaft of the knob and broken unevenly from the inside base of the knob. Being uneven, it would only fit back one way, and the break was right against the base of the knob so it didn't interfere with the threaded part. I epoxied it back together and I think it's going to work fine. back to the jig, I had to cut an adjustment slot that would accommodate a 3/8" diameter bolt. I knew I had 1/4" and 1/2" router bits but knew I'd never purchased a 3/8" straight bit so I started planning how to set up to make two passes with the 1/4". Then I recalled that I purchased (from a fellow 'creeker) the Freud router bit set for the Incra joinery system so I hoped online and looked it up and voila, it contains a 3/8" straight bit! For once in my life, I thought I knew exactly where something was and it turns out I was right, so the slots were no brainers to cut. But just so that no good fortune exists without an equal amount of bad fortune, I discovered that the up top router table collet lock gizmo on my FT3000 router is not all that tough and I managed to crack it. Going to hit Freud sometime today and see if they will send me a replacement part. They were good about sending the the correct length screws when I first bought it and I suspect the part I broke is either defective or poorly implemented, I didn't put any major amount of force on it.

[Matt Meiser]

Friday LOML was on a girls' trip with some friends so it was just LOMLjr and I. It was county fair week here. A few years ago we had a power failure on the same evening (sure, DTE Energy, I believe when you say you don't shed load during fair week :rolleyes:) so I took her to the Monster Truck show. Its become a tradition that I couldn't convince her to break so we did that again. Kind of reminds me of pro wrestling but she enjoys it so who cares. We also walked around and checked out the merchant booths, ate a variety of deep fried foods, drank fresh-squeezed lemonade, and wander through the steer barn to find a girl she knows from the bus who lives on the next road over.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at my parents' since two of my brothers who live out of town were visiting.

The only thing I did related to my shop was to change out the breaker that feeds the subpanel as discussed in another thread and changing out the filter on the AC which has sure seen a lot of action this summer. During lunches this week I'm hoping to get the filter box for my HVLP built and the contents of some cabinets rearranged to complete my finishing room so I can get back to woodworking. There was lots of teasing/discussion about the dining table I'm supposed to be building for my mom over the weekend. I teased that each time it comes up, it gets delayed another holiday, but I really do need to try to get it done for Thanksgiving.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Saturday, I milled wood for 2 divided pane doors for the entertainment center I'm making. I was about to glue the muttons into place when I had a sudden thought. Grabbing a tape measure I went into the house and measured the location of the display cable box. If I put the vertical muttons in, I wouldn't be able to see the time/channel display on the cable box. Now we have 2 pane horizontally divided window in that entertainment center.

Sunday ran some errands and made a jig to route some holes in the bottom of the entertainment center for air input on the two compartments that will contain equipment. Watched Nascar. Chilled.

[David Hostetler]

Been an incredibly busy weekend for me...
#1. Tune up on the Saturn. Meaning… 1a. Change spark plugs, 1b. Change spark plug wires, 1c. de-gunk the Mass Air Flow sensor. 1d. Clean and oil the K&N air filter. It will take at least a day for this to dry, so I will drop in a temporary filter just to be able to use the car during that time. 1e. Dump the remainder of the SeaFoam engine cleaner in the gas tank. (Been using this stuff for years in my trucks. I don’t as often as I should in the Saturn…). This is almost completely done. I have the K&N on my bench drying still. Been too humid this weekend for fast drying... I have a paper filter in there now. Post tune up, well... reminds me of why I liked these cars in the first place... Plenty of pep, and great gas mileage...


#2. Prep curly maple stock for a custom doggie urn for Deacon my departed Labrador Retriever. I was hoping to get the walnut S4S as well, but ran out of time and energy.
#3. Ordered inlay router bit / bushing set for above project. Never done router inlay before, but I want to inlay a dog bone piece in the top of the urn. I am anxious to get the thing in and start doing the inlay.
#4. Pulled a mess of the straightest salvaged PT pine fence pickets and cleaned them up. These are the newer type, not the old Cyanide treated stuff. I am going to joint and plane them, glue them up in pairs to come up with a total 4/4 stock thickness to start building a couple Adirondack chairs. They are now drying against my shop doors...
#5. Ran to Sams Club to get some household supplies for the next few weeks., and this HURT… I hate going to Sams Club. We price shop, and use the smart phones a LOT to compare prices where we can. Sams is cheaper on a LOT of items we use a lot of.
#6. Back to the Saturn, aim the headlights. I had to replace the drivers headlight a couple of weeks ago after the heat got to the adhesive holding the lens to the body of the light, and the lens fell off on the highway… I have aimed them to the best of my ability, and they are close. I am going to take the car to my BILs body shop and see if I can talk him into fine tuning the aim...
#7. Epoxy the key for the truck back together. The section of the key that holds the transponder chip fell off from the shaft of the key… Done.
#8. Rebuild / repair a Littermaid self cleaning cat box. The contacts simply stopped, well… contacting… Dust from the litter gunked it up… NASTY job…
#9. Built a table saw alignment jig specifically for the BT3100, my miter slot and sliding miter table are dead on now. We are however, not talking about the fence. I knew I was off, but boy oh boy how far off is SCARY… Part of my jig design is a through mortise. This stupid little project gave me the itch for a mortising machine so bad it’s not funny… The pieces were too small to set up with the hand screws effectively, and so I was mostly free handing it. Ugly, but effective… I think next pay period, a Central Machinery mortiser is being added to my shop…
What I did not get accomplished this weekend that I am most annoyed about, I needed to get at least 3 to 4 hours of study time for my RHCE exam in… Now I need to figure out how to squeeze that in…

[Karl Card]

Well I gotta say that I did not do a wood project but I did finaly get my new to me Delta 34-350 (12inchTS) down the steps without loosing a limb or hurting the basement. That thing was heavy. I understand around 700 pounds plus. I took the table off and took the extensions off and that made it manageble. I am investing in a winch soon, I think I would like it better than a come along. Other than that I did get my import wood all put away to make room for the TS. Now I am just waiting for bearings and the deal on the new motor for the TS.