What did you do today?

[RMinMN]

See why I don't post?

Dan

As a matter of fact, no I don't see why you don't post. While I'm not a young guy anymore, I lack experience in machining and these simple projects are right in line with my abilities and give me more ideas on how I can use my tools. I also lack time during some of the year so the little projects pile up and having someone mention a project like this reminds me that I need to "make hay while the sun shines".

[flathead4]

Every once in a while I get the feeling that I don't really machine much. I don't post about what I machine because it's often silly little things. Let me illustrate.
See why I don't post?

Dan

My favorite silly little thing I machined was a replacement tail joint for a foot tall plastic dinosaur my wife brought home from a kindergarten class. One of the children has stepped on it. I made a new bushing from scrap aluminum and a steel rod. It was fun because I knew it was for the kids. I wish I had taken a picture!

[PStechPaul]

I made more progress on cleaning up and organizing my shop, and I've begun ripping up the loose tiles and rotten plywood in the back corner. Behind the drywall is an old stone wall which is mostly below grade, and it has been leaking for a long time. Tomorrow my friend will be helping me rip out the worst of the mess and see just what needs to be done to fix it.



While cleaning up, I found a small picnic cooler that had four bottles of Australian Black Wattle Ale. I wasn't sure just how long ago I got them. I opened one and some foam came out. Then I poured it into a glass mug, and tasted it. It was pretty good! I found the date code on the bottle, and it was from 2008!

[DennisCA]

I decided to test the runout of the inside of the ER-32 holder I have and it was a whole tenth of a mm! I tried to chuck it in the horizontal spindle and the runout was .02mm or .001", which is more acceptable I guess.

Tested both spindles directly against the taper (done that before too) and they both check out within spec, total runout of 4-5 microns. I'm guessing there's something inside the taper on the vertical head. I took a good look and found galling damage at the very edge of the bottom of the taper, with a raised burr. I took a small diamond file and arkansas slip stone and marked out the area with a sharpie so I could see where I was working. Some careful work and I'm back to .01mm runout which I guess is acceptable, half a thou in inches.

[Cenedd]

PStechPaul You'll be fine. That beer is between 5% and 6% (season dependent it seems) and in a dark bottle so it isn't going to be bad in that sort of time frame. May be past it's it's best perhaps but if you enjoy it, that's what counts! Had some Perry (hard cider made from pears) that was well past it's date and was still perfectly drinkable. A slight hint of vinegar but good enough when you've nothing else in!
Hope you get the damp sorted. Miserable problem to deal with.

DennisCA 0.1mm? Now you're just showing off!

[Bob Engelhardt]

...I've begun ripping up the loose tiles and rotten plywood in the back corner. Behind the drywall is an old stone wall which is mostly below grade, ...
...

Uh oh ... what I think you have there is what I call the iceberg syndrome: what you can see is only 10% of the problem.

[Dave C]

Uh oh ... what I think you have there is what I call the iceberg syndrome: what you can see is only 10% of the problem.

Yup! that should keep you busy for awhile.

[Dan Dubeau]

That's how my entire basement ended up gutted. If you can see water problems from the outside, they are almost always MUCH deeper when you start peeling the layers back. Also known as an onion job, as the more layers you peel off, the more your eyes start to water lol.

[DennisCA]

That's why the most important thing when building a house is preparing the ground it sits on, and around it. Gravel gravel gravel to break the capilary action of dirt, the house itself should sit higher than surrounding terrain and underground drains should lead water away from the property, into the sewer or a ditch. The downspouts should also be plugged into the same system. Gotta keep the area around the house as dry as possible, make it natural for water to want to run away from it.

[J Tiers]

I made more progress on cleaning up and organizing my shop, and I've begun ripping up the loose tiles and rotten plywood in the back corner. Behind the drywall is an old stone wall which is mostly below grade, and it has been leaking for a long time. Tomorrow my friend will be helping me rip out the worst of the mess and see just what needs to be done to fix it.
.......]

So..... what is UNDER that plywood? Is it over joists, or on a solid floor? I think that must be a basement if it is below grade set into the hill with foundation behind it, so why was the plywood even there?

[Arcane]

I'm making a gallon (Imp) of delicious chili.

