What did you do today?

[dbhost]

So after it being here for a week and a half, I finally assembled the Bilt Hard 12" Variable Speed drill press. It's considerably taller than I would have thought. not quite like that freakishly tall Central Machinery 13" benchtop drill press, but still oddly tall... Now to set it aside as I spend time cleaning up my disaster of a house and shop. Digging out a big tote for the truck mod stuff and trying to get it at least into a corner of the living room. Tools go back into the shop. Scrap wood from the various projects over the last few months is going into another tote and will become campfire fodder here shortly...,

It will likely be sometime in December before I have enough cleared out, butI will be working on the flip top stand at that point. More green paint to come!

Trimmed the side panel for the electrical cabinet for the camper, sanded down to relieve the edges of the plywood so that my sleeping bag won't get snagged on it...

Tried calling the shop doing the engine work on the truck, single man operation, No answer, goes directxly t ovoicemail. Called a mutual friend, who apparently was in the ER for an afib to find out the mechanic had a minor heart attack. Stents and probabl ynot back yet... Yay... He has a Jr. tech / shop helper that can do most of the work, but for the acxtual you need your brain for ti stuff, he needs to be there...

[LCHIEN]

DP Not too tall for a flip top stand?
Whats the height of the DP?
Whats the clearance when flipped?

[dbhost]

Well, I am 6' tall. And I am about to dig out a tape measure. I know this will be taller than the Northern Industrial floor model, but I have to stoop to use it most of the time. The big issue I have had with the flip top stands is getting the axle dead centered. #1 is squirrely. #2 is actually pretty darned good. I will likely build #3 if the height works for the DP and mortiser, or have #3 be a redo of #1 as I am not super happy with #1. I messed it up...

Okay I paused in my typing as curiosity was killing me. From the bottom of the foot of the DP to the top of the pulley lid is 37.5"

This will side sideways in a flip top stand so I don't have to have the stand obnoxiously wide to accomodate the drill press table which is 24" even. So if I have 38.5" clearance from the table I should have more than enough clearance to flip. I might end up needing to stand on a soap box to use it though...

Mind you, all of this insanity is to eventually be able to squeeze my shop into a 10x20 shed.

Honestly it looks like I am only 1" short in my Sketchup model.

Need to honestly make up a new model for this DP, and work it though the designs. Or just wing it. Either one works... This would be interesting for a flipper though. Both the DP and mortising machines are top heavy as they both have all their important stuff at the very top... And they are not exactly featherweight tools, so flipping will require a touch of wrestling manuvers...

[mpc]

Do you need the full height of the new DP? Perhaps shortening the column a couple inches helps it fit your existing flip-top stands and negates the need for a soap box. Just a thought...

mpc

[dbhost]

Went out to continue pressure washing my driveway before the day heated up. And the old hose blew out. Went to Walamrt to pick up a few items including same said Garden hose. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a garden hose at Walmart in October? They apparently forgot the south exists... Anyway after digging, and digging, and digging, found one that will suffice. Got a few other doo dads and nee naws, Stuff for some BBQ tonight. Came home, put the groceries up, swapped the bad hose for the good one on the winder. I think the winders need to be repalced too. They no longer guide the hose onto the spool... They have had a pretty fair service life though...

Considering how to "get away" with going as big as a 10x20 shed since the covernants and restrictions say 10x12, but they also allow full pool enclosures and pool houses much larger than my little shop idea. I MAY have to get an architect involved and attach it to the house via a breezeway.

I am not suer sure about any of this. May hold off on that. The reason I stayed here in Houston Metro is my wife. If I can go fully remote work wise, might end up just buying land in Arizona close to Tucson or Phoenix, desert land is still pretty cheap, and put up a house and shop building. No big decisions for at least a year though right?

[dbhost]

Had a full work week The new job is going well so far but it's so early on it's kind of hard for it not to go well. The team seems pretty good but honestly I've been well everyone is working hybrid and I've been there when they've been remote and I'm going to be remote when they're there so it might be a while before actually get to interface with everybody..

Was working on Camper stuff nothing big justhing big just tweaking some of the wiring harness before I get the truck back it is delayed. Honestly the mechanic started later than he should have on the job so I'm not sure I'm going to have the truck back in time for me to do my planned veterans Day weekend trip. He did run into a snag and it was kind of an important one that is slowing him down if I was doing the work it would have slowed me down too which was apparently the engine wasn't just knocking when I stopped but apparently it's spun a bearing and seized and I didn't know that. Kind of hard to get the torque converter bolts off of the flex plate if you can't turn the crank shaft so he has to pull the engine and transmission is one unit M and then separate them on the bench.

