Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

28 Mar 2016

Good Morning Everyone,
Yes, I'm late getting this posted but I needed to get some sleep now that oncall duty is over. I did get a little time this weekend to get in the shop and built a bluebird house and got it put up on a post. Shared a good Easter meal with the family and now I'm off today and tomorrow. I plan on spending some of this time working in the shop. So here is to a good time off.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Jim Becker]

I got the dye and stain on a small shelf project destined for my older daughter's room and then spent the rest of the weekend doing outside, landscaping things, including building a limestone wall around what will be a "bee friendly" flower/herb garden in an area that had become overgrown and hard to maintain. I also did what was probably the earliest lawn mow since we've lived here, knocking the little heads off a portion of our front lawn that would likely become over-long in a week with all the rain we are due over the next few days. I also got some hellebores planted in one other garden area...we love these and they typically bloom November through April which adds some color through the winter months with the little snow we get around here anymore.

[Ben Silver]

Got started on planter boxes for the garden, work stopped when family arrived Saturday afternoon and Easter took up all of Sunday. Have to finish the boxes tonight and get them placed so we can start loading them and finish prepping the garden. Strawberries already in gutter planters, though.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Finished the last coat of poly on the casing for the last of my window trim outs. Sanded and stained the last of the picture frame trim for the same window. Start the coats of poly today.

[daryl moses]

Didn't get to "play" in the wood shop this weekend. But I did purchase a much needed log splitter and have been busy splitting wood. It's 27 tons of brute force!! Goes right through some of the toughest, stringiest Red Oak and Sweet Gum I have on my property. What a time saver, back saver it is, wish I had purchased one years ago.

[Mike Ontko]

I ran into a couple of problems with my fir and cherry bookcase build.

First, I had to deal with a sap pocket (noted here in Sappy Situation (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?242335-Sappy-Situation)) that opened up on one of the fir side panels, creating an ooze that got onto both panels I had leaned against the wall, waiting for the cherry frame to be finished. Based on recommendations from this board, I used a heat gun to soften the remaining sap and then a bit of naptha and a toothpick to clear it from the wood and the remaining pocket. Then, I filled in that pocket with clear epoxy to hopefully seal it permanently. The epoxy should have been self leveling, but I'll get back to it tonight to shave off any protruding amounts using a razor or sharp chisel.

And as if that didn't offer enough of a challenge, as I was finishing cutting the last of the 5/8" wide by 3/8" deep grooves/dados in the cherry posts that will accept the fir panels, my rip fence slipped over by about 1/16" (@#%$!). I have the fence lockdown adjusted pretty tight, but guess I didn't realize how hard I pushing into it. Funny that the slip didn't occur until I was down to the very final six inches of the last dado. Now, unfortunately, because the groove/dado runs off-center near the end of the post, the corresponding mortise that's recessed into the bottom is now offset by that amount and won't line up with the cheeks on the adjoining rail's stepped tenon. Adding insult to injury (speaking only figuratively--no fingers or rip fences were damaged in this process), my local supplier was out of 8/4 cherry, so I'll have to wait until Wednesday to get the material to make a replacement.