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Thread: Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

  1. #1
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    Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

    14 Oct 2019

    Greetings,
    It was a really hard week at the day job and an ever present reminder about how much I hate office/corporate politics. Spent some time playing guitar, having a meal with the family, cleaning up the yard, burning the burn pile, and cleaning up the shop a bit more. I finally vented my DC to the outside of my shop. This is a huge improvement for me. I'm still making things in the shop and selling a few items here and there. I just need to make and sell about another 150 cutting boards to help my CNC Router fund.

    Getting things ready to start the large dining room table project as well as a toy train project. Also getting a few things ready for a craft show that our company is holding for all those crafty people who work at our company. 1st ever craft show at my day job and I have a table assigned for me. I hope it goes well. Here's one of my cutting boards (already sold):
    endgrain_cuttingboard.jpg

    That's it for me, so what did YOU do this past week.

    Best of weeks to you all.
    Thanks & Happy Wood Chips,
    Dennis -
    Get the Benefits of Being an SMC Contributor..!
    ....DEBT is nothing more than yesterday's spending taken from tomorrow's income.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2019
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    Fairbanks AK
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    I started using a liquid on my DMT diamond stones. I trialed +/- 30% simple green in water from a spray bottle. It was so much faster than using just dry stones I shut down all else for two days and just touched up chisels and plane irons. I am not sure which individual it was, but I am confident it is SMC's fault that all my stuff is sharper this week.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
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    North Alabama
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    I really like the look of that cutting board.

    For the bed frame project I began last week, I built the shell of a footboard as a torsion box, as I did for the headboard.

    Headboard and Footboard Shells.jpg

    This is the objective for the finished product, subject to some tweaks to the design and color selection:
    Bed Frame Model v2, Cropped.jpg
    Chuck Taylor

  4. #4
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    SE PA - Central Bucks County
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    Dennis, one of the things I was always appreciative about working "virtual" for two decades was avoiding regular office politics. The insulation wasn't complete, but it was definitely a major buffer to the same!

    This past week in the shop involved a lot of cleanup and organization plus a little work on my latest guitar build, recutting a neck and staring the final fitting of the same. I also glued up a couple of basswood body blanks for future builds. Externally, I took down a large maple tree that was decaying and also causing problems on the roof of my shop. My intention was to have a new roof put on this fall as the current one dates to the 1980s when the previous owners had the building constructed, but that's now been preempted by a roof repair need on one part of our home that is more critical in nature. So I did a little patching of the worst spots to get the shop through the winter and will get the replacement roof done in the spring sometime. I can't do both the shop and the repair and also pay my contribution to my daughter's spring semester tuition at the same time. This week I expect to do more work on the guitar projects since I'm between client projects at the moment. And a bunch of normal fall landscape cleanup that's necessary this time of the year.

    Here's the backside of the shop with the removed tree all cleaned up...the restored sun exposure should curtail the "flora" going forward including on the new roof once it's in place.

    IMG_5731.jpg
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2015
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    Ingleside, IL
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    1,417
    I agree 100% on avoiding office politics by working remote. It's a very nice change from being involved in all the petty bs that goes on.

    Poured a conc slab this weekend, which required 60 bags of conc mix, which I unloaded from the truck into my flatbed golf cart (5 bags at a time), drove to the site, unloaded and stacked them, then loaded them into the into the wheel barrow and mixed them. By my figures I moved about 5 tons of mix from handling it 3 times. Not my idea of quality shop time!

    Also started a couple of shadow boxes from a mesquite board I got at an auction. At least that was fun.
    Stand for something, or you'll fall for anything.

  6. #6
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    Jun 2013
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    I scored an edge sander and 12” wide jointer from a closing cabinet shop- and am
    meeting the owner of the building to make a deal on the space to split with two other friends. Look out, world- Malcolm is about to have a real workspace.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Waterford, PA
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    Didn't get any shop time this weekend. A friend had a workshop space added to the back of his garage this summer with the radiant poured into the slab. About a week ago I helped him develop a materials list for hooking it into his existing boiler for the house. Sunday, we began doing the preliminary work like making an insulated chase for the supply and return lines traveling through the unheated garage. Mounted the switching relays, and started cutting and sweating the copper from where the Pex enters the basement to the boiler primary loop. Next Saturday, we kill his heat, isolate as much of the system as possible, and make the actual connections.

