Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

10 Apr 2023

Greetings,
I hope everyone had a good Easter Weekend with family and friends. The cleanup continues from the tornado damaged areas around me. We did not have any storm damage here at my house. No shop time this past week with The LOML has placed an order with me for 6 sandwich boards that she will give to her college prof's when she graduates in May of this year. I'm working on plans to add another tablesaw and an stroke sander to my shop. I ran across a deal I couldn't pass up for both machines. Now to clear places for them both and get them moved to the shop. I played bass guitar for 3 venues on Easter Sunday. Some music was nice and relaxing while some was challenging for us older musicians.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Cameron Wood]

I finished my what-is-it project, and continue to scrounge stuff from an estate, including 4"x8"x30' piece of balsa wood, planks of tropical hardwood that surfaced out beautifully, 16" wide boards from antique furniture (square nails), a bunch of 1 1/4" thick pieces of genuine mahogany from a ruined (partially burned) furniture piece. Also this book- available if anyone wants it.

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[Ken Fitzgerald]

Completed the finishing job on the end table I built. Now I am finally on to final assembly. In the process of wiping and brushing on the Minwax high speed polyurethane, I cussed, I fussed, I had more trouble with dust nibs that I have ever experienced. I take things to the nth degree! I sand, then vacuum, then blow with air compressor air. Then after I run my aircleaners for an hour or two, I wipe it down with mineral spirits. Then after that dries, I shut off my furnace, apply poly and then wait for an hour or two before I turn the furnace back on.

The problem I am think was my creation. I was only heating the shop to 70º F which is a comfortable temperature for my fat body. Normally in the past I would have heated at 80º F when finishing. I noticed it wasn't drying as quickly as I remembered but I haven't finished a project in about 3 years.

The only advice I am qualified to give? As you get older, you had better develop a sense of humor about yourself or you could live an AWFULly long time! Key word awful!

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, I'm glad you didn't suffer storm damage at your property...there sure was a lot of it nearby for sure, based on what I saw on the news.

This past week and weekend I completed the walkway from the house to the shop. It was three pours of 12' each which was pretty much the practical max for one person and mixing three bags at a time, particularly with a broom finish. I'm very happy with the end results. There are a bunch of photos in my shop build thread around that effort and it really was the last little thing that had to be done to consider the shop build sorta complete. (not counting restoring the grass, etc., now that the disruptive work is done. I also refurbished and installed a surplus workbench in the garage so there is a work surface there for when it's needed to maintain the tractor, ZTR and stuff for the house. I'll be posting a little thread about that when I have the opportunity.

I suspect this week will involve a whole bunch of landscaping things and it should be glorious working outside, given it literally will be summer weather starting tomorrow with temps up into the 80s.

[Charles Taylor]

My sister and her family visited us overnight last Wednesday and again on Saturday, so the week involved preparing, then spending time with them.

Late Friday afternoon and then Saturday morning, having a little more scrap cherry and a small window of time, I made a few file handles just as I had done the week before. I also cut, trimmed, and stained a simple square of oak veneer plywood, about 18 inches on a side, that I'll use as a temporary solution to supporting a back porch ceiling light. A few weeks ago at our cabin, I took down a 48" fluorescent fixture that had failed, and that we didn't like anyway, thus no desire to diagnose and repair it. Upon removing it, I discovered that the fixture was covering not one but two holes in the ceiling, and that there was no electrical box. The fixtures I had in mind for replacing the old one are meant to be held in place by the electrical box.

We plan to redo the ceiling and the lighting arrangement eventually, but as a temporary measure, this square panel of ply will support a box and a fixture, will cover both of the holes, and will allow us to focus on some other priorities before getting on to a more ambitious change to the porch ceiling and lighting. I'll be installing it later this week.

Sunday was church and a late afternoon Easter meal with my bride's family.

[Dan Rude]

I was released from the Hospital on Friday after ByPass Surgery, so just working on getting stronger and getting released from the lifiting restrictions. Had family visit on the weekend to check up on me. Planning an Aquarium stand build for a 45 gal tank I am setting up for my Middle Child. Going from simple to making a design to accomidate 2 smaller tanks below for quarintine and home for the summer fish.

[Paul F Franklin]

Dan, wishing you a full and speedy recovery!

I did nada in the shop this week; the weather's been beautiful so I've been busy with outdoor chores. Have all the elevated garden beds ready for planting and Mary has lettuce, carrots, spinach and peas planted, and the tomato and peppers started in the basement. Well, I did do a little shop work I guess; our 10+ year old turtle raft in the pond finally needed to be redone so I dug some cedar out of the shed and rebuild the raft. Took the turtles less than a day to find it again. Today is clean the deck and outdoor furniture day.