The greenhouse saga and some tool boards

 Been a tad busy around here at times.  The Greenhouse is still standing but took a hit from a big pine which totally flatten the new metal shed I was in the process of installing and almost killed the plastic shed behind also,  I think I can salvaged it, got some ideas, but it will have to wait.

The 10X8  metal shed we just had moved from her property to our place 

And the plastic Rubbermaid shed behind it were supposed 

to contain all the various plants pots she has.

And if you were thinking that is a lot of pots, that was also what I first thought so I asked her if she needed them all.  She replied: Do you need all your tools?

Obviously, we are going to need a bigger shed :-)

But helas, a big bad tree had other ideas.  We don't often get winds from the south, but it does happened.

The greenhouse survived, the metal shed is scrap, the plastic shed, 

I'm thinking I may be able to recovered? 

Want to try warming up the piece and try to pop it back in place??

The metal shed crumbling under the tree probably helped saved the greenhouse by absorbing most of the impact

Inside afterward. The plastic held up, the metal frame not so much

Was able to gently push most everything back up.

Space is useable, everything that could get damaged has been removed.

The two wood framed ends held up, the back one experienced some twist, but resisted.

The only broken piece is one of the upper support.

Needless to say, I have ZERO confidences in that metal frame anymore.  My plan is to make new hop by bending tubular steel pieces I'm gathering.  A project for Spring.

Meanwhile will monitor the snow loads and how it resist the winds.

Its replacement is going up besides in the Spring, after I finished levelling the spot, which has to wait until some plants in the way are moved ...

The spot in question.

I removed a bunch of saplings in the way and

 removed root balls and roots everywhere.

I have  a flat & level spot in the back, the front shows you

 how much more I have to go up front.

It will end up a few inches lower than the other greenhouse besides it.

The one that takes a beating and keep on ticking 

Still cleaning up and burning branches, weather permitting.

Got three burn days since, a few more to go...

So in between cleaning up, fixing up the greenhouse and recycling the old shed, which was supposed to get demolished this year, it get one more year... and I started a few woodworking projects of necessity.

My small basement shop got also turned upside down so to speak, with the installation of my old post inside for the post drill installation.  All the parts are derusted, cleaned and painted as appropriate, just awaiting turning its wooden back board from a twisted potato chip into some semblance of straightness to be useable... 

Meanwhile...

Got a few more tools thru my Evaporust in a piece of pipe set up, including screwdrivers, so decided to make some sort of stand or rack for them.

 Looking at my pile of wood in the shop , came across a piece of maple molding, made on a shaper.

Thinking it would dress up my screwdriver holder.  Note, I am strictly storing my Cabinet maker screwdrivers, AKA, have parallels edges, so making uses of the flat area in the typical British design.

Using a backer board, which I notched to received the flat part of the screwdrivers,

The basic idea I'm going for

Turns out my glue bottles are too old, 2005 and 2009.

Who knew?  Apparently not me :-)

Only thing I could find a Wally Mart was Gorilla glue,

 not foaming formula, more like a regular white glue??

Dries clear.

Of course the round shaft are thicker than the flat area, 

so had to drill and or rasp  a hole in the middle of each slot.

I like the spacing, that  works for me.

And how am I supposed to secured it on a wall somewhere?

I decided to insert T-Bolt inside the sandwich, so I can use standard jig nuts and screws.

A tad overkill in hindsight :-) 

Will go with a simple French cleat system for my next one.

I had a piece of that molding left over, so I tried a few things.

Marking gauges are next.

I could squezzed in 5 max, but which ones???

Then that leaves those other favorites out.

Plan B, use a flat, wide  board, so I can layout two rows of gauges on it.

Found a suitable maple board, made a few templates first in scrap wood.

 

I used a No 16 Jennings bit (one Inch) spaced 2-1/2 in apart, in the back.

A tad tight depending on gauges selection and designs

Up front made customs holes for the gauges.

Spacing not to my liking.

The empty hole is made with a No 18 Irwin bit (1-1/8 inch)

Needed a bigger hole size than 1 inch to accommodate

 the twin wooden beams gauges 

Then made a new board with 2-1/2 in spacings between 1 inch holes and the next two holes 2-3/4 in apart next to it.  Want to try various gauges combinations.

Decided to go with 2-3/4 in spacings between all the 1 in holes in the back row.

I use a special gauge to set my divider to a know quantity, in this case 2-1/2 in.

Easier than trying to use a ruler or tape measure. 

Once I stepped out my distances, I used an  automatic punch to

 register the locations for the drill bit following

Making it easy to drop the Forstner bit into it.

Took some fiddling with the holes, turns out the Jennings I was using is  a smidgen bigger than 1 inch, Some of the gauges are a tighter fit. Made one bigger hole to accommodate the twin beams gauges.

The holes up front for the metal gauge I duplicated the forms I used previously on my scrap board, except I had the bright idea of using the powered jig saw to cut a square hole and made a mess, went in La La land and oups, shit!

NO biggie, will cover up the hole with some banding later, for now look marvelous with the gauge covering its hole :-)

That work and I left room for a future Tite Mark gauge, because... :-)

Hold ten gauges of various shapes and forms, room for 11.

