What did you do today?

[LCHIEN]

Expensive day.

• I paid the estimated taxes to the IRS - ouch! Distributed a big chunk of my IRA last month, so it was big.
• Paid Annual Real Estate taxes due Jan 31, Taxman for the County, School district, Water district, hospital district, Port Authority etc are happy now
• Paid HOA maintenance fees for the year
• Paid Visa Bill for December - lots of Christmas items two big meals for the family and of course all the groceries, medical, gas etc and daily expenses, so bigger than usual

My bank account is much emptier.

[dbhost]

LCHIEN ouch. Just ouch...

For me, catch up from yesterday. More cleaning, moving stuff around so it isn't quite so messy. Spent some time on the ladder strapping up the compressed air tubing so it isn't draping from the ceiling in lazy droops...

I have a giant heavy tote of stuff we are setting aside to put in a travel trailer that needs to get jammed up in the attic. I have no need for it in the house, nor in the shop...

Oh yeah, and I spent time going over my stuff in my garage, cutoffs, 2x4s etc. Then went into Sketchup and whipped up at least the basics of the design for the flip top cart. For some reason my old account credentials for 3D warehouse work on the website, but not from within the stupid application and I am NOT going to use Sketchup Free online as it is more or less useless so I am sticking with Sketchup 2017, even if I have to install it in a sandboxed VM eventually...

[dbhost]

More shop cleanup. Found a bunch of ceiling fan parts that went into the tote for that project, swept up the floor between the table saw and sheet goods storage.

Dragged out the giant tote of stuff for the to be purchased travel trailer and put it up in the attic. Dragged down the big box of surplus dust collection parts which was originally the box for the 8 gallon dust collector.

Somehow the pile on top of the table saw and workbench is building up again. but the floor is getting very much cleaner. And to top it off, I have dredged up another contractor bag full of worthless cutoffs,, bad hoses, and metal bits and bobs that are various cutoffs like the good number of ferrules I have cut out... How so many right?

Good thing tomorrow is trash day...

I also found my weed and feed, which will need to be applied literally in 1 more month if the weather holds. Typically mid February. I honestly have WAY too many 4" DWV wyes, I mean WAY too many. And I am about to drag a few more out.

Does anyone in Houston Metro need 4" DWV based dust collection parts? I've got DWV wyes, and a few 4 x 2.5" ABS wyes that are just sucking up space.

I think I will come up with an inventory of the stuff once the 5" is done and put it up on offer. Will let it go cheap.

[capncarl]

Went to gather some sausage today. Some of my friends hunt wild hogs to help farmers control crop hog damage. This is the first time I’ve been able to join them for a night hunt. At 6:30 pm 19 walked out in the peanut field. Ignoring the large 300-400 pounders and 25-30 pounders we were able to take a 160, 120. and a 50 pounder. I had to hurry to get them loaded up and to the processor before 8 pm. Firearm used; Suppressed AR15 with thermal scope at 75 yards.

I didn’t post photos because someone my be offended, but if it makes any difference the photo shows the hogs in the back of my pickup truck laying on Persimmon logs!

Request and I’ll post photos.

[dbhost]

Went to gather some sausage today. Some of my friends hunt wild hogs to help farmers control crop hog damage. This is the first time I’ve been able to join them for a night hunt. At 6:30 pm 19 walked out in the peanut field. Ignoring the large 300-400 pounders and 25-30 pounders we were able to take a 160, 120. and a 50 pounder. I had to hurry to get them loaded up and to the processor before 8 pm. Firearm used; Suppressed AR15 with thermal scope at 75 yards.

I didn’t post photos because someone my be offended, but if it makes any difference the photo shows the hogs in the back of my pickup truck laying on Persimmon logs!

Request and I’ll post photos.

Not sure if anyone here would be offended, but some may. I would be more concerned it might be NSFW, and depending on the age of the kids, possibly not family friendly. Kind of contrary to the environment we are trying to keep here... But I love to help harvest hogs. A friend of mine has some acreage just out of Santa Fe (TX not NM!), he does th ebig hay rolls. We lay up on them and catch the hogs coming out of the treeline toward the fields...

