What did you do today?

[dbhost]

This is going to sound funny, but I went looking for Aqua Net hairspray. Back in college in the digital photography class, color laser prints needed a budget "fixative" to keep the colors from getting rubbed off and Aqua Net is what our instructors had us use. My build plate surface is probably not up to 100% snuff on the 3D printer, and rumor has it that stuff, if I flip the glass plate around, will help PLA hold onto the build plate.

The reason I am wanting this is I have prints for upper and lower halves of a case for a Raspberry Pi that I need to print out.

I am watching for a Raspberry Pi 4B 8BG to come up, due to the chip shortage they are badly back ordered, but I digress. My old TrendNet router is slow as sin, and since I upgraded from cable to fiber internet, and they gave me a pair of Eero Pro 6 WiFi 6 routers, I lost the function of DD-WRT, so I no longer have local DNS, inlcuding the DNS for my LAN, and I no longer have DNLA server service, so no more streaming my own movies at home I.E. I need to actually dig out the DVDs to watch a movie if it isn't on a streaming service, and since pretty much almost all the old stuff I like is not on streaming, I kind of have no choice....

Anyway the case I printed with a raft will work, but it is ugly. I might be able to hone it down and smooth it out, but the black PLA will become gray on the very top and very bottom.

I did thread the lower for the case for 6-32 and made sure it bolts together well, it does.

Not sure if I mentioned the ethernet cable clips I printed the other day, but I printed up a mess of safety orange 4 and 16 cable clips and organized my cables. My Network setup is I can almost guarantee more complex than most, but it serves a purpose.

Working on some automation scripts / fettling rust off of my BASH scripting skills etc...

Lots more of that coming along...

[atgcpaul]

Aquanet is what the 3D printer guy at work was using, too, to keep prints stuck the bed. I think now that he uses heated beds, it's not needed anymore or as much.

[twistsol]

This weekend went up north to Superior to help kids prep deck for staining, rearranged a bunch of furniture and stripped and painted a dresser and bookcase.

Saturday night after dinner someone mentioned that it was supposed to be a good night to see the northern lights, so we packed up the truck and laid on Superior's south beach until 11:30. The light show was awesome. It was the first time I'd ever seen them despite living in states that border Canada my entire life. Later that night around 1:00 AM, the rare purple and even more red colors were showing, but we missed that.

[nicer20]

Oh I thought one needs to visit places like Norway or Sweden to see the northern lights. Didn't know they are visible from the Northern US too.

[twistsol]

I had a junior high science teacher once tell me they could only be seen if you were north of the arctic circle. Clearly that was incorrect. If you are anywhere near civilization, you would just assume initially that it is light from a distant city. My son in law did say that Reykjavík Iceland was the best place he's ever seen them.

[dbhost]

Since we were nowhere near ready, went hat in hand to the siblings in law to beg borrow or steal enough to buy the plot so my wife can have her funeral. I found the perfect plot yesterday. In the garden adjascent to the mausoleum her parents, and brothers are in. with a straight shot view of both her parents, and brothers crypts... RIght in the shade of a big pecan tree too. Sadly it is right on the side where Griggs road is so not exactly super peaceful, but my wife is a city girl, she likes that stuff...

[twistsol]

This weekend the plan was to build the 12 drawers for my office cabinets.

The plan:
Friday - Get all the stock prepped and cut.
Saturday - cut the dovetails and assemble the drawers
Sunday - Spray all the drawers and get them installed.

The Reality:
Friday I went through the scrap piles and found enough poplar to make 13 of the 48 pieces for the drawers, so I went to Menards and picked up some poplar boards and a sheet of 1/2" plywood for the drawer bottoms. Friday afternoon the planer died about halfway through the job so I ordered a new planer,

Saturday, took a nap, did some yard work went to a play Saturday night.

Sunday morning, took another nap and the planer showed up about 11:30 ++Amazon! I finished planing everything and cutting all the dovetails, drawer bottoms and got four of the drawers glued up and installed one for a test fit. By then it was 9:00 pm. I also discovered that one of the pieces of poplar I picked from the scrap pile for a drawer side was actually maple but it was so dirty and beat up I couldn't tell until it had been put through the planer.

Drawers glued up ready for sanding and finishing



Drawers waiting to be glued up.

