Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

30 Nov 2020

Greetings,
Posting a bit early as I have a busy day tomorrow.
I hope each of you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday week/weekend. We had Thanksgiving "breakfast" at my daughter and SIL's home on Thursday morning. The LOML cooked our own home Thanksgiving meal on Friday for those of us in our household. None of us have had to deal with covid-19 and I think I'm over my kidney stone ordeal. Saturday, I cooked out hamburgers and potato wedges on the grill and today was church and then leftovers from Friday. Pecan pie, Pumpkin pie, and Sweet Potato pie were the dessert choices of the day.

I come off oncall duty in just over 12 hours and I'm ready to be out from under the leash of being oncall.

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

Best of weeks to you all!

[Justin Rapp]

30 Nov 2020

Greetings,
Posting a bit early as I have a busy day tomorrow.
I hope each of you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday week/weekend. We had Thanksgiving "breakfast" at my daughter and SIL's home on Thursday morning. The LOML cooked our own home Thanksgiving meal on Friday for those of us in our household. None of us have had to deal with covid-19 and I think I'm over my kidney stone ordeal. Saturday, I cooked out hamburgers and potato wedges on the grill and today was church and then leftovers from Friday. Pecan pie, Pumpkin pie, and Sweet Potato pie were the dessert choices of the day.

I come off oncall duty in just over 12 hours and I'm ready to be out from under the leash of being oncall.

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

Best of weeks to you all!

Besides dealing with both parents recovering from covid (hospital for 1, retesting and contactless food drops for the other, etc), I made a lot of progress on the bathroom vanity I am building. Now in the finishing stages - which is already trigger my wife to order the tile she and my daughter picked out. Some pics here https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?287485-Vanity

[Lisa Starr]

DH and I celebrated Thanksgiving on our own this year due to COVID concerns. His mother is almost 91 and lives independently in an apartment in a "continuum of care" community. She was welcome to come to our home, but would be required to quarantine for 14 days in her apartment upon return. She opted to stay put. We delivered a Thanksgiving Dinner to her even though the dining room was offering one as well.

I worked a bit on the design of the Spool Cabinet I want to build Saturday morning, but had promised our son we would help remove the old staircase to his basement, frame and install sub floor. We ended up helping him run 1 loop of pex for his radiant floor heat also.

That's it for my weekend.

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Dennis I'm glad you are getting off the "on-call" for a while, and your kidney stone issue has passed (poor joke, but PERHAPS a smile).
Justin, I cannot imagine the concern you have about your folks with the Covid issue. The prospect scares me - I've developed a lung problem and my wife has had one for years.
Wow, Lisa, you've been a busy one. How are you feeling?
I've been slimming down my tool collection, getting rid of a few items I never use any more or hated the feel/end result I got, so on to Craigslist to generate some cash. The workshop (it used to be the garage) got re-roofed yesterday, and for the first time in 3 years, no leaks onto the tools and wood.
No thanksgiving here in Canada, ours is in October, but a few sales to take advantage of, but it's been quiet.
My 8YO grandson in Israel decided he wanted a drill (!) and asked for my advice; not knowing what's available, he did his research and his folks got him one. He wanted to work on a project, so last night I designed a simply book rest for his desk and emailed his mother the specifications. We'll see what happens.

[Mike Wilkins]

Small Thanksgiving get together with the wife and 2 daughters only. As usual I ate too much.
Working on the 2nd set of Christmas gifts in the form of cutting boards. Great way to thin out the pile of offcuts too small for a bigger project.

[Jim Becker]

I hope you have a great week including some shop time, Dennis!!

My past week didn't offer much in the way of a woodworking, at least in a traditional way. I did have some professional tree folks here to take down a few large, dead ash including some near the house and the road that were not even remotely DIY possible. To save money, I had them chip up the trash, but left the majority of the slicing and dicing for myself following along behind them. But related to woodworking, I do now have three additional "very worthy" logs to get milled including this monster for slabbing...38" average...and two at about 32". These suckers are major heavy. One of the smaller ones I managed to drag with the BOPT (Big Orange Power Tool, aka, Kubota) but the other one I had to hook my skidding tongs to my Subaru Ascent to move it from where it laid to where it needed to be. The really big one...'had to roll that one with the tractor as my SUV couldn't budge it even an inch.

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And all snuggled together....

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The large one it too big to get milled on-site, so I'll have to have that one picked up to get slabbed. The others will most likely get milled here, but if I can get them taken for cutting along with the big one, so much the better. A little negotiation will ensue...

