Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments.....

[Dennis Peacock]

9 Jan 2012

Good Morning Everyone,
It's been a crazy weekend for me due to work stuff and family commitments. I've been elected president of our local CMA motorcycle chapter and I accepted it with honor. Needless to say that I've been busy trying to build a "leadership team" instead of several individuals that want to go in multiple directions. Challenging, but I feel it will be rewarding.

I'm getting some things done in my shop so I can get back in there and make some more wooden utensils for the family. Seems like my first batch went ok, but I feel that I could do better with some slight design changes. I'll see about posting some pics of my next batch when I have them done.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Ryan Hellmer]

I got some wiring in the basement done Saturday, then headed out to the farm for some bird hunting. We did OK, 2 pheasant and 3 quail.

I finally got the new heaters and fuse put in the starter for my Delta RC51 20" planer. That thing is a BEAST. Best part about it is, even with the parts I've had to buy to get it up and running, I have a 20" 7.5 HP 4 knife planer for about what you'd spend on a 12" lunchbox at the borg.

Ryan

[Matt Meiser]

Friday was my company's annual all-hands meeting in the corporate office in suburban St. Louis and Friday evening was our holiday party so we left Thursday afternoon for the airport to fly there. Spouses are always invited to the party at company expense and we paid for my daughter to come along as well since I have a lot of family there. Saturday we headed out to an aunt and uncle's place about an hour west of the city for visiting until Sunday afternoon. The only woodworking activity was a stop at Rockler for about 20 minutes on the way back to the airport--something I pretty much do every trip since the St. Louis Rockler is right next to the airport and the Detroit Rockler is close to 100 miles each way for me.

[james glenn]

I spent some good time in the "Cellar Shop" of mine this weekend, but Friday (usually an off day for me) was spent at work for a project interview, seemed to go well.
Then high-tailed it home to get the cows out, cleaned and fed.

Saturday I managed to finally crank out a few ZCI's I've been meaning to make for months while eagerly awaiting the mailwoman for the Timberwolf blades I ordered.
Of course she never delivers until around 3pm, but I was waiting at the door for her. Got one installed and started sawing some grey birch chunks into boards with the
resaw sled. It has some spalting in it apparently, but should work great.

Then proceeded to start cutting some more of that Coffee Bean Tree I have. This went well for about a board or so, but then had similar issues as I posted
about last week. Binding, hard cutting, drifting......I have come to realize that this wood might be a little too hard for my little 14" Jet Bandsaw. It seems the blade
may be heating up and causing the green dust to stick resulting in poor cuts. These chunks are roughly 10" thick or more at some spots. Guess I'll just have to cut the pieces down som
more and then glue them into panels as needed.

Good news is, I still have a lot of this stuff laying around, along with some nice chunks of apple, birch, cherry, and something else I can't say what it is though. Just not sure.


All in all, a great weekend for me. I was so excited to finally resaw that I had to call the LOML down to show her. She just laughed at how excited it made me and said, "Maybe you will want to sleep down here with the saw tonight?"

[Jerome Hanby]

I fired up the Earlex and shellacked my recently completed cabinets. I figured out the correct nozzle setting to get the best spray pattern for not wasting shellac on overspray...as I was cleaning ther gun after everythign was sprayed! Oh well, next time I'll know!

For what it's worth, spraying household ammonia seems to be doing a great job for cleanup.

[David Hostetler]

Not a lot of shop time this weekend, again. I did get a chance to reorganize my sheet goods in order to get the chunks of drywall out. I finished closing in the water heater stand extension I am working on for the utility room. The original water heater was MUCH smaller, so I needed to bump the stand out into the room a bit more. FINALLY drywalling it in... Went to Home Depot to buy a box of lightweight joint compound after I realized my old box had started to set up in the box... I am curious, why is the box of wall board mud that is labelled in Spanish $2.00 cheaper than the same stuff in a box that is labelled in English? It's the same stuff from what I can tell. Lightweight joint compound, made by the same company. Oh well, if they want to call it Soquete instead of mud, so be it...

I finished applying the finish, and buffing it out for the inlaid, dovetailed doggie urn for my dear departed labrador retriever... Got to spend some good quality time with LOML which is a relief, and also got to spend some good time with our newer dog, a Lab / Beagle mix... He's a hoot, but sometimes a bit too energetic... The weather stank yesterday, so we played fetch in the house with a rubber ball... He decided going around the couch wasn't as much fun as leaping over the couch, and whomever was sitting there!