I got 99% of the floor clear at this point. I have a bit between the lathe and drill press that needs to be finished up. Made progress there. Pretty sure the ceiling fan parts are all in the tote now, ready to get pulled aside. Found a tote that I have no idea what on earth is in there...

Not sure of the exact date, but sometime mid december I swappped out the burnt out T12s for spares that were in the attic. While I was in the shop cleaning up one of the fixtures one of the bulbs started flickering. Well by the time I finished up tonight that same bulb burnt out.

Found a 20ct pack of ballast bypass 4ft tubes for $89.00 on Amazon and ordered them up. I pulled the one chain hung fixture, the one that goes over the workbench, and got it down, cleaned it up and boy is it yellowed. Odd because not a lot of UV light gets in there, and I sure don't smoke. BUT this was also the fixture that was one that was being thrown out from a strip mall remodel so I honestly don't recall if it was yellowed before.

Anyway, I will do the conversion on this one fixture, get it happy, swap it in place and remove the others 1 by 1, do the conversion until I have 7 2 tube LED fixtures lighting up my shop.

At that point I can re-configure the power for my ambient air cleaner to the ceiling power ports, and call it good.

Oh, and FWIW, I generated another full contractor bag of debris. Including somehow I ended up with paper trash bags for a city I never lived in that requires their own bags for trash pickup. NO clue how they got into my garage workshop but OUT they go!

[capncarl]

How many bulbs will get broken in shipment via Amazon?

[dbhost]

I'll know Monday...

[capncarl]

Went hog hunting tonight, rather than bringing home the bacon we were trying to reduce the wild feral hog population. Can’t say I like it, but it is just another Dirty Job that needs doing. I photographed 5 confirmed kills. We didn’t look hard to find more and there are lots more that were fatally wounded and ran into the woods. Total number of hogs I saw was in excess off 80 in 2 nearby fields. Unbelievable damage they do, we could barely navigate the field using a 4 wheel drive cart.

[LCHIEN]

Found a 7-piece set of brad point drill bits in my box,
I have another set and use it for 90% of all wood drilling, only using the bigger sets when I need a particular size fit.
It was in the blister pack and inconvenient to use which is why it was sidelined... loose is not useful either.

So today I made an index stand that won't take up much workbench space. Actually made 2, for small projects I often make 2 since the setup is half the work. Esp. in this case it involved a triangle piece of wood and you get two when you make one.

as with all index holders it keeps then from rolling around, protects the cutting edges banging into one another (dulling them) and makes it a snap to find the right one quickly.



I wanted it to be skinny to take up low counter/bench width space. I have an excel spreadsheet where you enter the diameters and the space you want between them and the ends and it gives you a list of centers from the edge to make calculations simple and accurate and error free without doing a lot of fraction math. Not hard but tedious and error prone. It gives the locations in both decimal inches and fractional inches to make layout easy.
Made all the index holes 1/64th larger using the big set of bits. I have bought a 33/64 drill bit and found it quite useful for making router bit holders and other things where you need a slip fit,

Numbers are 1/16th of an inch for reference. Who keeps a P-touch labeler in the shop? Great tool for the shop and cheap enough to dedicate one for the shop.

Picked up dinner to go from the BBQ place down the road. Still mostly avoiding eating at restaurants to to the resurge in COVID.

[dbhost]

On the P touch labeller issue. I keep mine in the home office. But it gets lots of shop use. I just don't see a need for the added item in the shop. I have enough of a mess in there...

I will be doing some more measurements regarding peak distances from a pivot point to figure out the height I need to design my flip top stands to. I don't want them being so tall that working on the tools on them is difficult. And I need to figure for caster height as well.

The design is simple really. 2x4 framed sides half lapped glued and screwed, with a rabbet to receive a tempered hardboard OR beadboard fill panel. I have a good amount of both. Keep the existing 18x24 mount boards for the bench tools, and sandwich 3/4" panels for the middle piece of the tops, drilled to receive a 1/2" smooth steel rod. Not sure what the retainer hardware is called, but those little hat looking retainer caps for smooth rod on each end, with washers to provide a pivoting bearing surface between wooden panels.

