What did you do today?

[J Tiers]

Bailed out the window wells, mopped up in the shop, and replaced the wireless. We apparently had 21cm rain in 2 or 3 hours last night with thunderstorms, and a couple lightning hits estimated at about 1/10 mile maximum away, possibly closer.

Down on the flatland below us, the river overflowed, and it looks like there was a raging torrent down the street. Garden areas have all the plants laid down flat, fences are flattened and covered in miscellaneous floating junk, there were traffic signs torn out of the ground, etc. I have to assume a lot of those folks got their basements filled up. It does not look as if there were as many cars floating as last time, however. I think the water was up and back down in a short time, since there are a couple serious choke points in the river right there. Two right angle turns, and two bridges.

The Corps of Engineers will not allow any of that to be fixed, they say it would only flood others downstream. I am not so sure. The next half mile is a park, with a lot of room for water to overflow into low value land areas at a lower elevation than the surrounding areas.

I'm happy we did not buy a house down there. We did look at a couple.

[Cenedd]

J Tiers Clearly the towns downstream are paying the Engineers more!
Seriously though, that sounds like no fun. Hope you didn't lose anything too irreplaceable and that it gets cleared up quickly.

[J Tiers]

Had no "damage" up here, 50 feet above the lowlands. I need to toss one wet cardboard box...... All we get is leaks through the masonry from rainwater. 4 minor streams through the woodshop area. No "flooding". If we get a flood, Noah will be floating by any moment.

The wireless was not water-related, but likely the close strike by lightning.

Not sure about the folks down below. It does not look good, but a number of houses were bought out and demolished a decade back, after "only' 18cm rain over 5 hours flooded them, and drowned two people who tried to go out and save something while the water was flowing. They were found miles downstream.

BTW, I went out and measured the depth of water in a bucket that was left out (a straight-sided bucket). I found 27cm of water in that, so the weather service amount was less than fell here.

At least one apartment building down on the flats should just be torn down, as the ground floor gets flooded every 2 or 3 years. And, a bunch of houses, about 140 in all in town, are in very flood-prone areas, they need a buyout as well. Even one fire station is in a flood zone, which the City is oddly unconcerned about. (technically both are, but the other is on the edge of a 500 year risk zone).

[ChazzC]

Added some new parallel jaw pliers Tony collection, Nylon Lined, Brass Lined & plain steel:



Here they are in their new home:


The two parallel pliers near the center I got 50+ years ago when I was into silver jewelry. Just to the left of the three new pliers is a loop of thin, Velco-like cable wrap, similar to this at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Fastening-Cable-Double-Sided-Management/dp/B09C3SVY9Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC7IAITMBS6O&keywords=B09C3SVY9Q&qid=1659209612&sprefix=b09c3svy9q%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1

I was running out of space for pliers due to the spring-loaded ones taking up a lot of space; then I found a couple of the cheap cable wraps that come on some USB cables or as "free" items when you get some items from China, tried wrapping them around the jaws on the spring-loaded pliers and created space. The thin wrap material is better than real Velcro wraps which is thicker and less flexible.

What are the wooden blocks for? Why, so I can stack a second layer of pliers on top:


This was a shutdown project when I was organizing the shop: 1/4" Lexan/Polycarbonate with a pair of finger holes and a 3/4" x 3/4" x 1/16" aluminum angle frame = more found space!

[Fear]

I had traded some old Triumph motorcycle parts for an old Trinco pressure blast cabinet a year ago.

From what I have read pressure blasting, as opposed to siphon-feed blasting, is a much more efficiently to go.

My problem was that the necessary massive filter cabinet for a a blast cabinet of this volume was too big to clear the back door to my shop. I tried moving the two pieces around in the confined area so that everything was accessible and came up with this.

The 5" exhaust on the back of the blast cabinet is supposed to get this very expensive heavy rubber hose with lots of ripples in it that connects to the back of the filter cabinet.
On company blast booths, this hose always droops and abrasive puddles in the dip and clogs the flow.
I figure I could get commercial truck rigid steel exhaust pipe for much cheaper and a better fit.

I got a 90deg elbow, a 180deg elbow and a five foot section of steel exhaust pipe off of eBay. I butt-welded them and then tacked-on some simple brackets that matched the spacing of my wall studs and set it all into place. I then anchored both cabinets to the floor with concrete anchors.
Some safety glass cut at the local glass shop, a trip to Nashville for the expanded metal to replace the cabinet floor and a trip to the hose shop to plumb it into the shop air.

