Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments.....

[Dennis Peacock]

19 Dec 2011

Good morning everyone,

It's cool and rainy here, which is out typical winter type weather. I've been playing bass guitar with a couple of groups for Christmas music. I played yesterday with a small string orchestra and band, about 15 members, and that was a really enjoyable time. It's great to see people's faces light up and join in the Christmas cheer and the kids bobbing and weaving to the music. Really puts true joy in ones heart.

Well, this is "crunch week" for many that are late shopper and woodworkers that are still working on projects for gifts or woodworkers that put it all off until the last few days before Christmas. :)

Here's to a successful week for each of you. May your homes and families be very blessed this Christmas season.

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

Best of weeks and safe holiday travels to each of you.!!!!

[Matt Meiser]

My crunch week was last week so this week since I needed to get the dining table done and delivered so this week was a lot more relaxed. What little time I spent in the shop was spent on a number of small shop projects. Saturday morning my friend that was borrowing my finishing room came down to pick up his cabinet doors and we cleaned the room thoroughly. The rest of Saturday was spent at LOML's extended family Christmas luncheon 1/2 way across the state, then a Christmas party at some friends. Sunday I spent a few hours in the shop making a few tweaks to the finishing room before taking LOMLjr for some final Christmas shopping.

The first of our out of town family arrived in town late last night so we'll be spending a lot of time with them for the next 7 days.

[Ryan Hellmer]

Overall, a good weekend. I'm finally getting back in the shop and got the rest of the mortises cut on the crib I'm building for my daughter. This crib is the most emotionally taxing project I hope to ever work on. I should have it done in another couple weeks (about 2 months too late, but that's an entirely different story).

I'm trying to unload some of the excess in my life so I put my car and boat up for sale. Have a deal pending on that, it will be good to be rid of some of the "things" that occupy too much of my time and energy.

I'm getting really excited for Christmas, although I must admit, our family's preparation has not included most of the usuals. A simple Christmas.

Wishing you and yours a blessed and peaceful Christmas.

Ryan

[Jerome Hanby]

I pulled all the stuff out of the front of the POD in my driveway so I could reach the portable panel saw and Festool Tracksaw I needed to build the cabinets for storing all the stuff I just removed from the POD <g>.

I added the hardboard panel to the second rail of the PSI portable panel saw so I that I had a visual aid for the cut line along the whole length. Think I need to add a hardboard "shoe" to the outside edge of the saw carriage just to help everything ride level.

Hauled my Ikea beech numaar (spelling?) countertop on to my cutting table and ripped it in half lengthwise. Cut it a little off half in two. This will leave me enough space to stack and glue the two pieces so that none of the laminated joints overlap. Hoping this will make things stronger and less likely to de-laminate. This will leave me with a core for my workbench 3" thick, 19" wide, and about 71" long. It's currently clamped together and astride two saw horses and in use as a bench for building shop cabinets.

Finished wiring the last outlet in the shop. Need to install the 20 amp breakers for my 240 volt and tandem 120 volt drop circuits and I'll be ready to call the shop wiring project done.

Ripped the first sheet of plywood for my shop cabinets in half. Initial plan was to make the cabinet 8" tall and sized to fit the opening. Decided that I wanted these cabinets to hang and wanted to be able to slide tubs underneath. Depth of the cabinet is 23 1/2", and new height will be 6', this will leave the top shelf at just high enough to need the step ladder and the bottom far enough off the floor to clear my electrical conduit and leave room for plastic tubs. Think I'm going to make the cabinets about 4' wide and mount them on French cleats. All the shelves will be narrow walled trays on full extension 100 lb slides. As part of this project, I've got to find the water main so I can cut the water long enough to correct the stupid plumbing done by whoever built the garage. They have a right angle at the turn to run the pipe along the outside wall (and through the front to the water hose faucet), but they came straight through a hole knocked in the back wall with a fitting for a flexible pipe that they looped over to the right angle on the outside wall. It just amazes me how people will do something so stupid when it takes no additional effort to do it "right". This is so idiotic, they soldiered a copper fitting that coupled to the copper feed pipe and provided a nipple to screw on the flexible tubing, why not just soldier on a cheaper copper elbow and run a cheaper piece of copper along the wall to the corner! At least I've got all the goodies to correct this issue in my plumbing box.