Flip stops will either be 3/8" hardwood dowels, or basic barrel catches. I think the wood dowels would look better, but I am not adverse to catches.

The base will be a simple piece of 3/4" ply, with 2x4 corner bracing and added bracing laterally for the casters and to provide a little more rigidity.

Once the wooden pieces are assembled and just prior to installing the hardware and tools, I am figuring on slathering them down with Kilz2 and Hunter green gloss. Yes I am going that way...

[capncarl]

Photo or sketch of flop flop stand?

[dbhost]

The sketchup idea is as follows. I am now certain the height is way too high. Still working on measurements but it looks like I should have around 21-23" clearnace. Casters are 3.75"




On another item. I took my wifes cross clock apart. The simple oil finish was just nasty after 13 years. I stripped it down and coated it with sanding sealer, no oil, no color, just simply added my makers mark, and date, and then urethaned the thing... It is drying. May post pics when dry...

Double and triple checked my measurements, and adjusted the measurements / sketchup. The sides are now at 28" to allow full flip.

[twistsol]

22 sheets of plywood showed up yesterday unexpectedly. Carried (okay, pushed them on a cart 5 sheets at a time) all of them around the house to the basement and stacked them along a wall ready to be made into bookcases. I'll be working with the robotics team the next couple of weekends so no more work in the shop for me.

[leehljp]

REFRIGERATOR DOOR HINGE REPAIR

Daughter from Ozark/Springfield MO came last night. This morning, she opens our 15 year old LG double door refrigerator and the bottom hinge to the door broke. She yelled Help and we went running. I have warned LOML about overstocking things in the door and she has done a good job of that. Well, the bottom hinge just broke off.

We took the removable trays with their contents off of the door, (refrigerator side), unhooked the wires to the door at the top and then turned the door upside down. I got all the three broken parts for the door and hinge, put them in a couple of cups of water and microwaved them to clean them of any residue that might hinder any fixing.

Then I noticed that the main hinge itself was a plastic/nylon tube (hollow) with an inside diameter of about 7/16 inch.

ME (thinking): IF I were to make this were solid, it might work again. The mount that held the tube was also broken in one place. That might be more of a problem, but it fits inside of a hole in the metal mount, so the metal mount might hold that together.

Next item to work on was what glue to use. I have one of those plastic welders (melts plastic) but This was all too thin and too precise for me to do any build up of plastic.

While thinking of that, I went to my shop and looked for an appropriately sized dowel to place into the broken tube. Nothing close but the 1/2" which was too large. I already had my pin jaw chuck on my Grizzly lathe. I put 5" of the 1/2 inch dowel in and tightened. In less than a minute I had it to the size needed and at first wanted it tight around the portion of the tube that was not broken. Then decided to sand it smooth and decrease the size so that it would be a tad loose. My mind was working on (Thinking) the glue when I did this.

Epoxy is not the ideal in this situation but much better than Titebond type of course, and better than CA (Super Glue). I remembered the small tubes of Gorilla Glue (Extremely sticky and expanding polyurethane glue). Poly glue is not as strong as epoxy and is somewhat flexible. But in pen making, I have learned that in tight situations, poly glue will hold better that epoxy or Super glue - because it expands to hold in the entire area, and it is quite sticky, much more so than Epoxy or CA. The expanding feature of poly glue does to items that are in a container (the tube) - this works like tight fitting wood joints, which means that the strength is in the joint more than in screws or nails or even pegs. Expanding foam does this, and I have experienced this numerous times and watched epoxy and super glue fail in the same situations.

(here is a link that I posted two weeks ago because I thought I had bought some Gorilla Super Glue but bought the Gorilla original (expanding) poly glue:https://www.sawdustzone.org/forum/di...n-t-super-glue

I started assembling the parts using the small tube of poly glue. I wet the wood dowel, clamped the parts together with pliers and rubber bands. Let it set for about 30 minutes until I could see the poly beginning to expand and foam. Waited another 30 minutes and then set the parts by an electric heater that we keep around for special uses like this! After about 4 hours of it setting up, It felt firm but not as firm as in cured, but LOML was anxious for getting her refrigerator back.

