What did you do today?

[dbhost]

I have seen / been involved with this same type thread in other forums I am involved with over the years, and I just realized we do not have one for our lovely little community. So I am hoping to get this going.

The idea is simple, shop, tool, project whatever, what did you do today?

I'll get started.

I replaced 2 panels of T1-11 siding that got blown out by Hurricane Nicholas, with panels that are not quite sized right. Do I remove them and try to find sheet siding that is 4ft 1.5" wide, or just trim it out? I'm gonna trim. This is a VERY temporary arrangement as we are just closing up the holes and continue to pile funds aside into the lets get the house resided in a masonry finish fund. We want to rip all the siding off and do the house in a full brick finish. Yes it will be expensive, but I think it will be well worth it.

I replaced the 1984 VERY worn brass interior door knobs in the main bathroom with some nice Schlage curved handle ADA compatible units. We have a disabled family member that has trouble with knobs when they come to visit, and honestly these things look amazing.

I replaced the leaky Chicago Pneumatic rubber hose in my hose reel with a brand new goodyear hose.

I ran out of daylight, but I have prepped a replacement OTA TV antenna and push up pole. Another victim of Hurricane Nicholas , the original got blown to smithereens, and the pole got bent. I sourced up a 10' joint of 1" EMT, and had it cut to 5'. I assembled the antenna on the ground, and have it all ready to go together. Tomorrow I climb the ladder and do the install!

This new antenna looks to be a LOT better made than the one it replaces, and that is NOT saying it looks well made...

I spent at least an hour and a half working on various organizing / cleaning activities in the shop / garage. I have a LONG way to go, but I am making progress. I am literally finding socket sets that got kicked under cabinets last spring...

I started prepping the material for the lathe bench. The glue up for the top is going to be HEAVY, but that is the idea. I am seriously thinking about grabbing a gallon of some Rockwell gunmetal gray type paint and giving this thing a hefty coat once it is done and assembled.

[LCHIEN]

What I did today

https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...ds-ladder-ball

of course, after I built it I had to try it out a few times.

[atgcpaul]

I'm visiting my parents for the weekend before I head into work (I work remotely full-time) for some business. My parents had some work saved for me. We started by cutting down two trees (about 8" in diameter) and then dragging branches into the woods or lugging the trunks to form a barrier between the forest and their yard (runoff).

Then I setup Microsoft Onedrive on my parents' new laptop and old laptop so I could copy all their pictures and documents to the cloud as well as setup Onedrive on my Mom's phone so all her pictures are automatically copied. She can never remember how to navigate her phone's directory through USB.

Finally I reprogrammed the universal remote the cable guy left for their new cable box in their bedroom. The TV would turn on/off, but they couldn't change the channel from Fox Sports.

Oh, there was also listening to my Mom complain about her in-laws or other family gossip that clearly my Dad has either evaded for the past year or has somehow managed to tune out.

[capncarl]

I spent 3 hours walking on asphalt at a car show and swap meet. I am tired to the bone. My age is catching up on me, and next Saturday is the really large car show swap meet that usually takes 8 hours to walk through most of the vendors and swap meet section. Maybe I’ll just do half of the show.

[twistsol]

Yesterday, got up way too early and drove my wife to the doctor for a colonoscopy, drove 40 miles to a friends house who used to install granite to pick up some tools to work on my fireplace hearth. Since I was in the area, went to my favorite butcher shop and spent way too much. Got home and took a nap.

Then ripped all the sheetrock off the fireplace and reframed it to support a TV and a black walnut mantle, installed wiring and made and installed a melamine box to hold the AV equipment which will be mounted behind the TV. Today I'll put on the concrete board and get the mantle installed and build the support for the hearth.

WE also need to finish the Christmas lights at the back of the house and will do that this afternoon.

[leehljp]

Spent part of yesterday (Saturday) learning a valuable lesson: If you don't know how to use a new tool properly, don't try it on critical parts!

