Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

20 Apr 2020

Greetings,
Ok, how about - Greetings from someone who's tired of being in quarantine for 5 weeks now.
No sicknesses here and have been required to work from home for what seems like forever now. Got some projects in the making in the shop and I have materials being delivered tomorrow. Other that working on stuff at the day job, that's about all I've really had time for. Trying to take time to be with family as I can, hoping and praying for my two sons, one in the Army stationed overseas and the other stuck in England until what I hear could be the end of May before he gets to come home. He left for a vacation to visit with friends and this virus deal has caused him to be locked in. Good thing he's got friends to stay with while there.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Rod Sheridan]

Good Morning Dennis, you're sounding like me this morning, week 5 of working from home.

I hope your sons stay safe, my youngest daughter is an ER nurse in the thick of the Covid-19 stuff, half her group is now infected.

I've also spent some time on shop projects, amazing how much extra time I have now that I'm commuting to work, I could get to like working from home a couple of days a week.

I presume that the trees have leaves where you are? I'm waiting for that, it would be nice to have gardening weather now....Regards, Rod.

[Charles Taylor]

I'm in the work from home club too, fortunately and gratefully, even if I'm chomping at the bit to be able to get back to some normalcy sooner or later. Okay, sooner.

Wired up and tested a 3-phase motor, VFD, and controls for my lathe. The control station has start, stop, forward, reverse, and speed adjustment. I want to pick up some flexible conduit to enclose the low-voltage control wiring before installing the works on the lathe. Maybe this week in conjunction with some errands and a visit to my office.

Milled moulding to replace the applied muntins my father-in-law's dog unhelpfully removed from a French door in his house.

[Jim Becker]

I worked from home for nearly 21 years prior to retirement (albeit with field trips to customer sites. ) so for me, this is normal. It's new for Professor Dr. SWMBO as she now has to teach from home, but so far that's going well. "The Younger"'s classes have been all remote this semester and it's worked out well for her, too.

This past week, I finished up my new main/primary benchtop, cut up some downed trees and move some logs already down to a staging area for eventual milling into lumber and slabs, mowed the lawn, cooked a bunch of delicious meals and generally "enjoyed" shedding my skin. (from an adverse reaction to an antibiotic two weeks ago) I'm about to start on a few more personal projects in the shop since I can't do work for clients (well...I could do the work, but I can't buy material right now) and have the time to pursue some things interesting to me. Those include starting another guitar build for a "brotherhood build" in another forum, finishing the finish on my most recent guitar build, etc.

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[Greg Hines, MD]

I had a productive weekend in the shop. I got a hose reel for my air hose working after a part on it broke, and also built an offcut and smaller piece cart that is about 36"x48" and about 30" tall. It took up most of my sheet goods, though I still have a huge pile of offcut 2x material I have to find a place for. I am hoping that when I get the French Cleats on the walls, that most of that can be used for braces for it.

Doc

[Paul F Franklin]

Past week was mostly cleaning and rearranging week for me since I have gone about as far on office project as I can until I get more material, although I did make up a couple more sets of drawer parts. Can't assemble them since I am out of 1/4 BB for the bottoms, but the boxes are otherwise complete. My Dewalt sliding miter saw started acting up, starting slowly and not braking. Disassembled the switch to find the contacts in pretty bad shape. Cleaned them up enough to restore reasonable operation and ordered a replacement switch.

I have decided to go ahead and order a Sawstop so I need to rearrange things a bit to make room. Decided to move my electronics bench out of the workshop to another storage room in the basement. Mixing electronics and woodworking in the same room was never a great idea but I made it work by keeping the whole bench and all the equipment under a dropcloth when not in use. But now I need the space so I will move it. That of course means making room in the store room and that's what I've been working on. Spent pretty much a whole day sorting old woodworking magazines so I can (hopefully) pass them on to another woodworker. (listing in classifieds; they are free to a good home). I have electronic access to them all now, for the most part, so no point in keeping the physical mags.

Side effect of cleaning the storeroom are two big piles of stuff to be donated or otherwise disposed of.....with no places taking donations now that is unfortunate. Another pile of stuff to move to the attic.

