Creeker's Past Weeks Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

13 April 2020

Greetings,
Been working oncall duty this past week as well as getting work done around the house. Mowed the lawn, did some weed-eating, cleaned off the front porch, driveway, and back patio. Storms blew through last night and now I have a lot of dead tree limbs to get out of the yard now. I'm glad to be off oncall duty. This week I need to work on organizing my cnc drawings and figure out what I want to make on it this week. I also started doing some yoga stuff with the loml and I realized just how non-flexible I've become over time. This is helping with flexibility, strength, and also relieving pain in arthritic joints. I think I'm going to like this as I get to feeling better.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Bryan Lisowski]

Started and finished my vise restoration project. I also started designing the bench it will go with.

[Tom M King]

After years of spare time work, I finally had a whole week to put into finishing up the work on my 1978 70hp Category 2 tractor with loader. I replaced every bushing, thrust washer, bearing, pumps, completely rebuilt the reverser clutches, and any wear point in it.

It runs like a new one now. I did a day's work with it Saturday, to see if any leaks developed. I did find a couple of small leaks-easily fixed. It should be good for another 30 years.

It was used hard when I bought it cheap over 25 years ago. It drives, and operates like a new one now. I'll paint it when I get through using it this season.

[Lisa Starr]

Worked tons of hours again, but did have Sunday off last week. The last of the rush orders are shipping out today, and we're returning to 45 hours/week. Hopefully, that means I'll get back into the woodshop this week. I have a little puttering to do to hang a new square on my tool board and other stuff like that. I'll be glad to just relax in my space.

[Derek Cohen]

After two weeks of preparation, loads of administration and paper work, emails, telephone calls, SMSes, setting up a new computer (iMac), several calls to my Internet provider, and installing and learning new software, I completed the first week of seeing patients via Telehealth.

My experience? The thought of meeting over the Internet was a daunting one for me when I started this process, as I am used to the intimacy of talking with someone face-to-face. However, I have been very pleasantly surprised to discover that all quickly feel relaxed and connected. Exhausting, however. Everything new takes time to master.

The Easter weekend was more preparation, more emails and telephone calls, and a couple of days in the shop to recover. I begin the second week tomorrow.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, 'glad you're off "on-call" for a bit and maybe can catch up on a few things you want to do.

Derek, yea, it's a challenge...mostly emotional...evolving to a telemedicine format, but it can also "click" just fine once you get used to it. I do agree that it's a bit less intimate, especially for your particular specialty, but it's better than not being able to care for clients. My older daughter has to get her therapy via phone at this point as well as coaching calls in lieu of a group situation that obviously isn't meeting for now, but it's working out fine...she almost has more access to her provider than normal because of how sensitive things are for many clients. Same for her prescriber...no face-to-face...all by phone.

My week was busy and satisfying, having been really sick the week before. The lawn got mowed for the first time (earliest yet in my memory) and I did some necessary maintenance on my Kubota tractor to replace a leaking hydraulic steering controller (NOT fun...I don't like wrenching, but $550 for an aftermarket part vs $950 for OEM plus probably $4-500 in labor if I didn't do it myself was convincing to get my hands dirty.

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And then there was this...

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This week I'll be finishing up that new main benchtop and likely spending some quality time with my Stihl chain saw given more dead ash trees are coming down with the incredible winds we're getting today. I just had to push another one off the driveway...

[Mike Hollis]

Not necessarily woodshop related, but I poured 17 bags of 5 Kpsi concrete in to the webs of these cinder blocks. This is the base for a wood fired pizza oven. Need to pour a 4" shelf one this cures, and the weather cooperates. I didn't fill the webs completely so that the shelf pour will fill in the depressions to help lock the two structures together, along with the rebar you see in the photo.




Not sure why the forum software rotated the picture, or how to fix it, but you get the idea.

[Mike Kees]

I have been "rebuilding" and improving dust collection to Three major tools. Moved my jointer and planer,switched their positions and needed to redo dust collection. I also worked hard on optimizing the collection on my Centauro CO 600 from 1980 ,when dust collection was not a high priority. Have them done now. Next up is my Delta Unisaw,it is going to get' optimized' as well. Finally it will be on to my hand tool cabinet,then time to get to furniture projects for my wife. This pandemic really sucks in most ways but has provided some much needed shop time for personal projects.

[Tom M King]

Mike, I added another 4" port to the post side lower corner, of my 600, and it seems like it makes a noticeable difference.