[J Tiers]

My favorite silly little thing I machined was a replacement tail joint for a foot tall plastic dinosaur my wife brought home from a kindergarten class. One of the children has stepped on it. I made a new bushing from scrap aluminum and a steel rod. It was fun because I knew it was for the kids. I wish I had taken a picture!

Yeah you just reminded me of the time I made (on the shaper, even) a steering knuckle for a friend's kid's battery ride-in car. Silly project, but made the twins happy, and there was absolutely nowhere else to get one.

I see nothing whatever wrong with posting such projects..... if someone doesn't like it, they can lump it as far as I'm concerned.

[PStechPaul]

Here is a view of what was under the plywood floor. Quite some time ago I ripped up most of the original floor, which consisted of a layer of rough wide pine tongue and groove planks, covered with another layer of smaller finished pine T&G, and that had been covered with linoleum, in one of two kitchens in the duplex house. It was that way when I bought the house in 1977. It was probably built around 1877. The rough rock foundation is set into a steep hill, so the back and much of the sides are below grade, while the front is about four feet above the level of the front yard. There is a small level area behind the house, and then a steep hill that rises about 30 feet to a meadow.

I stripped out almost all the old plaster and lath walls, and many of the rough 2x4 studs were very rotten, so I fixed what I could and rebuilt the rear wall with pressure treated 2x4s. But they were not rated for below grade and after a few years they also rotted. The floor joists were large chestnut logs about 8" to 12" diameter, but the back ends were rotted and dropped to the dirt. I cut about 3 feet off the ends and added 2x10 pressure treated joists. I also poured a few inches of concrete under the joists.

I had a contractor guy, about ten years ago, spend a few weeks and close to $10,000 finishing the downstairs portion of the house, but although the finished job looked pretty good, it covered a lot of bad work, and the moisture problem had not been taken care of, so after a few years the walls became moldy and the plywood rotted and warped, and the tiles became loose. John and I spent most of the day fixing the worst of the mess. Now I will need to figure out the best way to level the top surface (maybe using wood filler) enough to put down new tiles or some other surface appropriate for a workshop.




Had to move lots of stuff out of the way. I need to clean lots of fuzzy mold off the heavy wheeled workbench that holds the mill/drill machine, and maybe I'll paint it or use some wood preservative.

[J Tiers]

Ah..... Unfortunately, I just cannot see that working out well long term... unless that area gets ventilation somehow, it's going to be wet, get moldy and rot. Alternative is to seal off the water somehow, but that needed to be done when it was built, really.

If you could get at the outside of it and provide drainage etc, you would be better off, but I suspect the issue really is not "solid water entry" but general dampness. Stone foundations, unless granite or other solid rock, are damp, and usually even those will have rivers come out of them when it rains hard, because the mortar degrades in a century or so. What you can paste on from the surface is not as good with random stone as with brick.

With the way the "joists" are cut off by blocking, ventilation is just about impossible. It looks like there is a concrete floor under that, which would be better as "the" floor, but it appears that ship has sailed.

Honestly, if those walls are not structural, and there really is a decent concrete floor, You'd likely be better off tearing all that crap out and having just the stone walls in the shop. It is almost certainly moldy on the back of the wallboard, and is not getting any better. Looks like the front side is damaged by dampness in some places. Wallboard is mold heaven, and it will get to where it will just crumble away.

That's one reason why I refused to buy a house with a "fieldstone" basement... generally limestone around here. Limestone is porous and lets dampness right through. Had a basement like that in a rental, and everything down there got fuzzy with mold in the summer. That was a tall basement with 12 foot ceiling, pretty airy compared to most. Took a couple weekends to bring all the stuff up to the yard, sort out and toss what was not saveable, and wash off what was.

That house rented wasn't against a hill, it was at the bottom of one. This house has poured old-time solid concrete walls, hard as heck, totally non-porous dark gray concrete that is like armor plate, and the house is at the top of a hill....MUCH better, I have the shop down there.

[Baz]

Yes, the very least you need to do is drill 2in holes in every direction through those joists for air circulation. Maybe as you seem to have a crowbar under one lift them all 1/16 to slide dpc plastic under as the concrete is probably straight on the soil.