Lastly, I spent what little time I had left doing some more organizing and cleaning... We are trying to weed out what we no longer want or need in the home office, and migrate to laptops, so the home office can become a bedroom again... With my BIL staying with us what seems long term, LOML and I want that extra bedroom back...

[Dan Schocke]

James, that is awesome... I had a similar experience when I bought my first boat -- I was so excited that I just stood in the garage half the day looking at it. My wife gave me the same line about sleeping in the garage, so I grabbed a sleeping bag and slept in the boat that night :D. The pictures and stories continue to circulate at family gatherings to this day (this all happened about 15 years ago), but it's always fun to remember the joy of that first boat.

--Dan

[John Towns]

Saturday morning I went to a Men's breakfast at church. I certainly ate well and had a very good time. Then went over to the Baltimore woodworking show in Timonium where I managed to chat with a few vendors and picked up some router bits. Then to a local Woodcraft store where they did not have what I really wanted, so I drove north to Harrisburg, PA where they did have it. Whew! Then back home to break out my sharpening tool and jigs I got from my wife for Christmas. Sharpened 2 chisels, 2 pairs a scissors, and 2 axes. Of all things, it was on the last axe that I sliced my thumb (no blood, just a small bandaid). It is going to take some practice sharpening, and also working with sharp tools for a change, imagine that!

All in all a great weekend.

John

[scott vroom]

My wife and I hiked in tall grass in Mendocino, Calif on Saturday.....and we each picked up ticks which went unoticed until Sunday morning....deeply embedded in our soft belly tissue. We plucked them out but were concerned about infection and possible Lyme disease so we headed down to the local Kaiser clinic to get the wounds dressed and to pick up some antibiotics. Maybe over reacting, but they estimate ~15% of the ticks in the Mendocino area carry Lyme disease so wanted to err on the safe side.

[Anthony Whitesell]

Nothing WW related. I just zilched at the mill trying to buy shorts (all out for the week). When we got home I noticed my wife's car's muffler strap had rusted through and ripped the skin on the muffler, again. That's twice in less than 8 years. So I had to decide $75 for 2-3more years or $130 for "lifetime". Then found out they were all out of $75 jobs, so I hope the car lasts for another 4 years so I can get my money's worth.

[Jim Becker]

It was a lovely weekend with the temps getting up nearly to 60ºF on Saturday and still reasonable on Sunday. I had a great riding lesson and at the end while we were cooling down, my instructor grabbed her camera. I took the result and created this pleasant silhouette of Nellie and I when we were in front of the big door of the riding arena. Gotta love Photoshop... :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Nellie/nellie-post-lesson-7Jan-hi-contrast.jpg


And on Sunday...I actually spent some time in the shop, cleaning up a bit in anticipation of another tack trunk project coming along soon as well as configuring an old oak "medicine cabinet" to be used for router bit storage. (Finally...) Creeker Fred Voorhees stopped over earlier in the day to pick up his splitter and a pickup bed load of firewood-on-the-hoof...and let me know about a new lumber source he found. I'm looking forward to checking that out!

[Shawn Pixley]

Spent a bit of time completing some work for Monday. Afterwards, I spent time sanding, applying shellac, waiting for it to dry, repeat, repeat, repeat.... The tables I was working on, did not lend themselves to efficient finishing. It was almost a pleasure to go back to work today.

[Jeff Cybulski]

Well been a long time since I've been to the creek. Others life things have been taken up a lot of time. Did get to clean the shop after finishing the doghouse for our 3 1/2 month old artic wolf/lab mix. He's quite the character and training is going well. Appears the wolf in him won't come out for about 18 months - some hormone thing. Gonna be a fun time....219196

Have a great week
Jeff

[Adam Cormier]

I spent some time in the shop working on my son's dresser. Its coming along quite well and I am just waiting for some wooden knobs from LV then I will begin finishing it. Pictures will follow shortly

[NICK BARBOZA]

We spent the weekend catching up from the holidays... spent Saturday with the in laws doing Christmas since we were with my family this year.

Sunday I finished up the base for a dining table made for a butcher block top my parents bought long before I was around. Mom said it was the first piece of furniture they ever bought together. My dad made a simple 2x4 trestle base for it and it was their kitchen table when they lived in VT. And since my dad passed away in October, it felt really good to dust it off and be able to look at it everyday...

Also I wanted to try my hand at time lapse photography so I did this on the final assembly: (please excuse the messy shop... that's this weeks mission.)


http://youtu.be/Haw-owkdFL4