Back in the Summer (2021), I bought the Ryobi 18V Impact wrench with 400 ft/lb torq. I used it a couple of times on my lawn tractor and decided to use it yesterday to remove the lug nuts to replace the brakes on my 2009 Camry Hybrid. The car has just started with a light "squeal" on a few stops, meaning it is getting close. So, I jacked up the car on the drivers side, placed stands on each end, got my new wrench, put the deep socket on it and started taking the lugs off. The first one came off easily and quickly, the second one did a lot of spinning but it didn't come off. I realized what was happening and stopped, Kinda scared of what I had done. I inspected the lug nut and could tell it was rounded even though the nuts are recessed. I moved down to the next lug nut and made sure the socket was on correctly, (but it wasn't fully set) and the same thing happened.

OK, time for re-thinking what to do now. I got my 4-way lug wrench out and pushed in as far and as hard as I could, and the head stripped lug nuts came off, Relief! Then I got into my wife's car and took the one good lug nut and went to the only auto supply store open on Saturday afternoon. I found out there are, or were three size lug nuts on the outside with the proper thread and seating for the Camry. They didn't have the ones that were on my car 22mm, but had 21mm. I got those. Now I have one wheel with 21mm with the rest at 22mm. I decided not to continue working on the brakes and will do that next week after getting new lug nuts all the same size exterior, which I have ordered from Amazon.

I got my 18" breaker bar and the correct deep socket and put the 21mm lug nuts on all of the lugs on that one wheel. I will not use the Impact wrench on my wheels again, and have decided to keep an 18" breaker bar with the one correct size deep set socket in my cars trunk, in addition to the 4-way lug wrench to use if I need to help someone else. And I am thinking of getting another 18" breaker bar and correct socket for my wife's car. A breaker bar is much more effective, in addition to giving more torque than most 4 way wrenches or OEM wrenchs on most vehicles. IMO.


Second project: I have had quite a few yellow pine 2x4 forms that were used in an old store for shelves. It took up a good bit of space under my lumber shed and needed to be take apart, the nails taken out and then sorting the 2x4 boards and a number of 1x4 yellow pine boards too. Spent about two hours doing that and gained a good bit of storage space in addition to having the wood organized and more easily accessible.

[atgcpaul]

I got a little lost in the story. Was the wrong sized socket used and that's why their heads stripped?

Well I didn't go into full detail. First, the 22mm socket was the one that fit snug on two good lug nuts, but I could not find a 22mm lug nut at the AutoZone or on Amazon; all were 21 mm. As to the stripping, This car has 390,000 miles on it. I have had 3 sets of 90,000 mile tires plus the originals and one set of 50,000 mile tires. Add those up and figure in tire rotation at about every 10,000 miles (at oil changes) and you have the possibilities of the edges of the lug nut EDGES being worn off. Combine that with the American standard of using the next English large size up from metric and then "rounding over" becomes a reality. Not many cars can say that they have had the lug nuts taken off and put back on 39 times with impact wrenches. This was only the 2nd time that I have taken the tires off, or more specifically, this second time was an "attempt" and I used the impact wrench instead of the lug wrench.

I also discovered something else that I think contributed to this, - on the rounded over OEM nuts, I looked real close and discovered some small holes in the outside case - the lug nuts appear to be a dual metal nut with an outer layer of somewhat softer metal than the part that threads onto the lug. The softer metal edges just rounded over and there were gaps that showed layers of metal. Hope this helps.

[LCHIEN]

Sunday - fishing Galveston Bay 5AM to 4PM. including travel and cleanup. Caught a few fish ,but flounder has zero limits the month... TP&W trying to improve stocks.

[dbhost]

Got up, made a gigantic latte, and went / ran videography for our church services this morning.