Did a little measuring on my Dewalt GWI. Looks like the cross cut will be close to 19". Getting a Mr. Sawdust table and fence built for it is moving up my to-do list.

[David Hostetler]

Started my weekend early with taking Thursday and Friday off for my wedding anniversary. Sadly we didn't get to enjoy it much. A good friend and mentor of mine had passed away the prior weekend, and we were attending the wake service...

I did eke out a little bit of shop time this weekend, and got the basic structure of my sliding miter saw dust hood built, only to find out my measurements that I took on 3 different occasions, were too narrow... My fix for the issue? Just slide it back / forth to allow room, don't mount it down... Done deal... I just need to caulk around the ports and connect to the DC and I am done...

Yesterday I finally got a chance to test out the shop built replacement stand for the artificial Christmas tree, and it fit perfectly and is MUCH more stable than the original stand.

LOML and I spent some very frustrating hours trying to figure out how to tie together fresh pine boughs into a garland of sorts to bring that real tree smell to the house...

And lastly, I spent some quality time playing "which bulb is killing this section of the light strand?", with mixed results... Not my favorite game that's for sure!

I am REALLY wanting to pitch out about half of my mini light sets, and replace them with strings of C9s... But we have gone with a white / red candy cane theme for the Christmas decorations, and all the C9 strands I have seen this year are the multi color... Oh well...

Oh yeah, and wrapping, lots and lots of wrapping...

I have some gifts left on the list, but not much. The big thing is a drill bit set for my father in law... He keeps borrowing my bits! Which I don't mind, but they have yet to come back... I am thinking one of those quick change sets from Ryobi. He doesn't need drill press accurate, just mounting up shower bars and the like...

[Shawn Pixley]

Saturday was spent finishing up things from work & preparing for ou winter shutdown. Sunday was playing with liquid metal. LOML & I were alloying metals and then casting the alloys / metals. I was focusing on refining my technique for some pulls I will make for the guitar cabinet.

[Keith Westfall]

Spent a little time in the shop - trying to do pepper mills for the kids. 12" mill on a midi lathe is presenting a few problems :(

So now am trying to lengthen the bed of my lathe (Delta LA 200) as apparently they don't make extensions for them anymore...

I can turn them but need just a bit of length for drilling - hope it works!! No stress, still have 6 days.

If it works, I'll add some pictures - if it doesn't, no pictures means it never happened!

[Steve Kohn]

I spent some time in the shop but not woodworking. I started work on the restoration on a Delta Homecraft 10 inch bandsaw. This is the first major restoration I've ever done and it does leave me appreciating some of the jobs I've seen on this forum. It is a lot of work to fully take a machine apart, wirebrush everything, prime, and then paint it all. That's where I'm at now. Hopefully, I can get reassembly started tomorrow.

Oh, and in between wirebrushing and painting I sold my old Delta drill press.

It was a good weekend, I made more money than I spent (for once).

[Dan Rude]

I spent the weekend installing new Bath fans in 2 bathrooms on Friday & Saturday. I finally bought 2 of the quite Panasonic fans. What a difference compared to the old Broan fans I replaced. Then on Sunday with our 45 degree weather up here in WI I used it to work outside and finish the trim on my front door. Since I'm in a 60's ranch the wall is not too straight, I had to scribe my Jamb extensions. (I have to rebuild the whole Jamb next summer, because it's not wide enough for the Plaster and 2 x 4 wall.) That led me to installing my 1/2 inch resaw blade on my Craftsman 14" band saw. So, since I had the Blade off I finally installed my Carter Guides, (From last year’s woodworking show, we didn't get one this year due to the MN Gov. shutdown.) to say the least I'm sold on them. What a difference easy to adjust and just let the blade glide through my 2"x4" I was scribing to fit. Finally, finished that up just as it got dark, and cleaned up.

Dan