Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

6 Nov 2017

Good Morning Everyone,
The good news is we finally got some much needed rain and I'm really happy about that. The temps have been back around the 80 degree F mark and I'm ready for fall temps. I've been on CPAP for a month now and the difference in my daily life is significant. I stay awake all day now, I feel like getting things done, I feel more rested, and I'm thinking better. I may not look any better but I do feel better. :)
I didn't get much done this past weekend as I had family stuff to do as well as talk with my daughter and son-in-law about house design, layout, and what's involved in building your own house. I feel that this will be a project in the making for a few months while they sort things out.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Jim Becker]

The weekend was busy but productive in some ways. Saturday morning was the usual food shopping excursion with Professor Dr. SWMBO to Wegman's. Since I do the majority of the cooking, it's nice to be able to do that weekly now that I don't have to worry about only having the weekends for "doing stuff" since my recent retirement. It also means quality time together, albeit all about spending money. LOL Saturday afternoon, while the PSU game was in a long weather delay, I headed out to the shop to build a quick and dirty bench for The Professor that will take the place of an old plastic table on the front porch that she uses to support 2-4 "NUCs" (nuclear colonies) of honeybees during the summer...they are used to provide resources for our full sized bee colonies as needed...brood, re-queening, etc...and our front porch offers the perfect setting. But that old table was at the end of its life. So I cobbled together a new setup out of available PT 4x4 and PT 2x4 that was lying about and a piece of 3/4" underlayment that was left over from our home addition a few years ago. Slapped a coat of opaque stain from my retaining wall project on it and it was good to go.

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Sunday, I made the bi-weekly trek to Costco for gas and then worked in the shop on an additional wall rack for chisels, etc., as well as installed a panel of OSB in the stairwell. The latter was a "Tricky" piece to prepare as it needed to fit around individual stairs. But I can now say that I cut up a sheet of OSB on my slider. :D heh...heh...

This week I should be able to complete the stairwell project as I expect the door I ordered to be ready today or tomorrow and I'll pick up the remaining OSB I need to complete the project when I get the door. I should be ready at that point to start the kitchen island top commission I have taken and the enclosed stairwell will be done just in time for the predicted additional temperature drop later in the week.

[Shawn Pixley]

Here the weather has changed dramatically. We went from 104 degree days to 54 degree days. Frankly, I prefer the heat. Fall is here.

LOML and I decided that our project supplies were far too scattered around the house. We cleaned an area that was used for support of her business back in the day but now just was a collecting spot for junk. Storage bins were arranged on shelving to store and organize the supplies. So far, the print making, paper making, encaustic, screen printing, drafting, oil paint, irushi and other activities have a new home and are well labeled.

I also continued working on the yanagiba I started a while back. The grinding goes slowly. It is damascus and should look great when done (after grinding, heardening, heat treatment, and secondary grinding). Grind for 15 minutes until it gets too hot. Let it cool. Lather, rinse and repeat...

There is some art that we have where the frame is falling apart. I have one that I will have to remake the frame to support the weight of the glass. The original wasn’t up to the job. It is a bit trickier than most as it is a shadowbox type and requires a spcer and a stop for the glass.

All in all a busy weekend.

[John Towns]

Had a new roof put on the house on Friday. Saturday, I had an electrician running wire for 2 new circuits. While he was fishing wire through walls, I took some time to make some handles for 6 old chisels I had picked up at various flea markets that had no handles. I had already removed most of the rust and crud on them. I started to turn them, but decided to sand and rasp them to fit. Now they look like a matched set, amateurish but matched. Functional in any case. Then I made a small pull-out rack to store them. Next up, sharpen them.

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[Jay Larson]

Saturday morning was the usual coaching for the junior bowlers. In the afternoon, I cleaned up a set of trailer wheels and tires so I could put them om CraigsList. And a friend stopped over to see if I would weld some bracket cover plates on his Lexus. He put on a lift kit, and these cleaned up the look of the body mount brackets. Then my grandson came over for the night, so we played some games.

Sunday, it was Legos and outside with the scooters. We also decided that it was not going to warm up enough to take the motorcycles out again, so I pulled the batteries and got them in the charging station in the basement. Then I started making up a new step for the back patio. After all that, I took my grandson home.

[Lewis Justis]

I went to the Lie-Nielsen hand tool event in Nashville Saturday morning, and then on to the Fall meeting of the Cumberland Furniture Guild at Greg Pennington's shop/school where he gave a demonstration on steam bending for windsor chairs. A very enjoyable day!

[John Sanford]

Not a whole lot. Got my Christmas shopping underway, which surprised my son, as I'm usually 1/2 finished or more by now. This year though there hasn't been a lot that popped up during the year whispering "I'm a Christmas present for X". I did some grocery shopping and embarked on another adventure with the new electric pressure cooker (aka "Instant Pot", but by another maker).

Puttered in the shop some putting away stuff from last weekend and a little turning practice during the week. I did a fair bit of noggling on making a boom arm for my Mirka "sanding station", and finally concluded that I could spend $20-30 for materials and an hour or two to build one that MAY do what I want, or spend $50 for a telescoping wall mount photography boom arm and put it onto the station in 10 minutes. It's the telescoping part that's the key, so I'll be ordering it tonite.

Also, watched a good video from The Renaissance Woodworker on doing tapered octagonal legs by hand. Seeing's how I've got to make 4 of 'em, it was time well spent. I'll probably rough in the tapers with the bandsaw, and then finish up with the handplane.

[Brian Henderson]

Mostly spent the weekend cleaning up after Halloween and packing things away. Still have some of that to get finished but I'd say I'm 85% packed now. Then I took one look at the shop, where I've been building decorations for the past month and almost fell over. The place was a mess. Spent a good couple of hours trying to get things put away, although I still have a lot of work to do. I haven't had time to get out and actually do any serious woodworking in a couple of months and it doesn't look like it'll get better any time soon, probably not before the end of the year.

[Wayne Lomman]

It was a long weekend, spring is well established so most of the daylight hours were spent in the vegetation garden. Saturday was freezing with snow back on the peaks behind us but that meant good weather for wheelbarrow and shovel work moving compost. Tomatoes, peas, cucumbers and zucchinis are in the ground. Strawberries are flowering, cherry trees are loaded and apples are setting. Plenty more to do yet though.

In the meantime, the first goslings and ducklings have hatched so one needs eyes everywhere to avoid grumpy geese.

I managed to find time to install a new work desk for my daughter, make some new inserts for the cheese press and lean over the ladies' shoulders as they were making Camembert, haloumi, feta and ricotta cheeses, as well as mote yoghurt. The 5 milking goats are averaging 4.5 litres each per day so there is plenty of cheese in the future. Cheers

[Rod Sheridan]

We went to the big WMS show, which was incredible.

The hardware displays by Blum, Grass, Salice etc. were great.

The machinery displays were fantastic although I resisted the impulse to either purchase a robotic work cell or a 10 X 5 foot CNC for my basement shop.

Diann also made a bunch of garden tool holders that clip on the French cleat she installed in her new garden shed............Rod.