Got home, wife wanted me to take her to get something to eat, and go grocery shopping. Replaced the hurricane damaged TV antenna. The old one was a Polaroid branded unit that I have NEVER been happy with its performance. Hurricane Nicholas blew it to bits. The new unit uses a much larger pole, and is closer to a proper slip fit to the DirectTV mount leftover on the roof. Old antenna recieved 37 spotty channels. New antenna recieves 137. Most of which are cable clear... I suspect I am going to be bypassing the Vietnamese channels though as I don't speak it... However English and Spanish will likely be in rotation... Need to program the FIreTV to set shortcut for about 4 local stations. And I need to order a new remote for the living room TV as I lost the old one...

[dbhost]

Heading to Home Depot today to pick up some 4x4s and 2x4s for the lathe bench As a reminder I am building a storage / ballast bench for my lathe. It just dances too much using the factory thin metal stand...

Continuing shop cleanup. It's an absolute disaster. As a reminder, my lovely bride decided that anything she can't figure out where it goes, gets shoved into the shop willy nilly. I am trying ot undo that damage...

UPDATE: Using the fastener sizer, spent idle time sorting the multi drawer bins, labelled them per contents, ran out of labelling tape, need to order on Amazon...

Evap fan on the fridge failed. Need to empty it out into my giant hunting cooler, I have block ice frozen and ready to go. I have the replacement fan ready to go. Basically everything close to the evaporator stays cold, but top and bottom get too warm, no airflow, and the evap freezes up. Yay... Lots of digging to do!

Need to figure out what to do with the piecemeal fasteners. Odd threads and sizes that I have one or two of. I am making good headway with the fasteners, but I simply do not have space for dedicated drawers for each. Considering dividers/ packing tape to divide the small drawers into 4 compartments...

There are lots of small quantity fasteners. Such as 4 1/4" x 2" lag bolts, 12 5/16" 3.5" lag bolts etc... and 1/4 lb ring shank nails...

Considering using zliplock bags, tossing them in the bags labelled, and stuffing the bags in one or two of the larger bottom drawers... I think I now know why my dad kept those small coffee cans in his shop..

[LCHIEN]

Zip lock bags in the end take up too much room for one or two items.
My suggestion is less used fasteners of which you have 3 nuts, four sized of scres, some flat washers, etc just throw all the same thread size into one bin labeled #4 fasteners; they all get used together.

[capncarl]

Regardless how well you organize your fastner collection you will always have some free range nuts and bolts. I finally conceded that this was a fact and rolled with the flow and added 2 boxes to just dump in the loose stock. Occasionally I sort through the boxes and put everything where it belongs. Meantime, when I need something that I know could be in the free range box I’ll dig through it first.

[dbhost]

Continued with the sorting and labelling of the parts bins. Finding stuff I forgot I had. Reducing the number of drawers I am using in some ways, increasing in others.

Totally agree I will need "Misc fasteners" containers. I am separating them into the following containers.

#1. Machine threaded misc.
#2. Sheet metal threaded misc.
#3. Wood and drywall thread misc.
#4. Misc bits and pieces of heaven only knows what.

Sadly, my wife tossed out my 1lb plastic coffee containers a year or so ago. I guess I need more coffee... Okay seriously though, I need some closeable quart ish sized containers for this stuff.

I think I need to add a shelf below the wall mount tool / parts boxes specifically for this storage.

I am coming up with bits and pieces that I KNOW for a fact are auto related, from cars I haven't owned in 20+ years. I think I need to cull some of this stuff. Some of these bits and pieces are just a waste of space.

Received the air hose crimp tool, and crimp collars. My barb x MPT adapters appear lost in shipping.

As a reminder, I wanted to make some custom length jumpers for my air system. I have a couple of short jumps, from say the compressor, to the dryer / oil separator / regulator assembly that has multiple loops,and excessive weight on the couplers, I want to do away with that.... I am trying to eliminate excess hose, and in turn eliminate periodic air leaks.

[LCHIEN]

"As a reminder, I wanted to make some custom length jumpers for my air system. I have a couple of short jumps, from say the compressor, to the dryer / oil separator / regulator assembly that has multiple loops, and excessive weight on the couplers, I want to do away with that.... I am trying to eliminate excess hose, and in turn eliminate periodic air leaks."

