Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments.....

[Dennis Peacock]

22 Aug 2011

Good Morning Everyone,
Yes, I slept in just a bit this morning, but it was due to a very hard week at work and time spent with family over the weekend. I took some time this past week or so to begin cleaning up more of my shop and I've also been spending time working on the lawn mower. I guess a new mower is going to be coming to me in the next year or so. I sure hate spending that money on a new mower, but I've got just over 3 acres of yard to cut and a good large sized mower / lawn tractor is in order.

I got the stove top project done for our family doctor. His wife approved of it and he really likes it, so I feel that all went well with it. He's always coming up with things for me to help him with, but I told him that the shop is closed until cooler weather near late September. :)

Well, it's going to be a busy week for me with work and all.....so that's it for me, what did YOU do this past weekend?

Best of weeks to you all.

[Jerome Hanby]

I sneaked in a quick glue up of some edging to a plywood bookcase side Friday and that was it for my home shop. Spent the weekend doing a quick install of some maple flooring at my folks house which turned into an all weekend effort after I discovered some water damage along the back wall after ripping up the carpet. Actually got that fixed, the floor leveled, the threshold clips installed, and the maple laid down about 8:00 PM Sunday night. Guess I'll have to make another "quick" trip to install the quarter round and threshold molding...

[Shawn Pixley]

An odds and ends weekend. Finished the cut out for the sewing machine for LOML's seing table. So her craft room is now complete. Installed casters on my son's speaker cabinet. Diassembled and cleaned the bandsaw with a bit of modification to improve dust collection. Then resawed and cut the second top for the pair of tables I am building. Doesn't seem like much...

[Matt Meiser]

Friday night I planned to work in my shop but discovered that we needed to have our HVAC contractor out for a second time in 5 weeks due to no cooling. Of course this was discovered about 45 minutes before LOML was having a bunch of friends over for some kind of home sale purse party so I had to wait for the guy in the house. The first time they thought we had a low charge due to the system being installed late fall, but it was low again so they are coming back out today to evacuate and leak check the portions of the system in the house. Hopefully the problem will be there or they'll be tearing into the outdoor unit. Luckily we are still under warranty! By the time he left, there wasn't much time to do anything in the shop besides shoot the bull with my brother-in-law who used to be a cabinet maker for a shop recently featured in Woodshop News before medical problems forced him to go on disability.

Saturday the whole day was spent with family as my youngest brother took his first vows to become a Brother. We attended the service at the church, then headed out to a camp run by the order in the Irish Hills area of Michigan. Coincidentally, the camp is located directly across the street from Michigan Speedway which was hosting a little Nascar event this weekend. Luckily our timing was good and we were headed west as the haulers and traffic from the truck series race were headed east. I knew they did some creative things with traffic out there for the race but I didn't know that they close most of the local roads to traffic that's not headed toward the track at 6AM on race day, literally trapping local residents at home until the race starts. Some people were spending the night at the camp and learned that they had the choice of leaving at 5:30, or staying until 1:30. Since a few were Priests who have to work Sunday mornings, that was important information!

Sunday I finally got a few hours in the shop and built an enclosure for my HVLP turbine and completed some rearranging of stuff from the cabinets I put in my finishing room. That project, which started before Memorial Day with the concrete work is finally DONE! Now I need to return to getting a drawer and cabinet built for my hybrid Kreg/Woodpecker router table, then some white oak frames for Motawi tiles my mom and my daughter made at some of Motawi's events the last couple years (they are located in Ann Arbor, MI about 45 minutes away from us.) After that, I need to build a shelf for our living room to go over the TV, a project that was scheduled 3 years ago but never done. Then I'll be working on a dining table for my mom with the (lofty) goal of completing it for Thanksgiving, but more realistically Christmas.

[David Hostetler]

Hmmm. It looks like somebody dredged up an old one of these that was up this morning and I replied to it... So here we go replying to the correct one...

My weekend was pretty leisurely. I got very little (almost none at all) shop time in. With outdoor temps hovering around 104 for the highs, and low 80 for the lows, I just didn't want to take out a loan to run the AC. Boy do I need to finish with the electrical and the insulation in there!

We had a very laid back weekend. My Sister In Law had arranged a beach house in Galveston this weekend, and she swung by and picked up my BIL on Friday night. LOML and I spent Friday night as a long overdue date night.... Dinner and a long stroll on the Kemah boardwalk watching the boats on the bay after dark.

Saturday we drove to Galveston and met up with the in laws, several sets of them, not all, but a few... and nieces, nephews, and of course, the beach... We more or less just bobbed on the waves and shot the breeze for far too long earning a little bit of a sun burn as apparently SPF 50 isn't strong enough for my pale skin...

We drove back up to the Clear Lake area and had dinner out again on Saturday. Fajitas and a Margarita at Los Ramirez Mexican Restaurant... Not the prettiest place on earth, but the food is pretty good, the place is always clean, the prices are reasonable, and the staff is fantastic...

Sunday saw an excessive amount of loafing. We more or less overslept, and missed services, so we caught the pastor's podcast instead...

I went to bed early last night, but when SIL shows back up with the BIL in tow to bring him home (he's staying with us...) the dog decided that was a great time to try to keep me awake... NOT a good thing... I had to get up early to take the cat to the vet this morning. (she needs a THOROUGH dental cleaning)....

One thing I did manage to do just prior to the weekend was to modify my stock table on my HF mortiser to accept T track for hold downs. The OEM hold down on the mortiser is a bad, bad joke, that for the most part is utterly useless as chisels strike it when cutting a mortise close (within 1/2" of the side of any material held down by it... Just plain and simple BAD design... I like the T track hold down, it is working well. but needs a couple of modifications that will be coming soon...

#1. Rebuild the table out of BB cabinet grade ply for added rigidity and moisture resistance. I need to double, then triple check the thickness of the table, but I suspect I am going to have to try at least, to plane down some 3/4" ply so that I can use tempered hardboard as a topper... I like using that stuff for some reason...

#2. Add some cam clamps to quickly lock the hold downs, well... down, and then quickly release them...

I lastly in what little shop time I had, set up the router with the inlay bushing set and bit and am ready to try my hand and inlay work. Never done it. I have a template cut out, but I need to finish sanding it smooth. I am wanting to fancy up a doggie urn as it were.... We'll see...

[David Nelson1]

I got a late start on Saturday, added a dust chute to the Woodmaster 612 and changed the plug to a twist type. Ran a piece of wood through the planer and I'm so glad I'm not using this as a planer it was dull and noisy. Next week I'll re-configure it for a gang rip saw. Sunday was a later start, 2 sided some rough 1 X 4 oak for the flooring project. There is going to be a lot of waste if it keeps going like this.

[John R Green]

Gable Vent
13' base x 4'-4" rise

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