What did you do today?

[dbhost]

I've got some old, 1990s wooden half height filing cabinets that are actual wood and stained in that honey oak stuff. Planning on stripping the hardware, stripping the stain somewhat, hitting it with some sanding sealer and going after it with the Dark walnut stain, Give it some time to cure up and soak in, hit it again until I come up with a nearly dark roast coffee sort of look for the home office. So yeah I get the whole futzing with stain stuff. Particularly in my case where I am looking for pretty dark close but not exactly black...

[twistsol]

I've spent the last couple of days mixing various stains trying to get the perfect balance of red to brown and darkness that I envisioned for my office cabinets. It turns out that Varathane Cognac straight out the can is exactly what I wanted.

The two on the right are Cognac the only differences is the one on the far right was sanded to 320 and the one second from the right was sanded to 180.

The half dozen that made the final round

[leehljp]

(Moved from the wrongly posted topic to this one):

Friday and Yesterday, (Saturday), I worked with a volunteer group of 6 who traveled 150 miles to build the "stage" for a rural church that is being re-built with a new building in the three county area in which I coordinate work among the local churches. This group was top notch, at least the main guy and a pastor.The foundation (18' x 20' ) had been built, using all spruce, no pine (Construction guy's specific request). On the last one of the wood foundation pieces, there was a 1/8" raise and warp on one end of a 2x4x18'. The guy in charge would not let the nail gun shooter, using 27 cal shoot the nails into the concrete until it was FLAT on the concrete. He built a contraption to multiply the force of two men to hold the board down on the concrete before the nail was shot. He said, 1/8 inch here will cause a 1/4" out of level down the line.

I never saw so much PRECISION cuts and nailing, warping nullified before moving forward. The pastor volunteer that came with them (and I have known him) told me the construction guy was top notch. I can believe it.

45° angles were made with 22.5 cuts on the end of each board rather than a simple 45°. Precise fitting. I enjoyed that!

This church is being built with all volunteer labor - guys or at least leaders, who are licensed contractors and match or exceed code. The church provides ALL the material or purchase the materials. I told the church before we started that I could get the volunteer labor but they (construction workers) do not settle for 2nd rate or Cheap Charlie material. The inside is ALL 5/8" sheetrock. I have seen many cheaply made buildings with holes in the wall from rambunctious kids. I am having problems with the code guy in one area. We have already installed 10 gauge wire for the AC split unit ductless slow start that the manufacturer's specs says that 10 gauge wire is sufficient for this unit. The code guy wants us to replace the 10 gauge wire with 8 gauge - an $800 cost locally for the wire alone, not counting cutting holes in sheet rock in 3 different places. I am holding tight on the Manufacturer's specs over-riding local code restrictions according to state law.

[dbhost]

I need to step back a bit from this. I cleared out the home office on Saturday, and pulled the computer armoire. Moved in and assembled the, been sitting in the spare bedroom still in its boxes from 2012 office depot flat pack L shaped desk and hutch. Substantially larger than the armoire, substantially smaller than the old U shaped desk I chucked out that this was to replace. Plenty of space for my PC, printer, audio mixer, mic stand and boom, books etc... Single filint drawer and 3 various stuff drawers, plus 2 hinged glass panel doors that I am SERIOUSLY considering installing color changing smart LED strips in. Probably underlight the top of the hutch and the desktop as well. I have a, well G&G ish picture frame I did maybe 3 years ago that now needs to move as it is partially hidden by the hutch.

I think I might move the painting to where the semi hollowbody guitar is hanging, and hang the guitar to the right of hte desk for easy access...

Making refried beans in the instant pot for dinner. Going to do beefy tostadas... Wife gets to do the veggies and shells part... I did the beef and beans...

I get volunteered as I did the Taco shop duty in college or so the logic goes...

Oh yeah, back to the home office. I ordered some just right sized finger raceway / cable management to run beind the desk segments to get and keep the cables off the floor.

I am having a problem making my Minicom KVM Extender USB like being connected again. As I recall when I originally set it up 2+ years ago, it was very finicky. I have a, I think TP LInk or something like that as a spare if I have to, but once working the Minicom is kind of bomb proof until I disconnect it and move it around...