A lot of air hose can be good - it will turn your 6 gallon compressor into a 7-gallon compressor. Unless its really long, then it just turns into a lot of flow restriction.

[dbhost]

"As a reminder, I wanted to make some custom length jumpers for my air system. I have a couple of short jumps, from say the compressor, to the dryer / oil separator / regulator assembly that has multiple loops, and excessive weight on the couplers, I want to do away with that.... I am trying to eliminate excess hose, and in turn eliminate periodic air leaks."

A lot of air hose can be good - it will turn your 6 gallon compressor into a 7-gallon compressor. Unless its really long, then it just turns into a lot of flow restriction.

Hence the discussion thread about piping... The idea is to get rid of leak prone hoses for distances that can and should be covered by pipe / tubing. I am looking at 1/2" ID as according to Engineering Toolbox, air flow at 100' lists 20 SCFM max.

Just FWIW, I have a total of 37 gallon tank capacity,

I believe the restriction comes at runs around 100'.

According to Engineering Toolbox, 3/8" ID hose at 100' will carry 10 SCFM max.

[twistsol]

I left work at 2:00 yesterday to try my hand at stone cutting for the fireplace hearth. My goal for the first attempt was to get it close enough that I could scribe the overhangs to the wall and I'll grind it to a perfect fit today. Yesterday was 47 degrees with a 25mph wind outside. I was wet and miserable when I finished but I met my goal.


Routing the roundover on the front edge didn't come out as well as I wanted, but once it is rubbed down with mineral oil, the color difference on my chaggy lines makes it nearly invisible. Once I get it set (hopefully tonight, concrete board and veneer stone for the rest of the fireplace.

[dbhost]

Finished sorting out the bits and pieces, ended up with about 1/3 of the formerly used drawers now totally unused, and the majority of the stuff sorted. I have to go through the unsorted bins some more though. There are some items I discovered I am now out of though. Notably hose washers... Gues I need a trip to the hardware store again...

[dbhost]

My 3/8" barb x 1/4" MPT fittings came in from Amazon, so I sized up the length of hose I need, cut the hose, tried sliding the ferrule into place only to find out that the ferrules are too small. It appears there are multiple sizes that fit various 3/8" air hoses. Yay... Ordered the next size up...

Lesson learned. Use the calipers to measure out your hose BEFORE ordering ferrules...

FWIW, I am considering removing the quick connects and simply threading the MPT into the FPT, with some thread sealant of course, and THEN crimping the ferrules down. This would eliminate 2 more potential leakage points.

Yes I am trying what I can go eliminate any potential air leaks in my compressed air system.

Oh, and my fridge has a failed evaporator fan. I have evacuated almost everything in there and packed it into my giant camping coolers with ice blocks. Need to finish that and defrost the evaporator before tear down and replace the evap fan... Not a great time for this...

[capncarl]

I’m not sure that quick disconnects were ever intended or designed to be completely air tite. I can’t ever recall not having a number of them leaking a small hiss of air when connected.

[capncarl]

Look into Parker Push-Lock hose fittings. I keep a small supply of 1/4 & 3/8 in straight and 90s flairs in the shop. I think they couple to 37degree flair fittings. Combined with male flair fitting you can rig about anything. These push lock hose ends push into the hose and are quite forgiving of hose size. A dab of dish detergent always helps and if the hose is still stubborn you can heat it a bit with a heat gun, I’ve never failed to have a fitting that wouldn’t go in. In question there is no shame putting a hose clamp on a questionable hose fitting,

[dbhost]

I massively redid my pnuematic system after Christmas which was 5 weeks after that post. So not much is relevant here. The salvaged rubber hoses were jettisoned as potential failure points again. There are quick disconnects at points where I want to be able to connect and remove items, either inputs, or outputs from the system. Been migrating slowly to the Type V high flow sets though.