What did you do today?

[PStechPaul]

I found that I already had a new, never opened, Cummins air hammer kit, and it seems to work OK with my 5 gallon dual tank compressor, even with the 3/8" coiled plastic air hose, but I didn't try it to do any actual chiseling. It's also difficult to schlep the compressor from where it is to where the steps are, and probably too far for a long hose (~100 feet). Actually, I think I might just roughly chip out the broken surfaces of the remaining bad bricks and fill in with mortar. Maybe I can get some red dye to match the bricks somewhat.

https://www.lowes.com/pl/Cement-color-mix-Concrete-cement-stucco-mix-Concrete-cement-masonry-Building-supplies/4294515393

[Ridgerunner]

I wonder if an electric hammer drill would work?

If you buy or rent one of the correct size and configuration it would easily work. One with a hammer only setting as opposed to just drill as has been mentioned. I did this last year with an old Hilti TE72. I lowered the garage floor 2 feet and went from a 6 foot 6 inch garage door to an 8 foot door. The concrete footer was chipped down 4 inches with the hammer drill. The garage will now have heat in it. This drill will also do up to a 5-6 inch hole with a core bit.

This hammer drill can also be used to help a person dig. With a larger clay spade bit, ground, rocks etc can be loosened to make shoveling easier.

[Cenedd]

And they said the only way was up! That's some excavation by hand there! Room for a lathe, mile, shaper, belt sander.....ah, jealousy :-D

[boslab]

Hell of a bit of excavatin there, hard work, me and the mrs assisted by her sis underpinned a house, dig down 2’ then under the foundations in 6-8’ sections, the house supported on jacks, refill the hole with concrete, near impossible without my TE6 and TE16 hilts, marvellous machines, air chisel wouldn’t touch the rocky bits, the mrs must have mining in her blood to dig under the old house (bricks laid direct onto black mortar on the ground, stood happily like that for 100 odd years till a car crashed into the front and buckled the wall in)
I recently bought a Bosch to replace the big hilti I had, it’s ok but doesn’t have the punch of the old hilti.
I bought an old kango at a flea market, great breaker for concrete if heavy as it’s 2’ long without a steel
The red dye (iron oxide) was free in work, just sweep it up off the floor and sieve it,
Black was soot, also free if you have a chimney, you have to make the reds stronger than you’d like as like red cars used to be, it fades fast
Mark

[Cenedd]

Finally got the mini-mill back from the surface grinders after take 2. To be fair, it wasn't them dragging their heels, I was tied up with other things. Take 2 you say? Didn't they get it right first time? Well, yes....and no. Turns out there are no datum surfaces on anything. Some nicely ground but not co-planer with anything and mostly non-working surfaces. I can only assume that Sieg jig it off the dovetails.... otherwise their guesswork is damned impressive!

The surface of the table was badly off in the X axis but not bad in the Y so for this attempt, I shimmed the column as close to trammed as possible, attached three steel bars across the table with counter bored screws and then milled the top of each flat. That was then used as the datum for dusting off the bottom of the table (non-working surface again) and then that for the top surface, once the bars were removed. A little bit of assumption and guesswork but some thought...and hope!

Clocked the table end to end and front to back. So how close did we get? Within 5 microns as far as I can measure with a DTI. That'd be about 2 tenths for our imperial friends. Quite happy with that! Wish the column was anywhere near that close! Couldn't get the column on their surface grinder so the base is....a little off. About half a mm over about 200mm. Working on shimming it but it's off in both axes. Might have to see if some of that tramming epoxy is available.

[Mr Fixit]

Went out to the shop to do a 15min job for the wife. Got out there and I couldn't find the scribe to mark the sheet metal I was working on. So I spent the next 2 hrs cleaning the whole bench to find the scribe and get rid of the frustration of spending more time looking then doing when it comes to the bench. WOW I actually have a bench that I can now work off of, and I found the scribe too!!

TX
Mr fixit for the family
Chris

[PStechPaul]

Today I decided to attempt fixing the sill and surrounding elements of a window in the lower floor of my house. The original window was removed by contractors in 2010, and replaced with a new Home Depot American Craftsman dual pane PVC window. They never really finished the job, and it looked like this:


The window sill was a single piece of wood that they had just set on top of some of the original framing and rubble from plaster that had been removed from the old walls:


I removed an old (~1877) 4x4 base that had been set into the rough rock and mortar wall, which is about 18" thick:


Here I replaced the original wood sill, which is too narrow to fill the gap from the new drywall surface to the window frame. I am thinking about filling in the masonry with concrete and smooth mortar, and use the wood sill as a shelf halfway up. Perhaps brick or decorative stone might be a nicer alternative?

