Year 17, Week 04, Day One (week 890)

Year 17, Week 04, Day One (week 890)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-04-17 Saturday

high 60s early morning, high 70s late afternoon. Hazy blue sky early morning some puffs in the afternoon. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

I did do some yard sailing and did well. I picked up a big cast iron pot. I don’t need it as I already have two. This one is slightly better than my original big one, which is about the same size. I then have a smaller one we used when we had our Christmas Bar B Q.. 
I also found a musical instrument that you blow into and push keys. It takes a good set of lungs to play a whole song. I can’t play worth beans. This was not a toy. I showed it to Mom and she scarfed it up. She found it difficult to blow into it for long. I reminded her of those devices in the hospital that you breathe into to strengthen your lungs. I said this would be a good replacement. 

Over at the house again. There was a glass holder above where the bar was. We removed the glass holding panel and found there was a flourescent light in it. That explains everything. When we moved the bar, there was a wire going from the bar and into the wall. We cut it and wire-nutted it. Now we now realize that a switch in the bart powered the light above the glasses. From what I figure, the light passed through a diffusing panel and into the glasses themselves, causing the glasses to glow. It would have been nice to see it but never had a clue. 
We took down some bottle racks on the wall but left the upper shelf up for now. That will come down later. They had used 4 inch screws and it was fun to just twist and twist and twist with a flat-head screwdriver until they finally came out. 
There was thought that the base of the kitchen table could be used for storage. We then noticed that the table top was two pieces, and we then saw it would slide. I decided to open it up and see inside. The guy who built this was a genius of design. The base spits apart and a gear on one of the rails caused the halves to separate evenly. We put a center panel, that we found hidden behind the curtains, in place and it makes for a nice family table. The base, of course, cannot be used for storage, but it was a nice thought. We put the center panel away and closed it up. 

Between the yard sailing and working with the furniture, I was too wore out to consider working wood later in the day. 

I will see what happens tomorrow.




Year 17, Week 04, Day One (week 890)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
02-04-17 Saturday

High 60s early morning, very low 80s, lots of clouds but lots of sun. this weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.


We went back to the house and my brother and I took down the rest of the glass holder unit. Again, really long screws. Some of them could be taken out with an impact driver, but some had to be done by hand. Together we got it down. After looking at it a moment, Mom decided the case would make a good display shelf. We just need to get some hardware, shelving, and a back panel. It fits the design of the rest of the furniture. It might need to be screwed to the wall or something else as it is tall and narrow, but it should be nice addition to the living room.

That was about all I had time for before I had to head home and recover from the weekend. 

I will see what I do next week.

678

The wind instrument

the pot on the left is new, the other two I already had

The glass holder in place

The glass holder sitting up like a shelf unit.

Year 17, Week 03, Day One (week 889)

Year 17, Week 03, Day One (week 889)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-28-17 Saturday

54 degrees early morning, 75 late afternoon. Blue skies all morning long. High clouds appeared later in the morning, puffs started showing up in the afternoon. Light breeze took away any heat one built up. Was able to take jacket off for a couple hours before dusk started settling in. A front is coming through tomorrow and that will kill anything planned for tomorrow outside. This weather report was brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

During the week, Mom and I tackled my yarn. We poured them out of the hampers and onto the floor, and then sorted them according to color, sticking them in boxes. Mom’s idea was to label the boxes for the color. My idea was to set them on their sides so one can see the yarn colors. It works great for the skeins but the balls don’t stay in place. We had to jam them into the cracks between the skeins. Of course, while putting the boxes up, some balls would fall down and have to be picked up and stuck in there again. 
I knew I had a “life time” of yarn, but now I actually see it. I have a lifetime of yarn!!!
I think my wool might have gotten stuck up there with the regular yarn, but I kept my cotton separate. I have a couple small boxes of yarn that need to go up there, but at this moment, they are keeping stacks of stuff that came out of the closet, from falling over. I do see I have a lot of really pretty colors there. I did not realize that before this. It is hard to remember when they are all hidden. My plan was to sort them and put them back into the hampers.

Saturday.

There was a church yard/rummage sale today. Since it started a little late, we decided to hit other yard sales first. The first few I got nothing. A condo that has a periodic sale, and had one again so we stopped. I saw a recliner much like mine, but in much better condition, and a floor lamp with a shelf mid way up. I was going to get them, but since I was riding with mom, I decided that I would come back later in the day and get them if they were there. When I finally did get back, the recliner was gone, and a woman was coming back for the lamp with transportation to bring it home. Darn. Oh well. That happens with that tactic. Some things go fast, while other things are still there. 
I am not sure, but I think we hit ten or twelve yard sales before we got to the church. I had found a new cane, a coffee grinder with different settings. You can set the number of cups and the coarseness of the grind and it will stop automatically. I have several coffee grinders. They can be used for grinding seasonings, like pepper, making flour, and also in crafts where you want to work with a powder when something is granular.
I also picked up a multi plug cord, a long drill bit, a cook book on bread (like I need another cook book with over 70 in my library), a “snake” for cleaning out sink drains, and a keyboard. 