  8. #8
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    NE OH
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    Jim, I feel your pain with the roof. My barn roof looks pretty much like your picture, and one section of the house roof is headed that way. Clearing the shading trees isn't gonna happen though. The one shading the house is a beautiful huge elm and we love the shade.

    I'm told the spray and forget (or wet and forget or...) roof cleaner works quite well to kill moss and algae, albeit over the course of several months. I can't use it because it is harmful to fish and my downspouts drain into my pond. Another option are the zinc strips you tuck under a high row of shingles. As rain runs over it some zinc leaches out and is carried down the rest of the roof. This is more of a preventative measure than a cure for existing moss/algae though.

    I did more outside work this past week, but the good news is my list of urgent outdoors projects is dwindling fast. I got the leaf vacuum assembled (I break it down for summer storage) and did a first pass. The leaves haven't started falling in droves yet, but plenty were down and it's so much easier to deal with them when they are dry.

    Workshop wise I did some electrical work to add some receptacles in a good spot to serve the new location of my bench and assembly table. I'm pretty close to finishing the detail drawings for the mantel/cabinet project in sketchup and hope to start rough milling some stock this week, now that it's acclimated in my shop for a while. I changed my mind about what order to do the build, which means the stock I need first is on the *bottom* of the stickered stack of lumber. Why does that always seem to be the way it goes????

    Just today took a big load of excess "stuff" to Goodwill, and will do a run to Habitat with some more stuff later this week when they are open. I ordered a Hock blade and chipbreaker for the Stanley 5 1/2 I picked up last week but haven't done any real work on the plane yet.

    The university where I teach one class a year has asked me to teach another class so I'm mulling that over. It's in a subject in which I have somewhat dated experience so will require a fair amount of brushing up. Trying to decide if it's worth the hassle.

  9. #9
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    Paul, those shingles on the shop are not salvageable even with cleaning. They are uber-brittle at this point...which made the minor fixes I did do "interesting" as lifting an edge even about 1/8" caused some to shatter...literally. Bang. Little pieces. It doesn't leak, however, and with the sharp pitch, it sheds water and what little snow we get pretty quickly. The house issue appears to be a panel or three of bad roof sheathing on the addition that went on in 2008. The shingles are pristine...it's what's under it that's the problem. So my roofer friend has to do a careful and meticulous removal of the shingles to preserve as many as possible, rectify whatever we find and then knit it all back together. He will hopefully have a window in his schedule for that soon...he and his people do a lot of really larger, time consuming jobs and he has to actually block some 2-3 week periods to be able to have time to schedule smaller work like what I need him for.

    I'm envious of your teaching gig...it was always a dream of mine and I could very likely score work teaching business classes if I wanted to do the dance to get setup in the system. But alas...I'm enjoying my "retirement" a little too much to do that now. LOL. Having one university employee in the house works out fine as it is and with Professor Dr. SWMBO's choo-choo commute into Philadelphia 3-5 days per week, it leaves me available to deal with transportation and other needs for our older daughter who doesn't drive and is more or less a special needs adult.
    --

    The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...

  10. #10
    Join Date
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    NE OH
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    Jim, yep if they're that brittle you don't have much choice but to replace. Hopefully they will stay watertight until you can get them done.

    Teaching gig is pretty good. I love being around the young, relatively un-jaded and enthusiastic students. If you are interested you should look into it. I think a lot of colleges and universities lack faculty with industry experience and the students really seem to appreciate the practical advice that working in industry can provide.

    Downside of course, is that it takes more time than I thought it would (like that never happens). It's the usual tradeoff: Earn a few bucks so you can buy another tool or two, or have more time to spend using the tools you have!

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