What did you do today?

[DennisCA]

It's april and that means it's spring, so time to grill something, even if I have to dig a little to get at the grill.

[bborr01]

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.

I just sold a house to settle my moms estate and one spot in the basement where the well was had some mold and it was causing concern on the home inspections so I remediated it with MMR, a product that I had seen online. It costs about $40/gallon but it really works like a champ. In about a minute or less the mold is gone. According to their website bleach only kills mold on the surface but this stuff is systemic and kills mold roots and all. Maybe worth looking at for your mold problem.

[Tungsten dipper]

That looks great, nice job. My wife has been bugging me to make her a lazy kate for a while now. It would be a full time job keeping up with all the yarn equipment she wants me to make for her lol

Thank you. The rewards are worth it!

[Tungsten dipper]

Spicy Northern Thailand style ”sai ua” sausages

Never had any but sounds delicious!

[J Tiers]

Finally got around to checking out an old single phase manual motor starter I have. that I want to put on the drill press Did not have any heaters for it, but determined that it takes about 2.6 watts to trip it, so now I can figure a wire size and length for any current rating as an appropriate overload heater. I'll have to get some larger nichrome wire, so the heater coils are reasonably sized.

[Tim Clarke]

Spicy Northern Thailand style ”sai ua” sausages

Never met a sausage I didn't like. And I do like them spicy!

[PStechPaul]

I just sold a house to settle my moms estate and one spot in the basement where the well was had some mold and it was causing concern on the home inspections so I remediated it with MMR, a product that I had seen online. It costs about $40/gallon but it really works like a champ. In about a minute or less the mold is gone. According to their website bleach only kills mold on the surface but this stuff is systemic and kills mold roots and all. Maybe worth looking at for your mold problem.

I found MMR at Lowes, but it had only a few reviews, although they were all positive. However, apparently it is pretty nasty stuff and respirators and other PPE are strongly advised. There are other mold removers, at various prices and varied reviews. I think the bleach has done a good enough job.

[AD5MB]

hung a security screen door. made an aluminum latch strike. tomorrow I route out the wood so the 1/4 inch thick angle rests flat against the door frame. then I build a box around the inside mechanism and put a bar across it so thumbturn flippers won't work. eventually I will put a big slab of steel inside and through bolt it

[Mcgyver]

Changed out the PID controller on my oven. I always hated the Fuji PID, about as miserable a thing to use as there ever was. It was either more user angry than I am smart, or the ramp functions stopped working. New one is just slightly better but it comes with a USB interface. Its like these bloody PIDs where designed to address the control requirement with zero regard for operator convenience or ease. PC software is a little easier. Anyway, I'm currently annealing a couple of weldments, I don't want them moving or with hard spots (a problem I recently had). The last shot is of the 1400F soak

[Tim The Grim]

I slung my old KHK frame over the mill and removed some excess material I designed in when I did a single down tube mod 40 years ago.
It made some speed bumps and railroad tracks downright terrifying. Just never got around to doing it before.

[Dave C]

A couple of years ago the cheap OEM motor on my HF 4x6 band saw crapped out, so I ordered a new, and better one from Surplus Center.

After getting it installed the belt guard would not fit with the new motor, and has been running without one ever since. Being self quarantined and bored, this seemed like a good opportunity to do something to eliminate that safety hazard. There's another story from my early teens that explains my fear of unguarded belt/pulley set ups.
I figured it would take an hour or so tops, so also planned to add some beef to the flimsy stand which has always gotten on my nerves. Between interruptions and mistakes it is now 3 days later and the belt guard is finally finished, but the stand is still a project for another day. Here are some pics with descriptions of what was done.

This is where I started butchering the back of the guard in an attempt to fit it over the motor studs and bearing snout. It became evident that if the back plate was attached to the motor, the cover would not close over the pulleys.

Made a new back plate from an aluminum street sign from the scrap yard. Drilled and hole sawed to fit over the motor's long case bolts and bearing snout and the gear box shaft. The plan was to fasten the old plate to this new one, but must have had the new plate upside down when laying out the shape, and so that was a bust.

Started over, and this time I wasn't taking any chances, and made a cardboard template from an old Priority mail box, and after making sure that everything was going to work, transferred the shape to another piece of scrap signage from the scrap yard and cut it out.

Reused the guard's original back plate to preserve the hinges and nut for the cover closing bolt, and pop riveted it to the new plate. This time it fit, but I was not happy with the gap between the cover and back plate, so another mod was in order. This time I cut off all the original back plate except for the part with the hinges. Had to JB weld a nut to the back of the plate for the cover hold down bolt. The original knob/bolt had disappeared, so I made a new one from some saved junk.


Finished job on next post

[Dave C]

I have no idea how to get rid of that humongus photo on the previous post. It just appeared after I hit the post reply button. Anyway, here's the finished product.

No gaps, no rubbing, and no catching fingers.
This probably was not really interesting to most of you, especially if you don't have this type saw. I did it because it definitely needed done, and I needed the OJT on getting photos off my phone and onto this board. And just maybe, someone may find it useful.

[PStechPaul]

Images don't show.

[J Tiers]

Images are invalid files.

[danlb]

A short while back I was blessed with a nice assortment of drills and endmills. I planned to get to the hardware to pick up tubing for some nice protective sleeves, but we were one of the first in the US to be under "shelter at home" orders so I never got the materials.

Here's what I did come up with. Regular drinking straws for the small stuff (under 1/4) and home rolled cereal box cardboard tubes for the bigger stuff. The caps are simple 3/8 inch dowel drilled for a tight fit to the 1/4 inch ID straw. I'll make something similar for the bigger tubes.

I learned that I know nothing about rolling cardboard tubes.