By the time we got home from the yard sales, I was wore out. I had done a lot of physical work the past two weekends. You hope you can recover during the work week so the weekend will be great. I was still feeling some of last weekend and some things I did during the week, so I was not in the mood to do much. 
When we got back, I headed back out to see about the recliner, which was gone, then went to locate a new grocery store I had heard about. I found it.  Their sign is still a cloth banner, they are so new (took over a small grocery store building that went of business). I walked all the isles to see what they had. 
Back at home, I ended up napping then lounging around the rest of the day as I was running on fumes. I never did get out to make some sawdust, which was one project I really wanted to do this weekend.

We have a front coming through tonight and tomorrow so I am not expecting much going on tomorrow, especially outside. 

I will see what I do tomorrow. 


 Year 17, Week 03, Day Two (week 889)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-29-17 Sunday

52 degrees early morning, a short time the gauge in truck showed 50 degrees but went back up to 52. Low 70s in the afternoon, but there was no heat in the air. A constant shower of liquid sunshine  came down, If it had been rain, it would have been sleet since it was well below the 56 degree frost temperature of South Florida. Being liquid sunshine, it contained just enough heat that when it turned into water on contact with the ground, and refused to freeze as it flowed away. Some of the canals did get an edging of ice but that did not get thick. It will be cold tonight and there will be thick ice for going to work. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

The weather killed most activities. During the week, I was at Walmart and found one of those spiral cutters. I had seen advertisements for them for a while and sort of wanted one. The advertised ones were either powered or manual. The one at Walmart was selling for $4. On line, something quite similar was about $40. I had hoped to find one of these at a yard sale and they were nowhere to be seen, and the price was about what I was going to expect to pay for one second hand.
As I opened the box, it was logically made and easily understood. It came with three blades. A flat cutting spiral blade, a wide noodle and a narrow noodle. It has a center hole that has a sharp edge and the veggie goes against that. The crank has a plastic spiky holder that digs into the veggie to allow you to turn it. The pressure on the crank is generally enough to hold it in place. 
I started with the flat slicer and sliced up a potato. It creates long curls that can be kept together or cut up for chips. My technique was not great so it was not one continuous piece. I used the narrow noodle. It has teeth sticking out to give the noodle width, and then the slicer blade gives the noodle depth. Again my technique was not great. If you crank it with continuous pressure and speed, and if you get the veggie centered, it will string out in long noodles. If you are jerky and uneven, they will be short and that is what I got. I can see uses for this.
I have a philosophy that if a labor saving device requires more effort to clean it than the savings it gives you, it might not be a good idea. I have found that if you are fixing something for a dozen people, the labor saving devices do save labor. For one person, it might be better to use something else, like a knife. This spiralizer is borderline for labor saving and clean up. 

Because of the weather, there was no way I was going to get any wood working done. It was also too cold to be outside. Other than watching my brother solve a problem of a water feed to the ice machine that broke, I accomplished nothing for the day.

It is going to get even colder tonight and possibly tomorrow. I am officially taking up a collection to send me to a warmer climate. I don’t like it this cold. 

I will have to see how things go next week.






 

Other items I got at yard sale.

MR COFFEE coffee grinder

This is a spiral cutter, showing one of the blades sticking out of the storage drawer. 

The orange ball on right will show in the next picture as a marker for where the two pictures overlap

The second picture. the box on the right is full of ribbon.

Year 17, Week 02, Day One (week 888)

Year 17, Week 02, Day One (week 888)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-21-17 Saturday

68 early morning, 81 late after noon. Blue skies most of the day. A herd of puffs lined up over the edge of the Everglades and then disappeared later in the day. The brisk wind blew things all over the place. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department Of Tourism.

THURSDAY

I went to the Turning club meeting ( http://www.goldcoastwoodturners.org/ ). They had someone with the Woodworking club 
( http://sfwg.org/South_Florida_Woodworking_Guild/SFWG.html ) to show how to make segmented containers, where you cut up pieces of wood and put them into stacked rings for various effects into a vase or bowl. With this process, you don’t need big chunks of wood for an even large vessel. One can interchange different kinds of woods and, with planning, create intricate designs in the process. Most of the work is in the glue-up, leaving just a little more wood beyond the final surfaces to allow for removing corners and irregularities. The turning is mainly just evening out the surfaces and coming to the final finish. 
Part of his demonstration was showing the sled he uses to cut the pieces in six, eight, or twelve sided rings for circles. Many wood workers have to glue the rings in two parts, then adjust the final mating surfaces to meet flat. He said that if you get the sled set exactly, one can glue up the whole ring at one time. He added a pointer to his sled to show the exact point that he needs to set it for each sided piece. This type of project leaves me out as I cannot cut straight even if you set it up so I just push the wood through the blade. 