Other than that, got in some more outside work although the weather hasn't been great; we actually had some late snow last week. But this week looks better for outside stuff. I've got to get the skid steer out of winter storage and then I will get after the ash trees. Jim, you got the jump on me.

[Bill Carey]

My wife and I are boring and never go anywhere, and I've worked from home for years, so - what quarantine??

Finished making all the parts for my "production run" and started gluing them up. SWMBO will then make the glass inserts. Some just pieces of glass, some with came. All Kokomo Opalescent glass. Made 16 of them since I had finally accumulated enough cut offs from other projects. Then it's on to the fuming. Should be interesting. Made some Irish soda bread and whole wheat bread. And watched Blackhawks reruns - I sorely miss hockey.

[Rod Sheridan]

My wife and I are boring and never go anywhere, and I've worked from home for years, so - what quarantine??

Finished making all the parts for my "production run" and started gluing them up. SWMBO will then make the glass inserts. Some just pieces of glass, some with came. All Kokomo Opalescent glass. Made 16 of them since I had finally accumulated enough cut offs from other projects. Then it's on to the fuming. Should be interesting. Made some Irish soda bread and whole wheat bread. And watched Blackhawks reruns - I sorely miss hockey.

Boring can be good Bill

I would love to see a photo of the finished work with glass installed please............Regards, Rod.

[Aaron Rosenthal]

Working on a podium project (gave the last one to my son when I visited LA earlier this year), and did some clean-up.
Years ago I did something stupid, overestimating my time availability and removed some boards from the rafter tails of my garage, and naturally, the open areas rotted. This week I began the process of sistering in the tails, covering the east side properly. Today I'll cut the west side 2x's and nail them up. Can't put in the covering boards until the shingles are off, because the neighbour's garage gives me about 6" clearance, so I'll do that part when I re-shingle the roof in about 2 weeks.
Still planting my veg. garden (sorry Rod, I know Ontario is getting snow) and spending a lot of time outdoors.

[Bruce Page]

I’ve had some health issues going on and made a simple “Thank You” plaque for a wonderful nurse that has made an unpleasant process much more tolerable.

[Rod Sheridan]

Very thoughtful of you Bruce.............Regards, Rod.

[Lisa Starr]

My regular job returned to a more normal 45 hours last week, so I got to spend some time in the shop in the evenings. Just made some little minor things to help with organization. Worked on our son's home Saturday. Sunday SO and I took the dog and just went for a car ride for about 4 hours. It was good to see something different.

[Eugene Dixon]

Made a couple of funnels (bad week), turned a couple of bowls, split some maple with the Husqvarna, cut down neighbor's dead Bradford pear and harvested some nice pieces for bowl blanks, cut the grass, burnt a pile of tree limbs from some dead cedar trees and had a date night with dearly beloved. We picked up the grocery order.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Went on a shopping trip last Wednesday. Wound up going a couple places that weren't on our list. Burned another big pile of storm debris. We live in a pine forest that wife wants to look like a park. Washed outside skylights on addition. They are in a 12/12 pitch roof. Sprayed some shingle brightener while I was up there. Finished up my Bluebird trail (six boxes.) Saturday night, made three German Chocolate pies, and got up Sunday morning and made two pans of biscuits, 32 biscuits total. Delivered biscuits and pie to some of the widows in our SS class. Made some Greek yogurt using crock pot. Turned out well, especially for a first try. Let it drain too long, so had to mix some of the whey back in. Cut the grass, which is now a weekly chore. Garden is still too wet to plow. Removed pine needles from roof of shed on back of shop. Roof and sheeting will be replaced as soon as we get four days without rain, which won't be this week. Changed out motor on Merry Tiller. Took old motor apart, and found that plastic cam gear wasn't attached to shaft. New cam shaft is over half the cost of motor. Did some detective work, and found out that same cam shaft is replacement for the cam in an old parts motor I have, which I'll take apart and salvage cam into newer motor. Derusted gas tank using washing soda and battery charger. Tomato plants are getting big enough to go in garden, but ground is too wet to work. Next fall, i will prepare row for tomatoes, so I will only need to plant them without any tillage. Cut down an Elm tree that was growing up thru azalea bushes. Burned up a bunch of brain cells working on design of a jig. Wake up during night thinking about design. Jig is for national publication, so all the bugs have to be worked out in advance.