I forgot to mention. My daughter pulled out a box of "Press N Seal" and put two vertical sheets, top to bottom, over the refrigerator side and spring clipped them in the middle. The sides did exactly like Press N Seal is supposed to do, and clung to the walls of the refrigerator. Worked Excellently! We didn't have to unplug the refrigerator and everything inside except that in the door - stayed cold.

During the initial "re-construction" of the hinge, I got online with E-replacement Parts and ordered another hinge set. It will be here Next Wednesday. HOWEVER, After re-assembling the reinforced hinge and adding everything back into the door, I feel confident that it is stronger now than the original. Not sure if I will use the new one, or at least see how long this one works.

Everything has worked out for the good. And I started out early slow smoking a Boston Butt. It finished about the same time I finished the refrigerator.

THAT is what I did today!

[capncarl]

A couple of skeets of Rustoleum epoxy appliance paint and it look like new!

[leehljp]

A couple of skeets of Rustoleum epoxy appliance paint and it look like new!

it was at the bottom and not viewable, so no paint needed! That was a relief!

[LCHIEN]

Tried polishing the chisels a bit. Looks like they are going to have a lot of tiny pits even after the rust is gone.

Pinewood derby time again. Gonna be some interesting cars from us this year.

Bandsaw would not cut tight enough curve and I had to get out the Ryobi Scrollsaw that hadn't been used in several years and figure out how to load the blades. I put in one from the drawer and I could not cut anything 1-1/2 inch thick. Got a new blade from my box of small blades and that made a huge difference. Not bad... but I felt cutting was a bit much for the cub scout, so I had him make the pattern, and cut it out on paper and I showed him how to make one side pattern and flip it so the mirror side matched. Then we taped it and I showed him how use the scroll saw and how it worked, but I made the cut, then we made a tapered cut for the other axis on the table saw. So we have something of a skeleton/wedge.

[dbhost]

Removed the 4x4x2.5 branch wye and 4x2.5 funnel reducer off of the bandsaw. Replaced it with a Rockler Dust RIght 4x2.5x2.5 B splitter, and shortened up the hoses somewhat. The 4" makes a 180 that will be reversed when the 5" duct and branch wye with 5x4 reducer are installed, so I just have to tolerate this infefficient configuration for now.



Reconnected the lower runs to the DC ducting temporarily. I am now fully functional again.

Tested the fit of the 1 segment of 5" split lock ducting and the branch wye. Found that it was SLOPPY loose. Decided that I will go ahead and wrap two wraps of Gorilla Tape. Another user on a different forum doing the same thing is getting a snug fit. I have not been able to get him to tell me what brand split lock duct he is using. I suspect he is sourcing his duct from Lowes and their brand vs. me sourcing mine at Home Depot and their brand. The difference appears to be as simple as 1/16", but it is enough to make a sloppy fit. I am however liking the idea though of having the wraps of Gorilla Tape to act as a sort of gasket giving an additional layer of prevention of air leakage / intrusion. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it...

Spent a few hours on and off sorting, cleaning, and just putting stuff up. I filled a 5 gallon bucket with a Bucket Boss full of automotive stuff. I need to remove the wash and wax, and quart of oil from the bucket, but overall, it's ready to go. I have a tote of automotive chemicals already sorted out.

Cleaned up around the drill press, cleared the drill press table, that is now 100% ready to go.

Managed to lose some clock hardware for my wifes cross clock. Not going to bother ordering fancy as I can get a cheap clock insert from the craft store to get those fasteners. Basically the nut and washer for the clock face...

Got all of the bits and pieces to both Hitachi routers back in their cases except the fixed base in the router table. .

Table saw itself, but not the extension wing is not 100% cleared.

Extension wing and workbench probably about 50%. Most of it is garbage. Need another bag.

Band saw cleared off.

Funny thing is, I feel like I have come so far, yet I have such a long way to go it hurts.

I need to go to Harbor Freight tomorrow and get 4 3" fixed casters for the flip top benches, and source up some smooth rod and I guess it is called friction caps.