I brought two boxes of carving and scroll saw magazines and a rack (I am told it was from an auto parts store when they went to computer rather than catalogues) filled with carving and scroll saw patterns my dad collected. I had hoped the woodworker guy would be interested, but he said they all now go on line instead. I did find one guy in the club that was interested and I used my hand cart to take it out to his truck. If no one wanted them, I would have kept them. Just finding a place for them would have been a challenge. I would have definitely kept the patterns, but it is better to pass them on to someone who might actually use them. 


SATURDAY

I visited a three yard sales early morning. There were a few interesting things, but nothing I had to have. The most interesting things is stuff I better not buy such as cook books....  I saw three signs, one I could not find, and the other two I was in too big a hurry to stop at. I only did a portion of the northern loop of my circuit.

A friend of mine had a sectional couch he needed to get rid of as he had new furniture coming in. He either was to give it away or set it out for the bulk pickup garbage truck to get it. I found someone who would make use of it. I had a truck so I went to get it.
My friend is in worse condition than I am, but he had a good healthy son who was an electrician. My friend did a lot of remodeling of his house and showed me what he did. 
His doors were narrow so each piece of the couch had to be maneuvered by two people. I held one end and his son held the other. None of them were really heavy, but they were bulky. We considered having to take them in trips, but figured out how to stack them so it could be handled by one trip. I tied the load in place, figuring on front to back movement since the tail gate had to be down.  After I left, but before I hit the turnpike to go home, the thought crossed my mind to check the load, but the thought left me in a second. 

As I had to take the turnpike, I was pulling into the toll booth plaza when a woman said I lost a section “back there.” There was almost no traffic, so I drove back to the section, which was destroyed, and put it back in the truck. It was then that I realized I should have also considered up and down movements of the load. Apparently, the section rose up on the ropes and fell out. I had no further problems getting home. 
Unloading the couch sections was easy. I literally dropped them onto the handcart, and pulled the handcart to the door of the house, which was wider than my friend’s door. The handcart wheels did not want to rise up the step-down of the house when I tried to pull it up, so I just slid the pieces down the handle of the  handcart and dragged them on the carpet. I got them in with little effort. I did get someone to handle the middle curved section which was just too bulky for one person. 

A bit later, I removed parts and pieces from the broken section. The back padding was made up of two attached pillows. Those were cut off. One has to be sewn but the other is usable as it is. Some of the fabric was recoverable and they might become arm covers to improve the look. I took off some good wood. I think the woods were oak for the base that the legs were stuck into, plywood for the sides to hold the shape, maple for the cross members. There might have been one or two other woods in it. I am not a wood expert.  
There were lots of staples and tack strips. After getting the main pieces, the remains of the hulk, which was about half the piece, sat to be taken out for the garbage. All the wood will have to be cleaned of staples but they can be used for some project, (like I need more wood....)
The rest of the couch looks great. The damaged section is not missed as there really was not enough room for it. 

Having done enough work, I took things easy 

I will see what I do tomorrow.







Year 17, Week 02, Day Two (week 888)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
01-22-17 Saturday

69 degrees early morning, 85 in the afternoon. Really brisk wind with stronger gusts. Loads of puffs overhead that stopped at the beach and went no farther. A front is coming this afternoon seeding the weather we are getting. This weather report is brought to you by The City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I helped rearrange the furniture in the house. There was a bar and buffet that were not where they were needed to be for the couch. The buffet, which is smaller, was easy to move. It was only after I moved it into position that I realized that a carpeted board that filled in the space beneath the buffet was removable. I simply lifted on the handcart on the end and it slipped out from beneath the buffet so it could be placed properly. It would have been nice to know that first off. I thought it was nailed to the bottom of the piece. 
I had help for the bar. It took some effort to remove the filler but once it was out, the maker of the bar had put small wheels under it so it was easy to move. It did take some lugging and cutting some wires that were connected to the wall. It appears to have an outlet and a switch to something, possibly a light they had elsewhere. I did not have time to figure out what that was.
We then tried a few more arrangements of the couch sectionals. What we came up with was better, but might be done better later. Will have to see how it looks and feels. 

A bit later, we finished disassembling the damaged section. The fabric back had came off with what looked like a long line of brads. Examining it, I found there was a metal plate with tongs punched and bent down beneath the seam. They came out easily. Along another edge was cardboard with staples stuck into it beneath the seam. They also came out easily. I have ideas for the metal strips. I got a couple more pieces of wood, but one nice looking piece was so well attached that I decided it was not worth getting out. All that was left went into the garbage. I would say we did well on our salvage. 

I decided I over-did it the past two days and took the rest of the day off.  A good weekend is one where you go to work to recover (that is what I tell the guys who do construction work anyway).

The weather looks like it might be fairly good next weekend. I need to finish emptying the shed and see the condition of the shelving and get the thing completely clean, then start re-packing it in an “intelligent” arrangement. 
I would also like to make some sawdust. I need to finish the platters I started last year, and make some more. I have lots of wonderful wood that demands to be made into sawdust. 

I will see what I accomplish next weekend. 

1610

One view of the construction of the destroyed section

Another view of the destroyed section

the remaining good sections