Creeker's Weekend Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

7 April 2014

Good Morning Everyone,
This past weekend may have been rainy weather but it was busy none the less. Working on getting repairs done on my motorcycle, tending to the requirements of the day job, and we are in the throw of getting everything lined out for moving the LOML's mother to Arkansas to live with us. Putting together the plans to add on to our house for her to have her own place to live and yet close enough for us to to care of her. Needless to say that I am learning more about Sketchup than I ever thought I'd need AND learning that friends are what I call real friends. Many have volunteered to help when construction starts and others have said that they would help with whatever I needed. It's great to have friends that are closer than family in some cases.

I go oncall duty for the day job starting this morning and I'm no looking forward to it at all. Oh, and in case you are wondering, I have failed terribly at making my first wooden spoon. Carving the bowl of the spoon has proven to be much more challenging than I ever thought. Maybe on my next spoon attempt I'll get it right.

That's it for me, so what did YOU do this past weekend?

Best of weeks to you all.

[Matt Meiser]

Friday evening I got suckered into chaperoning a 5/6th grade bowling fundraiser at the last minute. Me, about 50 kids and 10 moms. Wasn't too bad--we've got some pretty good kids in our school.

Saturday morning I ran and got my truck washed, then came home and used a clay bar to clean the paint. I had discovered a bunch of tiny rust color spots that I could rub off in addition the usual crud that sticks to a white vehicle. My research on the rust spots led me to something called "rail dust" which apparently is tiny particles of metal from the brakes that stick to the paint. That led me to using clay, but of course you have to use the special $20 kit of clay sold at the auto parts store. It worked amazingly well and wasn't too much work. Now I need to get it in to a detailer to get a good paint sealant on it. That's more work than my shoulder can take.

At 1 the cable guy showed up. I'd only been waiting 3,756 days for him. He finished up about 5 but with network issues he wasn't trained (or responsible) for resolving. After fighting it more and talking to a tech support supervisor the decision was made to change me over to a standard cable modem instead of using the modem/router in the media gateway device and we ran to their office to pick that up. Getting that swapped in and up and running pretty much shot the rest of the evening.

Sunday a few more lingering network issues (plus signing up for Netflix!) and I installed a vinyl graphics kit I had ordered on my truck thanks to some advise from the guys over in the sign making forum.

[Garth Almgren]

Saturday I painted the entry in the house, and made a bracket to mount the table saw's power switch to the bottom T track of the fence's front rail. I can hit it with my knee, but it's far enough back that I shouldn't turn it off by just leaning up against the rail.
Sunday we had a break from the rain so I mowed and raked. And raked, and raked. I've still got more raking to do when I get home tonight.

[Pat Barry]

Spent Friday night and all day Saturday gluing up pine boards for a kitchen hutch project. Spent Sunday cleaning them up, leveling them, cutting them to length Good progress for me. Sunday also assisted my son and wife on their annual maple syrup making project. They got 6 quarts of syrup. They need a more efficient cooking method though - propane and a turkey fryer setup is slow and $$.

[Matt Berry]

It was a busy weekend, so I didn't get as much shop time as I would have liked. With the little bit of time I had I managed to get a pretty good start on my Outfeed roller cabinet and my under the tablesaw wing cabinet. I have to apologize for the bad picture of the outfeed cabinet, for some reason with the size, angle, and how close I was it caused the picture to distort, It is NOT out of square, well unless my tape measure and square are way out of square too. I still have a lot to do, like build the drawers, and finish the face frame, but at least it's started and they both can roll around the shop
photo 3.jpg photo 2.jpg photo 1.jpg

[Keith Hankins]

I managed to get my grngate automatic blast gates installed. I'm writing up a detailed review. This is one sweet system

13680557105_57e6082149_z.jpg

[John Sanford]

I made more progress on getting my backwall set up. Found a bunch more Talon hooks that I didna realize I had, so I'm going to be set for those. One of the challenges has been how to put my Sharksaw Dovetail saw on the backwall. Who in their right mind makes a small utility-ish inexpensive pull saw in this day and age without either a hole in the handle or the blade to hang the thing? My first attempt using assorted bits of scrap was unsatisfactory, but my second attempt, while not Shopnotes worthy (in execution) did result in both successfully achieving the goal AND a breakthrough "aha" moment on dealing with pegboard.