[mpc]

Replaced the brake master cylinder on a '78 Corolla. And flushed the brake lines as part of the job. Not exactly a woodworking job but this car is my wood transporter. The hatch is wide enough to swallow sheets of plywood - seriously - and only about a foot sticks out. I can carry lumber about 14 feet long inside the car, running diagonally from the front passenger footwell to the hatch area. I haven't been able to find new vehicles that can do this to replace my Corolla... short of a few minivans from brands I'd rather not deal with. Most pickups these days are 4-door family vehicles with stubby beds unless you get the stripper/contractor grade model; I'd rather a 2-door cab - in mid-grade trim including navigation and other modern gizmos - with a proper 8 foot bed. None of my cars are rated to tow much of anything so a small trailer is not a great option either... and California wants them taxed and licensed. It'd be cheaper to rent one on the rare occasion I need to move a large load.

mpc

[Jim Frye]

Had a '77 Corolla SR5 hatchback. Metallic green with tan leather/vinyl interior. With a roof rack it would haul anything inside or on top. I drove the stuffing out of it for a dozen years for work and DIY. Rocker panels and wheel arches rusted out and bondo'd. Painted the entire bottom part of the car and when I pulled the tape and paper off, I discovered the paint store had mixed the paint wrong. Turned out there were two formulations for that color code. One for Japan and one for the U.S. Store made good on the paint and I got to shoot it all over again. Gas tank rusted out above the undercoating and had to be replaced. I miss it as it was really fun to drive and the clutch lasted well over 100K miles. SWMBO hated the color.

[dbhost]

Dealt with unneccesary in law drama. Apparently I am not getting their sister boxed up and in the ground fast enough for their liking. What she wanted done apparently doesn't matter, they just want to put her away and move on.

I am pretty sure the neighbors heard me cussing the particular BIL that had the gonads to tell me that out at the top of my lungs. I've got a sailors mouth when I need it. Today was that day.

I would have thought that for once in their lives they could behave themselves like reasonable, civilized, adult human beings. I badly overestimated their abilities.

[Jim Frye]

Had some storms blow through and just spent time picking up the construction trash that blew out of the builder's dumpster down the street. Picked up the boxes and papers ,etc., carried them back to the house under construction and tossed them inside the house where they can't blow down the street any more. Nothing new, happens every time we have wind (a lot) and this guy's dumpster is full (also a lot). Wind was strong enough to blow a 15' plastic kids slide out of the dump box and down the street.

[dbhost]

I am doing 3D printing projects. There are some thunderstorms rolling in that are supposed to pull the temps down a LOT over the next few days, down into the mid 80s for daytime highs. If the long range forecast is right, it looks like our summer peak hit us really early this year and is moving on.

I need to get out into the shop today and get to cleaning. I have family coming for the service, and I need to get her memorial cross made. Oh and FWIW, I realized I have the walnut stock already prepped so I am good there. Just need to clean up some maple and cut to size, work the joinery, glue it up, edge route the thing both front and back, set thread inserts in the bottom so I can use threaded rod as a sort of lawn stake, do the finishing and mount the marker plaque.

I am doing this as a temporary place holder while the Ledger (that is what they told me it is called) basically a full covers the plot flat grave marker is being made and installed.

I 3D printed a twisteed octogon flower pot. 160mm X 160mm x 145mm. I basically took someone else's design for a MUCH smaller flower pot and hit scale in the slicer software to get the size I wanted. The filament is copper color PLA, and honestly I do not expect it to make it more than a year outdoors. But I have never been able to keep the lillies alive at home past the summer anyway, so I am not going to worry about that. Get the bulbs, plant them at home, start them in the kitchen window, and then for Valentines Day get her planted lillies to her, they usually start to bloom a week or so after that if they were planted in January.

[dbhost]

Prepped walnut stock to 7/8 x 4" for the memorial cross. The grain is so pretty I might just have to backtrack and make it all walnut. And go with pocket holed miters with the pocket screws hidden beneath the plaque. And epoxy, lots of epoxy to fill the inclusions, and seal it all up...

[capncarl]

Today we had our 50th wedding anniversary party, beach theme, 50 invited guests, all family, lots of food (caterer pulled pork &bbq chicken with all the trimmings. My house AC survived! I opened doors and windows from house into the patio glass room and garage door and let it cool the whole area so everyone was inside out of the heat! I had my doubts it would be able to maintain 75 degrees but it did. We had just completed the epoxy coating on the 3 car garage and patio so both rooms were empty of regular furniture clutter so it dressed up nicely

[nicer20]

Wishing you a happy wedding anniversary and many more to come together !!

- Nicer

[nicer20]

Weekend 2 of the Master Bathroom Vanity Renovation project. Demolition continues. It is all tiled vanity tops and backsplashes.