It works great. no low spots in the ductwork to puddle and clog, easily access the filters and filter shaker handle and petty of room to load the cabinet from either side.

And I can still access the shop's back door.

Another phase of my shop completed.

[Bob Engelhardt]

[...] an old Trinco pressure blast cabinet a year ago.
[...]

Nice work! The pipe will have much less resistance to air flow. Do you have a plastic film in front of the glass window? If not, the glass will be etched from bounced-back grit. DAMHIK

[Fear]

Nice work! The pipe will have much less resistance to air flow. Do you have a plastic film in front of the glass window? If not, the glass will be etched from bounced-back grit. DAMHIK

Yeah. the guy I got the cabinets from threw in everything he had which included extra film, a ton of Trinca-Printed heavy hoses and about a hundred pounds of extra blast media.

I made up a wish-list to bring it up to spec based on Trinco's website, but then realized most of the parts could be sourced locally for cheaper.

[Fear]

When I bought my house five years ago, it had a very expensive wooden child's playlet/swingset out in front. Various insects had eaten-away at the wood so much that the structural integrity was too far gone to let my grandson play on it when he came to visit.
While I was tearing it down, I was rather impressed with the hardware and saw to repurpose it in the shop.

I ordered eight Sunco UFO-style LED lights from Amazon to replace the weak cheap fluorescent lights the previous homeowner had installed.
I used the beefy swingset chain hangers and carabiners to hang the center four lights in the shop. The outer four lights were going to be obscured by the overhead doors when they are open and I was afraid shining down on something so close might overheat the lights and obscure the efficiency of the lights themselves.
So I took the lengths of high quality coated chains that the swings were affixed to and cut them to three foot lengths to clear the doors while still space the same as the center lights.
The UFOs are 150w equivalents and really saturate the shop with light very well. Not too much, not too little. And use a fraction of the power of the failing tube fixtures they replaced.

[Ridgerunner]

Welded a trailer jack on the tongue of a bush hog to make it easier to connect to tractor.

[jcge]

ChazC - the number of times I've butchered something with hard serrated jaws on pliers....never occurred to me that soft jawed pliers even existed. Also like the plexi tray allowing you to see whats underneath.

[ChazzC]

ChazC - the number of times I've butchered something with hard serrated jaws on pliers....never occurred to me that soft jawed pliers even existed. Also like the plexi tray allowing you to see whats underneath.

Thanks; in addition to the brass-lined & nylon-covered parallel jaw pliers, I have a selection of pliers with replaceable nylon jaws, intended for jewelry & camera repair but also good when persuading stuck shafts, etc.

I also have several hardened jaw pliers that are great for removing stripped fasteners.

[eKretz]

Picked up a secondhand 3D printer and cure/wash station. Mars 3 and Mercury Plus. My first time playing with one. They were on my local Craigslist, neither has been used. The guy bought them last year and never even tried them out. Then on the way home, saw a brand new bike in the dumpster at Target! Not sure why they were tossing it but I couldn't resist. Grabbed it for my daughter.

[Bob Engelhardt]

I loaded up the dishwasher, but it wouldn't start - totally cold. Great! But, being handy man, I opened it up and found this:



There had been a sheet metal screw holding a piece that closed a switch when the door was latched. I drilled deeper & tapped for 8-32. Done & will outlast me.

Hardly a big deal, but the kind of thing that really satisfies me. Especially knowing that a repair man would see that, know that the part no longer available, and tell me that I needed a new dishwasher (and charge me $100 (?) for the news). "New dishwasher"? Not! This one is only 35 years old & has a lot more years in it.

[Dan Dubeau]

I bored out a cast iron pulley for a friend last night, and caught up and had a few beers afterwards. It was the first time I'd done any shop work at home in over a month. It's been a really busy summer, but the fog is lifting and I'll get back out there a bit more over the next couple weeks to finish up some projects. No pics, just nice to crank some handles at home for a change.

[gellfex]

Laying floating laminate flooring yesterday and today. It's sorta a zen process where you scribe to the index wall and then build across from there. Once you know all the tricks of tapping, undercutting moldings and such it's pretty easy and gratifying work. Just not so easy getting up and down a hundred times as it was 20 years ago!