Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

13 May 2019

Greetings,
I can't say a whole lot other than I've spent most of the weekend working for the day job and I've got a hard week ahead of me plus I start oncall in 9.5 hours. On the woodworking side of things, I've been commissioned to make another kitchen island top, 4 feet by 5 feet for my daughter and son-in-law's new house AND I've also accepted one to a local business owner that wants one that is different in scaled, 20 inches wide by 8 feet long. I'm excited to help out this local business owner and to make something for my daughter's new kitchen/house that they will be moving into fairly soon.
In short, I have a lot to get done, but I truly have to get through this coming week.

That's all for me, so what did YOU do this past week?

Best of weeks to you all.

[Matt Mattingley]

13 May 2019

Greetings,
I can't say a whole lot other than I've spent most of the weekend working for the day job and I've got a hard week ahead of me plus I start oncall in 9.5 hours. On the woodworking side of things, I've been commissioned to make another kitchen island top, 4 feet by 5 feet for my daughter and son-in-law's new house AND I've also accepted one to a local business owner that wants one that is different in scaled, 20 inches wide by 8 feet long. I'm excited to help out this local business owner and to make something for my daughter's new kitchen/house that they will be moving into fairly soon.
In short, I have a lot to get done, but I truly have to get through this coming week.

That's all for me, so what did YOU do this past week?

Best of weeks to you all.

I picked through some lumber for students. Machined some steel, cleaned up a few my classrooms. And marked a few projects. And replaced a saw stop break. I would love to add pictures, I will try to add pictures... But... I'm now and Outcast.
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[Aaron Rosenthal]

One of my daughters is being priced out of the local housing market, so we agreed she could move back until her supported housing number comes up.
Clearing out a 20 year old collection of stuff from 2 OTHER daughters, plus whatever the rest of us put down there .... Well, if you've ever downsized, you know what I'm going through.
In my area, May is free dumping month. I can take a lot to my local recycling centre, but real garbage goes to the landfill and with the cost of disposal these days, even paying for the gas for a 50 km round trip is worth it.
Aso cleaning up the workshop, same impetus.
One positive stated as a negative. My 12 yo foster son has a "thing" for fire. Around here even fire pits are banned, so after some cross words, he and I fired up my smoker; I had to teach him about kindling, charcoal, safety, etc. etc. but we ate "his" smoked chicken for dinner. Along the way I taught him how to use a hatchet. And sharpen it!
Not smooth sailing, but what else is a parent for.
Oh, yes, I'm mid-70s.

[Jim Becker]

So Dennis...I guest you scored an "island vacation", eh? LOL

I expected a quiet week but early on, a good friend (who owns the restaurant I frequent for lunch and also employs my younger daughter) decided he wanted a very nice mother's day gift for his spouse and mother of his two beautiful children. That amounted to basically a 150" long, 6" wide thick "shelf" under their front windows for her exotic plants to live during the colder months and to match the other local walnut surfaces already in their beautiful home that were fabricated by my neighbor. He provided the material...which unfortunately required lamination to get the thickness, but the budget was what it was. Because he's done a lot for me over the years, this one is "for food" rather than cash outside of direct costs. Fabrication didn't take all that long (aside from the unique challenges of "long" in the dimension sense) and I'm within a coat or two of Waterlox to being finished with this project. It will be mounted like a mantle at sill level using hidden hardware and should be installed later this week.

And no good week and weekend goes unpunished. About 4am on Sunday we took an electrical surge due to a tree toppling in the heavy rain just down the road and taking out some wires. It pretty much triggered all the GFCI and AFCI breakers/outlets which was a good thing, but unfortunately fried the control circuitry on the hot water system in the "addition" end of our home. $500 for the parts and $900 for a new unit. I ordered the new unit given the system was already 7 years old. It was not a very nice "Mother's Day" present from Mother Nature...especially with a house guest arriving this coming weekend who will be with us during her unpaid internship at a local museum. The guest suite bath and our master bath are affected here.

Aside from those two things to deal with this week, I have a small CNC job to run once the very long piece of walnut leaves my shop (it's supported by both my bench and the CNC bed presently) and a few other things I'm planning on starting.

[Jay Larson]

Spring seems to be here finally. And so is the basement remodel. Decisions have been made, now that my fiance is home, so we can move forward.

Friday night I pulled out the lawn mower and got it ready for the season. At the end of last year, it was having a bit of trouble climbing hills and starting to go a bit slow in forward. Worked fine in revers, though. I had thought that maybe the belt was slipping from the cold as I put it away later when it had turned pretty cold. When I pull it out of the storage spot, it was doing it again. I had pulled off the deck to clean that up and pull the blades for sharpening, so I took a look at the drive belt and pulleys. Everything looked fine there, so I started cleaning up a bracket that had some grass laying on it. Lo and behold, there was a rock that had flipped up there right underneath an arm that actuated the brakes. And since the rock was there, the area collected some more dirt and grass, so it was generally full of crud. Got the rock out, and the arm dropped down about 3/4". And a light bulb went off in my head, I'll bet that was the issue. Turned out it was. So now my mower is back up to full speed, and climbs the septic mound with no issues. $50 saved on a new belt, or worse...

Saturday morning while the dew was burning off the lawn, I started cutting the panels for the bar and bar cabinets in the basement. Working on an 8' bar and about 8'6" of lower cabinets. Then I mowed the lawn with a nice speedy mower. And later in the evening I went to our off road club meeting.

At the club meeting we found out about a land owner that was interested in putting in some offroad trails on his 120 acre property, so three of us went down there and had a couple hour conversation while walking around his property. Sounds very promising.

When I got back from that, I started installing some carsiding that is going on the foundation half wall. At least until I ran out of nails for the finish nailer. So off to Menards to get those and some other supplies while they have their 11% sale. Now I am all set to get the rest done tonight.