The interior lighting for the camper is camper is going to be very simple if simple basically under low Dirk low remote LED strips the kind that they use for under dashboard and under seat lighting on custom cars I'm going to put 2 strips 1 along each side of the cap and the cap aimed straight down so that it creates an ambient light I have battery powered Direct task lighting if I need it I need it.. I tested VV light strip Since they work off of a remote control and is long as the IR receivers are close to each other which they will be in actual use then then they both will operate exactly the same using the remote controls. So that way I only have to worry about where the heck one of the remotes instead of both.

I need to go to the fabric store or probably tomorrow and get a couple of yards of material to make the curtains for the camper.
The curtains are going to be a simple affair just just cut the size edge tape and ironed so they don't fray, and they will attach to the window frames with Velcro.

I will also make up some reflectix inserts inserts for insulating the windows for very hot or very cold weather.

[Stan]

Finally taking a break here, have been busy since late May between clearing land, bringing in about 160 yards of fill, pouring a pad and then building a metal frame shop to move into.
Went with a Versatube metal frame building and sourced the sheetmetal locally.
Been a long process, but it is dried in now and I am trying to get spray foam scheduled, along with electrical.

[capncarl]

What is the size building, ceiling height! Doors?

[Stan]

capncarl: I went with 24 x 39 with 10' walls. Roof pitch is 3/12 (which worked out real nice today, wife and I were moving the bass boat under the lean-to on one side right about the time the whole roof decided to unload the 8-10" of snow we recently got. 2 windows, 2 man doors and 1 7x8 garage door.

[Stan]

Well, part of the snow load question has been answered. We had a nasty storm come through a couple days ago, 8-10" of heavy wet snow, which took down power lines all over the valley. We lost power for right around 28 hours.
Shop showed no signs of any issues with that amount of snow on the roof, although it was rather interesting to be standing outside under the lean-to when all the snow slid off about 25 x 39 feet's worth of roofing (half of the shop and the lean-to comes in right at 25') came crashing down right next to where we were standing. And now a good amount of that well packed snow needs to be moved.

[twistsol]

Managed to get the new bookcases assembled and set in place in my office. Unfortunately I'll have no shop time until after Thanksgiving. I haven't cut or finished the shelves yet, so just the one fixed shelf in each bookcase is usable for now.

[twistsol]

It was too windy to put up Christmas lights today So I got a day in the shop to

• Figure out which of the partial sheets of plywood in the shop contained the floating shelves for the bookshelves
• FInd those parts and realize I didn't label them all
• Rough cut all the shelves
• Rip strips of 1/4" edge banding from the stock of reclaimed birch
• Run the strips through the planer to clean them up
• Cut them into 600mm lengths
• Glue them in batches of 6 to the rough cut shelves using all my clamps
• Flush trim and sand each batch
• Round over front edge of each shelf at the router table
• Rip each shelf to width
• Cut each shelf to length
• Final sand.

26 usable and 2 screwed up plywood rectangles isn't much to show for a day's work.



Stain Tomorrow, spray Tues-Friday and let then cure for a week or two before I put books on them.

[LCHIEN]

Stayed up late and caught the lunar eclipse/blood moon with my camera.

Could be better, but not bad. Its pretty challenging to shoot the eclipsed moon, the blood red in the umbra is what little light bends through the earths atmosphere at a steep angle, the exposure is about 4000 times more for that phase of the eclipse than the normal sunlit moon.
Equipment: Olympus OM-D E-M10ii and Panasonic 100-400mm zoom
The last exposure was f8, ISO 3200, 2 sec and 400 mm with a bit of crop applied.

[dbhost]

The replacement light switches for the kitchen and workshop came in. The ones that went bad were made by Brown the people make the bathroom fans and they just well yeah went bad. The new ones are from General Electric and they have others they're the demo variant all over the house and they're working fine. These are all smart switches tied into my smart home hub and Security system but the one in the shop has been flickering on and off like it's a rave in there and I can't even get in there to clean unless it's bright out and I've happened be working.

I will likely get those swap around this weekend so I can get back to cleaning in the shop once that is done I will start on the flipper stand for the new drill press.

[twistsol]

Between meetings, I assembled, stained, and then applied four coats of poly to the front of the dog wash station. I love working at home.

[Stan]

Re-installed the new winch on the 4-wheeler. The original winch fried itself last spring, and the bracket it was mounted on with was definitely not very well made.
Ordered an OEM winch mount bracket for CanAm quads and this thing was a breeze to mount. Now have the snowplow attached and ready for more snow.
Was nice working in the new shop even without insulation, just having a level, clean and dry floor was great.