[Ridgerunner]

Today I decided to attempt fixing the sill and surrounding elements of a window in the lower floor of my house. The original window was removed by contractors in 2010, and replaced with a new Home Depot American Craftsman dual pane PVC window.
The window sill was a single piece of wood that they had just set on top of some of the original framing and rubble from plaster that had been removed from the old walls:

Here I replaced the original wood sill, which is too narrow to fill the gap from the new drywall surface to the window frame. I am thinking about filling in the masonry with concrete and smooth mortar, and use the wood sill as a shelf halfway up. Perhaps brick or decorative stone might be a nicer alternative?

If you have the money you could get a piece of marble or stone cut to fit. Masonry has a cold feeling to it; wood is warm. A piece of wood with a fabric cushion could be something to think about. Another idea would be to lower the opening under the window and make a window box for storage. It could have the same wood with cushion removable wooden top and give some storage space. Something like this only for storage.

[Ridgerunner]

And they said the only way was up! That's some excavation by hand there! Room for a lathe, mile, shaper, belt sander.....ah, jealousy :-D

It would hold machinery with no problem. After the coarse stone I like to spread stone dust and flat plate tamp it. That way it chokes in the larger stone and is a easy to get consistent concrete depth. Quite a few wire ties and chairs too. Number 4 rebar.

[Ridgerunner]

Hell of a bit of excavatin there, hard work, me and the mrs assisted by her sis underpinned a house, dig down 2’ then under the foundations in 6-8’ sections, the house supported on jacks, refill the hole with concrete, near impossible without my TE6 and TE16 hilts, marvellous machines, air chisel wouldn’t touch the rocky bits, the mrs must have mining in her blood to dig under the old house (bricks laid direct onto black mortar on the ground, stood happily like that for 100 odd years till a car crashed into the front and buckled the wall in)
I recently bought a Bosch to replace the big hilti I had, it’s ok but doesn’t have the punch of the old hilti.
I bought an old kango at a flea market, great breaker for concrete if heavy as it’s 2’ long without a steel
The red dye (iron oxide) was free in work, just sweep it up off the floor and sieve it,
Black was soot, also free if you have a chimney, you have to make the reds stronger than you’d like as like red cars used to be, it fades fast
Mark

I admire what you, your wife, and her sister did. It would almost be impossible to find anyone here who would do hand labor like that now.

[Bob Engelhardt]

... and is a easy to get consistent concrete depth. ...

Why is a consistent depth important? Assuming that there is a minimum depth everywhere, why would it matter if it were deeper in some places? I'm curious, is all.

[Ridgerunner]

Why is a consistent depth important? Assuming that there is a minimum depth everywhere, why would it matter if it were deeper in some places? I'm curious, is all.

If control joints are cut in, the concrete may not crack where the control joint is. There was a highway contractor here redoing one the the interstate highways and they got the concrete too deep in some places. He cut in control joints at the required depth in the proper places, but the road did not break there and shortly had problems. It was a big deal.

Another reason is figuring material. It is very easy to figure the amount of concrete needed if the depth is consistent. Little jobs like this one do not matter much, but in larger jobs the money can really add up for extra concrete.

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

I removed an old (~1877) 4x4 base that had been set into the rough rock and mortar wall, which is about 18" thick:

It looks like someone was cut up into pieces with that hand saw. Have you been a bad boy?

[PStechPaul]

That does look nice:


But it's too much work to demolish an 18" thick rock and mortar wall just to get a couple cubic feet of storage. I am considering moving the cross-framing a few inches lower, so the sill will be level and below the bottom of the window.


I could possibly put a layer of topsoil enough for a window garden, but this is on the north side, so not much sun. I guess I could install some grow lights, but I really just need to do something fairly simple and quick so it actually gets done rather than being in limbo like so many other projects. A custom cut marble or granite slab would be like feeding caviar to pigs.

A rough idea of using bricks:

[brian Rupnow]

If you were in Canada you'd be able to put some marahootchy plants in there!!!