[twistsol]

Got the six base cabinets assembled for the office and now I need to wait for a nice day to spray them The ten day forecast show snow this week and highs in the low 40's so this might be a while. Since they will be enclosed, no stain on these, just a clear coat over the birch plywood. I might race the weather in the interim to build a collapsable spray booth for the garage.

Also started a folding outfeed for the tablesaw, managed to go for a walk with my wife, spent an hour blowing bubbles and writing with chalk on the sidewalk with the 3 year old next door so his parents could assemble some flat pack furniture, dropped off the builder basic kitchen and dining room lights from our house at the Habitat Re-Store.

The ground is finally thawed enough that I was able to get the Christmas decoration stakes out the ground.

[twistsol]

I haven't checked whether wiring is in the attic or crawl space. The only time I've ever seen wiring in an attic around here is in a house that added a second story but the basement was already finished. I guess assuming wiring was in the crawl space was just blind optimism on my part.

[dbhost]

Stepped back, took a look at the freshly restained door, not all of the grain is nice and smooth any more, but I don't want to sand the door itself down too far, so rough finish it is!

Saw some spots where somehow I clean missed with the stain. Gotta go back and hit them again today.

More back to back meetings. Getting ready for one for a potential client here shortly.

I have a ton to do, wife wants us to get out of hte house, so I guess we are going to go do something, Lord only knows what...

Weather is pretty good, and I need to shoot a video on some modifications I did to my camp shower over the winter for some friends to give them ideas. Been delaying that too long.

[dbhost]

Hauled over to the BORG, grabbed a can of Dark Walnut stain, and slapped some stain on the front door where I had shaved it yesterday. gave it a rub down and letting it soak in. Will sand the outside of the door tonight and lather, rinse, repeat.

Once the stain has taken properly I need to get the mixer into the urethane can and mix it up nice and smooth, then coat it with Urethane.

[capncarl]

twistsol, your house with a crawl space….. is the existing wiring in the crawl space, or attic? It might be a regional thing but I can’t recall seeing a house with a crawl space with wiring in it, it’s been in the attic.

[Jim Frye]

We have a trimotor that flys from one of the Lake Erie islands here.

[Jim Frye]

Cleaned up the shop. All of the machine tool work is done on the table, everything got a good vacuuming and all of the woodworking tools that have accumulated on the bench were put away, with the exception of sanding stuff and finishing things. The shop actually looks bigger now.

[dbhost]

Well considering grounded wiring wasn't required by NEC for new construction prior to what, 1975 I think, pretty sure that 70 year old house predates that...

I worked in a hardware store in the 90s in college and we still sold the old 2 prong outlets for replacement of faulted sockets, they were clearly labelled NOT FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION.

[twistsol]

Rewiring the house is on the to do list for this summer. Single story with a crawl space so not a huge job and it already has breakers and not fuses. I haven’t found a grounded circuit in the house yet. Fortunately a GFCI functions without a ground and meets code if you add the “No equipment ground” sticker to each one.

[dbhost]

I remember my parents house was one of those post WW2 specials, and just checked on it. Built in 1954. It had the old screw in type fuses in a fuse panel in the basement, and none of the outlets had the third hole for ground.

I remember my Dad, Grandpa, and if I recall right 2 great uncles, one of which was an electrician, went through the house top to bottom end to end and modernized the wiring and put in a breaker panel sometime in the mid to late 70s after a neighbors house had an electrical fire. After that, I would never even consider a house from that era unless the wiring had been gone through when I was house hunting... Scary stuff.

[twistsol]

When my daughter bought a 70 year old house a couple of months ago, the inspector noted no GFCI in the kitchen or bath. The prior owner got it to meet code by just removing the outlets and putting blank covers over them. Proper GFCIs are now installed. The garage wiring is a “handyman special” but I’ll get to that if g—**** ****ing winter ever ends. I just shut off the breakers for the wires dangling from the ceiling and lost most of the active lights and outlets in the process.