[LCHIEN]

Snowplow in Houston? Right!

[twistsol]

We had just barely enough snow to be a nuisance so I changed perspective and today I’m sitting on Miami Beach. The snowblower is readied for winter even if I just decide to stay here

[Stan]

Not Houston here, NW Montana. Last week's storm put about 13-14" of heavy wet stuff on the ground.

[dbhost]

I made headway that is relevant to the shop. The smart switch that controlled my shop lights had failed and it was literally flickering on and off like a rave was going on in my shop. So I ripped out the Broan Nutone switch and installed a GE jasco switch which are known to be much higher quality I didn't know that when I installed the 1st ones.

Simply put the switches that controlled the formerly florescent lights that have been converted to LED for the garage and the kitchen basically those were the ones where I didn't need a dimmer so I went with these trusting the brand name at 1st that was apparently a mistake. The new GE switches were much easier to wire in and fit better in the Box. Honestly they just look and feel better made so I think I got a winner here.

Now that I can see what I'm doing I might actually bother getting out to the shop and cleaning up the disaster that it has become. However 1st I have to get the pile of truck and camper parts out of the living room so there's one thing about being a widower I don't have to worry about the wife complaining about a set of offered tires in the living room but the truck is almost back in my hands and I will be rolling those tires out as well as the 12 V fridge and all that stuff and get them installed in the camper.

Due to some unforeseen delays including supply chain issues I'm about 3 weeks behind in my schedule for this build I actually should be at the Texas Renaissance festival this weekend but obviously that didn't happen.

[dbhost]

About to hit the sack been a busy day actually...

I spent about 2 hours working on shop clean up in mind you I hardly made any Dent at all but at least there's a bent. Most of my mechanics tools are back in the toolbox my players are back on the clam shell box door.

The top of my mechanics tool chest has become an out of control mess I need to work on that and I did some but right now all it looks like is the mess got spread around not really but that's the way it looks.

I mounted the Drill press table to the new drill press and found that the holes that I have originally are spaced too far apart for the new cast iron table I'm going to have to rework the anchoring system. I have it working right now by rotating the cast iron table 45ﾟ but I'm not really pleased with having to do that.

After waiting for several years for the price point to hit where I wanted to actually pay the Hitachi now metabo HPT12 inch double bevel compound sliding miter saw is finally at a price that I am willing to absorb. CPO had them for $329 plus shipping Amazon had them for 349 on prime so it was actually less expensive when you figure shipping in to get the brand new one through Amazon then to get the refurbished 1 from CPO.

I've mentioned and lamented this many times in the past but my 2 car garage is stupidly small and the only cars it could possibly fit are 1980s Toyota Corolla's. Read so my choice is rip up the shop and put it into a 10 by 20 shed in the backyard which is not really enough room I mean it is but it's not. Or I put a 10 by 12 shed in the backyard And use it to store all the knot shop stuff like lawn and garden and camping gear And then fully dedicate the entire garage space to a workshop. At that point I will probably take off all of the lumber from the lumber rack and finish Insulating that last remaining wall. I will likely close off the ports for the portable air conditioner and just drop in a ductless Mini split air conditioner with heat. The hvac circuit that is in the shop has A110 and A220 leg on it should be able to just install it plug it in connect the roses end depending on the system probably vacuum pump it down and then add the freon. Anyway I didn't get that done today but I was kind of laying things out getting ideas for where I want stuff.

I mentioned earlier I believe that I replaced the faulted smart switches. Now I know why Broan Nutone Smart switches are so unpopular these things were really unreliable. I replace them with the massively bland but massively reliable GE jasco switches.

Z wave pairing of these switches went smooth as butter now the only issue I've got is I have to go in and edit my automations to reflect the new switches.

[Stan]

Spent a couple hours in the new shop this evening. A few cans of spray foam filling in the sheetmetal ribs on the top and bottom of the walls to close things up so when the closed cell spray guys start there is no escape route for their foam to run to the outside of the building and making a mess.
This is also part of the plan to get things closed up enough so that when the electrical is installed the heater I am putting in can get the inside up to a temperature that will allow the closed cell spray foam to be done if the outside weather will get to the 40's for a day ore two.
One step at a time...

[Jim Frye]

First visit to the nearby physical therapy shop to begin work on my arthritic left thumb and right knee. Now two visits a week and daily exercises as prescribed. Plus have to buy a hot wax machine to dip my hand for heat therapy. Getting old is a booger.

[dbhost]

Perhaps getting old is a bugger but it's a bugger that's denied to many.