For the Unisaw, you have to seal up where the top meets the base. I use a magnetic sheet that can be moved when the tilt handwheel needs to move. After sealing up eveything, it needs a way to let air in. I built a box over the motor that uses a 12x12 slide in furnace filter. We use it in finished houses, with 3hp DC, and no dust gets out, even cutting MDF.

[Paul F Franklin]

The weather didn't cooperate to allow me to apply the top coats to my office cabinet, so I decided to just test assemble it without glue so I could fit the drawer and door I built this week. My first time using grass dynapro undermount slides, so I had to figure them out, but it was no big deal and they work very nicely. Also like the grass 120 degree Euro hinges. I've now gone about as far as I can until I can get more material so I'll likely be working on other shop stuff. My favorite plywood supplier shut down before they could fulfill my order so I either need to find an alternate supplier or wait. For sure I'll finalize the design of the desks and files and do drawings and layouts for those. And there are quite a few smaller projects I can work on in the mean time.

When we moved to our current house about 12 years ago, one of our dining room chairs took a flyer off the truck and got banged up pretty badly, to the point where I need to take it apart and make some replacement parts. Obviously I've been putting it off for a while, but I'm tired of moving it around in the shop so may tackle that. It's cherry, and several of the new parts will have compound curves so it will be a bit of a job (which explains why it has waited 12 years!). But maybe it's time.

And I'm hemming and hawing about pulling the trigger on a Sawstop. I sold my delta a while ago and planned to order the SS during the current promotion, but am hesitant to spend the $$ right now. But it's a pain not having a table saw (I can and do use my old shopsmith, but that's a lot like not having a table saw ) so..... I was kind of hoping they'd sweeten their promotion like so many other tool brands are doing these days, but no sign of that so far....

I did get the grill out and cleaned up and we've grilled a few things so far. It's nice having the grill option with the increased amount of cooking we're doing. Also got some yard work done and like you Jim, the ash trees are calling. It's very muddy in the woods now because of all the rain, so will likely wait a while on those.

[Mike Kees]

Thanks Tom. I did add an extra 4'' port on my 600,right under the table. It works way better so far with the tests I have done. Unisaw has a motor cover that I built years ago. I have slits cut in it to let air wash over the motor. I made a "floor "in my saw with aluminized cardboard for heating ducts in houses. Slopes to my 5" port. I am going to redo this with hardboard and working on making the air hole the right size to "sweep " the dust to the dust port. I think my problem is not a big enough make up air hole after reading your description,thanks.

[Charles Taylor]

I am still fortunate and grateful to have a job I can perform from home each day. Too many millions of people are not so lucky during this time. I'm also fortunate and grateful to be able to look forward to some shop time after my day job is over.

When I completed my chair project a couple weeks ago, I told my wife I was next going to make some moulding to replace the applied muntins her father's dog ripped from a French door in his house. Best I can tell, one of the doormaking bit sets I have is a perfect match. But then I realized my router table was still set up for an as-yet-unfinished project, which reminded me of another unfinished project, and so on down the rabbit hole.

Thus the muntin making has waited for a couple more weeks while I've followed a circuitous path toward freeing up the router table. I've had the parts for a headphone stand languishing in a drawer for years. I took it out, made one last piece for it, and got it together. I turned some leftover cherry and rosewood into a stand for a "bowl", actually an artifact from copper mining in the Southwest years and years ago.
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The project that has had the router table tied up is the base for a floor lamp to be made from a cast iron gate post. I got the routing work done. That gate post seems to have become heavier in the time it's spent in my workshop. Maybe I should have finished it before now.

[ChrisA Edwards]

Just finished milling the Louvers for my second phase Plantation Shutter build.

Short by 11 Louvers. I may end up glueing up some scrap to see if I can get there without ordering more wood.

[Greg Hines, MD]

Last summer, I built a workshop, and have been building out the interior walls on it (it is a pole barn construction) and I finished putting plywood up the 10' walls, and got my tools arranged somewhat. I still have a couple of interior walls to frame and skin with more plywood, but that is a while into the future.

My plan for the weekend is to build a cutoff bin/cart, off something on Youtube.

Doc

[joe maday]

Got to put the final coats of oil/wax finish on a Nathan Lumbard Serpentine Chest of Drawers. From the Nathan Lumbard book "Crafting Excellence" by Jackson, Jobe and Pearce. Used Photos from the book, made blow-ups of the photos and derived the measurements from them. First photo is the original from the book.