Managed to get all demolition completed (well almost). Between last weekend and this also replaced all 4 angle stop valves with new Sharkbite quarete turn valves ready to receive new connections. Removing old compression rings from 25 year old fittings was no easy task. Worse situation was an issue as one of the compression nut was so badly tightened that the section out of the wall was badly compressed and started leaking the new fitting.

Had to cut the pipe, open the drywall, soldered in new stub and fitted the new angle valve. Very much on the edge - learnt a few things.

Now waiting for wife to select the backsplash she wants - for a change I am on schedule waiting for her !!

[LCHIEN]

Ordered a metric/SAE Thread checker from Amazon, $20.
Tired of trying to figure it out the hard way (Trial and error at the store)


I'm thinking once I get it I'm taking it off the string/wire and making an index holder for it. While nuts may be easy to check I'm thinking studs or threaded holes in tight places or fixed locations are going to be a ***** to check if these are all on a string.
But it seems $20 is a cheap price, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09LH877TB...hk_typ_imgToDp

Another story coming about when I go to the box store and try to find a hard to find nut size!!! Find the right bin marked with the size I need but every single bagged item in that bin is something else, all different. HD employee had the nerve to ask me at that exact moment if I'm finding what I need and I told him what the problem was and he just shrugged his shoulders.

[capncarl]

Good score, this is one of my must used tool in my tap/die drawer

[dbhost]

Well, I am about to strangle a dog and a cat. They will NOT let me sleep. The problem is since Debi passed away, I can get to sleep, but once something wakes me up and gets me moving, I'm done for the night. I try getting back to sleep but it doesn't work. The dog decided he needed to go to the bathroom 45 minutes ago, and then the cat wanted to have her litter box cleaned and to be fed... Ugh...

On the plus side. The memorial is done, the burial is done. And the insurance benefits have been approved, I am simply awaiting the certified mail with the info on accessing the funds.

The cat is doing what she does and trying to eat the flowers from the funeral. I REALLY need to hide htem in a closed off room... She has no sympathy at all...

I will be taking Mom to IAH (George Bush Airport) in about 2.5 hours, no sense in even trying to nap now...

I am getting more and more functional as I go on, but I am definately changed, and not necessarily for the better. I will get there, but right now, I just don't have a clue on the "what's next" in life. It was always whatever was next we would face it together, now... well...

And my car is messed up, in the shop, and the shop was supposed to have it fixed a couple of days ago... No clue why they didn't but there we are, and I am stuck in a rental...

[twistsol]

Another weekend of plan vs reality being completely disconnected.

The very simple plan: Stain and spray poly on the sides and fixed shelves of the bookcases for the office.

The reality. Saturday:
LOML and I went for an early morning walk Saturday and ended up walking past my brother's house while he was on the porch having morning coffee. Stopped to chat, went out to breakfast with them and got home around 11:00. Set up everything in the back yard and sprayed stain on all the parts with one 10 minute break to replace the pressure check valve on the spray gun. Cleaned the sprayer and while everything was drying, the wind kicked up and the skies got dark so everything was brought into the shop, no chance of spraying outdoors for the rest of the day. The wind kept up, but it never rained

Saturday Evening:
My dad called and said he opened his prescription from the VA and both bottles were empty. He called them and they said it would be 8-10 days to get a replacement mailed out. My sister who lives 10 miles from him is up north, or in Minnesota parlance "they gone up nort der" with her grown kids so I'm now the closest relative ... about 100 miles away. He is legally blind and couldn't give any of the details over the phone.

Sunday Morning:
Left at 7:30 am and drove 100 miles to Winona, picked up his prescription, went to Walgreens who didn't have it in stock. Went to another pharmacy who tried to get permission to fill it from the VA who declined because there were no doctors on call on the weekends. They eventually decided that this was probably an emergency so we had to take him to an ER so a doctor could look at him, take his pulse and write a 20 day prescription. The VA will fully reimburse him for the ER visit.

Also, while we were there, my daughter called to ask if he would share his 100th birthday coming up because she is pregnant and the due date is a couple of days from his birthday. My niece was born on his 67th birthday.

Sunday afternoon: By now it was 1:30 so we tried to go out to lunch, ordered food an an hour later, only one of the dozen tables had gotten food. I paid for my coffee and left a generous tip for the waitress who was dealing with a bunch of irate customers through no fault of her own. We left and went to McDonalds, then dropped dad off just in time for Bingo and drove home.