This week I'll hopefully get back in the shop a bit. I have a valet box to finish for a client, more work on the bass guitar project, some turning to do for my small side table project and I need to start the finishing process for a chair I recently assembled as part of a learning experience. Older daughter also wants another jewelry box and a shelving unit for her apartment. It's time to get cracking on these things so hopefully my motivation kicks in a little more than it's been lately with the time change, etc.

Oh, and there was a holiday last week. For a meal for five (Professor Dr. SWMBO, older daughter, younger daughter and her serious boyfriend and myself) I opted to just cook a turkey breast and even then there was enough left for open-faced sandwiches the day after for the two of us. Spatchcocking it made for a nice 2.5 hour cook time to crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside At any rate, the menu was turkey, pan gravy, fresh made stuffing/dressing, cranberry, red sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts with bacon, onion and mushrooms.

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[Jon Grider]

Lets see, I've never replied to these "past week" threads, but maybe this will be a beginning. Wife and I celebrated Thanksgiving together with no kids or grandkids. Eerily quiet, but we still have so many blessings to be thankful for.
I'm in the process of a partial kitchen remod. Keeping some of the cabs, converting bottom doors to drawers, made a new cab for the new double oven which btw cooked our turkey well. Have yet to install the new gas drop in cooktop and build a cab to house the refrigerator in its new position as well as cabs for a "coffee bar" the LOML wants.
Made a few fancy cutting boards that I sell at a local retailer on a consignment basis and have been separating some small pieces of nice lumber for use in copying Andrew Hughe's beautiful square bowls.
I've managed to get my 3 to 5 mile walk in at the local nature preserve 4 days out of 7. Have coveted a couple of 24" dia. cherry trees that the wind toppled but will never be harvested due to nature preserve rules.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Wound up fixing a water leak for a friend. Quest pipe to WH sprang a leak for the third time, so it was time for it to go. Had to remove WH, which meant draining it to get to connections on back side. Hooked everything back up, pressurized system, with no leaks. One of her renters came in to take a shower. Putting tools away, realized my knife was still under house. Opened access door, only to hear drip, drip. It's now 5:00 PM, so shut off water and went back on Saturday morning and made a temporary splice using Shark Bites. Willgo back tomorrow and do permanent repairs. Covered screens on back porch with 3 mil plastic so she can sit out there on pretty days. FYI, she will be 103 in January. Made seven pies, and cooked a pot of collards, which we distributed to widow friends. Cooked a whole turkey, as a 16 pound turkey was less than half the price of just a breast. Made sweet potatoes, collard greens, black eyed peas, corn bread dressing. Had both Japanese Fruit pie and buttermilk coconut pie for dessert. Only one daughter and her son came to eat with us. Oh yeah, had a birthday on Tuesday.

[Paul F Franklin]

Jon, I know the feeling...there is a big cherry tree in one of the local parks where I walk the pup that has a burl on it that must be 24" in diameter. If only....

My wife and I gave thanks on our own; I have lots of family near by but Covid is raging all around NE Ohio, so we don't gather at all and haven't since it began. We made half a turkey breast and a few thighs; plus the usual trimmings and it fed us for 3 days with some left for the freezer. Mary made mini apple and pumpkin pies in large muffin tins. We enjoyed a couple of them and froze the rest for the long winter ahead.

I got quite a bit of shop time in this week. Got my prototype desk pedestal to the dry fit stage and am happy with how it went. I made a few small goofs, but nothing fatal. The prototype was intended to be a throw away, but I ended up making it from cherry since I have plenty and only pay a little more for it than I would for poplar or such. So I may end up being able to use many of the parts. I still have to complete the drawers. Stock is all set; just have to do the dovetails. Once the drawers are done I'll clamp everything up temporarily and test it with a makeshift top and office chair to make sure I like the proportions, drawer sizes, etc. Of course I didn't bother to make plywood panels at this point; they aren't necessary to test the prototype.

Made a bunch of jigs for marking all the joinery on the legs. I had to make a drawing bow to make templates for the bottom rails, and ended up making three of them of different lengths while I was at it. The arch on the back of the desk extends across both pedestals and the modesty panel in between so I needed one 5 foot long to mark that template, and it was too unwieldy for the smaller templates for the pedestals so I made some smaller bows for that. I found a length of oak in my stash with absolutely straight grain which was perfect for making the bows. Then I made a template cutting jig for the bandsaw that let me cut the rail parts just a sliver bigger than the template. Once quick pass on the router table with a spiral flush trim bit and the curved pieces are good to go.

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We've got a storm coming; it's already snowing and they say we might get a foot or more in the snow belt. So hope to keep getting in the shop.

[Frank Necaise]

Made a cold box for the wife. Cold Box - 1.jpgCold Box - 2.jpgCold Box - 3.jpg