One of the challenges to pegboard is using custom hangers. How to attach them to the board? One can use L hooks, but getting hooks that aren't too long in the shaft can be a problem. My "aha" moment was when I decided to risk my Channel Lock end nippers in cutting one of the hooks down and bending it again. It worked.

A second "aha" moment came to pass with the Talon hooks. I think I've figured out another solution, and I may have just now figured out a way to use the nearly (to me) useless screwdriver holders.

Additional shop accomplishments included getting the remaining homeless Lee Valley booty from last fall/winter out of boxes and in/near their final homes, except for the plow plane stuff. And last, I got my monster extension cord made up and brought Papa Griggio, my 24" Eyetalian Bandsaw running finally. Haven't cut anything with it yet, but probably will this next weekend.

All in all, a good weekend.

[Dale Murray]

My weekend was spent building a downright ugly base for my inherited 70's vintage Craftsman belt sander. I had the original base which was downright awful; rolling it was rickety and screeched like nails on a chalkboard.

The plan.
Build a base using 3/4" plywood and 3" double lock casters. Get a shorter belt so the motor will be raised a couple inches thus maximizing internal storage space. integrate some king of dust collection hood so that one 4" port will service both the disk and belt dust; the original ports were mostly broken and worthless.

Believe it or not, this cabinet actually has a smaller foot print than the original base.
I do intend to shield the motor so nothing can get sucked or bashed into it.
I am not sure if I will put in shelves or drawers, I'll decide that sometime down the road.
As spectacularly ugly as the dust hood is, it is spectacularly functional. Dust coming off the belt would typically hit the little metal bar and be flung in all directions, in my case I see it deflect and get pulled into the shoot like a tractor beam. I'll take functional over pretty any day though would prefer to have both.

These are horrible iphone photos.

Sander-2.jpgSander-1.jpgSander-3.jpg

[David Hostetler]

First off, Dale that cabinet is far from ugly. It's not gorgeous, but it isn't exactly ugly either... It's actually quite a decent cab for a shop cabinet.
I would box in the motor maybe with some vent holes in the back, so you don't get snagged in the belt or motor... and then use the remainder of the space how you see fit. I would likely do drawers to store sanding media. I have lots of it, and no good place to store it so you can tell my priority there!

Sorry to everyone else, I started at the bottom and haven't read to the top yet! Yeah I know bad form. Sorry...

Friday night LOML and I were finally able to make it back into the gym. Hurts like the devil but I did it. (Long story, foot injury trying to recover...)

Saturday I spent with my brothers in law working on their stuff, getting my truck up on the lift, and started pulling the tranny out. Ran out of Saturday and dry weather. (Got dark, and very rainy, not safe to work anymore), so we hung it up where we were....

Sunday worked a bit on purging several boxes that came home with me when I cleaned my office desk last time. Just how many vendor coffee cups do I need? Donated to Goodwill...

I got my dual air compressor plumbing and overhead reel hooked up, and I fabbed up some retaining clamps for the feeder hose from the regulator to the reel, and got it installed.

And lastly, I got a 1/2" and a 3/8" index pin stock made for my soon to be box joint jigs. I ordered T nuts and star knobs with studs from T-nuts.com to attach to the SMT (Sliding Miter Table) fence on my Ryobi Tablesaw. I am also going with a 1/4" version, but that wasn't a priority right now...

Oh wait, I forgot. I replaced the failing mainboard in our Windows 7 box. Went from an Nvidia chipset and video to an AMD chipset and Radeon video, so all the drivers, every last, painful one had to be stripped and reinstalled, once Windows figured out how major the work was, it wanted to re-activate. Ugh... I also stripped out a mess of garbage software LOML added to the system such as coupons.com print app. I need to find anti virus / anti malware software that is effective, and does NOT slow the system down to a painful crawl.

The 3/8" box joint jig is my big priority, once it is set up, I am going to use it, mill some stock, and build a couple of nice little boxes for some hot glue guns. One for LOML for a new hot glue gun for her craft projects, and the other for the old ratty gun to keep in the shop. I am also planning on a proper storage box / extension jig for my Drill Master Portable Pocket Hole Jig.