Should be enough to see me through at least two simultaneous projects.

Now will need to figured out some sort of holder for the gauge board.  And where are those holder going anyway??? Oh, I have some idea, but that includes some more re-arranging :-)

In other news, our car is back from garage, last exactly about 100 Kms before engine light came on, was the camshaft sensor, which they did not replaced so not warranted Grrr..

Not trusting much the car, bought a truck.  Will be more reliable and will help me a great deal with some projects around the yard for sure.  Not to mention to move wood :-)

My new to me 2011 GMC Sierra.

One owner, well maintained.

It never ends does it? :-)

Bob, with a full plate, puttering in between

Last smalls projects before we get married...

 Yes, you read that right, I kept busy till the end,  needed the distractions.

Because of last minutes paper work snafu, waited anxiously for some papers to arrived from Quebec, just to find out, need another??   Wedding is supposed to be on Wednesday, Monday is a holiday (Thanksgiving), Tuesday AM we will be at the door of the Vital Statistic office for the province to get the final piece of the puzzle.  Note to readers, when you die, make sure your estate fill all the required paperwork's please.   :-(

Besides lots of re-arranging , clean ups, the only two big undertaking I took on was to install the chandelier medallion (only had it for about 8 years now :-), and moved the TV Flat screens around.

The current TV in the living room is a Panasonic 32 In, we often talked about upgrading it.  In the mean time it has been wall mounted in that corner for over a year now, and the biggest this space would accommodate is around 40 ish inches.  So the biggest and best screen in the house, in the Man cave, is coming upstairs to replace it. 

Which meant some small repair on the wall were the wall mount was for the 32 incher, going down to the gym.

A few small (big) holes to take care of.

Prime plus two coats of paint, it disappeared

Between waiting for drying, mud coats, primer, paint coats, took a few days

In the mean time the 50 incher was removed from its wall mount in the Man cave and installed on its pedestal upstairs.  Had to run temporary cable connections, would need to change it later.  I am closer to antenna, but using extension from former TV corner to here.  Waste of Dbm if you ask me :-)

One of the many furniture combinations we went thru in the last few weeks ;-)

We also steam washed the carpet .

Which Rudy always takes it as a challenge after I put away all his toys, 

to re-arrange his decor to his liking :-)

The chandelier was awaiting all that time, what we were going to do with our textured ceiling.  We long thought it would be best to scrape it flat, but that for sure would entail some scraping, sanding, purging, sanding and etc.  Which would have meant living in a cloud of plaster dust for a while, not happening.  We even considered drywalling over, but to make it look straight would required furring strips or knocking the stalactites flat all over the ceiling.  

Years ago Heather experimented on one of the hallways end some scraping techniques, we just knocked it down flattish, not trying to remove it all.  Jean and I finished the job by finishing the hallways first before tackling the living room, dining room.  Happy with the results, looks a lot better to us, but still had the chandelier with a loose hanging cover cap (left room for medallion).

So, time to finished the job :-)

I installed it a year or so after we moved in, 

left some space on the rod for the medallion.

 

Which is a tad dusty after all these years :-)

Used my trammel points to score a circle the diameter 

I have to scrape clean to install my medallion 

Used a spare electrical box cover, draws lines to indicate center, 

did same on a small piece of wood, used those lines to lined them in the center, hot glued.

Poke a hole in the middle I have a good solid point to swing my trammels points around.

The outside line represent how big my medallion is.  

While scraping, I try to stay close to my line to help me centered the medallion

But first it had to come down.

It is a tad on the heavy side, so it is solidly attached to the electrical box which is in turn, securely attached to the rafters.  Yah, won't go anywhere :-)  But it is no fun for your partner (not married yet :-) to hold it while I disconnect power and detached it from the ceiling.  

You wanna test a relationship? 

Do some renovations together :-)

Finally down on the table, getting ready to install medallion after ...

...my scrapped area has dried .  

Fortunately, the textured ceiling was never painted, 

so spritzing water softened it to scrape it easily (?)

Ready for gluing.  I installed a longer rod, 4 inches versus my original 2 inches.

Going to use it as a clamp to hold medallion.

There you go Dear, all Done! :-)

Using another screw bar on the rod to screw tight the medallion to the ceiling.

Temporary light, because its gonna take a few days of scraping, mudding, sanding etc.

Days later it is starting to look good.

A couple more touch ups and I'll be be happy 

So after I was done prepping the ceiling and had the medallion secured to the ceiling, I came up with a better plan to re-install it...

NO pics, since we were both a tad busy :-)

 I had slide the dining room table close to the medallion under it (still need room for ladder), put on a coffee table on it (Ducan Phyfe), then a smaller side table on top (pie crest) to finally deposit my prepared chandelier on top of it all.  That OSHA's approved apparatus (Hey, you guys lowered most of your standards so it should be approved :-)  held the chandelier high enough to enable me to work on passing the wires up the tube after taking time to line up all my required hardware in the right order... 

Meanwhile, all she had to do was to put a hand on it to make sure nothing is going anywhere.  A lot easier on her than holding the whole thing.   Oups sorry Babe should had thought of it sooner.

By then I had figured out that I would need a three inch rod, but I only have a two and four inch rods. 

So cut, filed the rod then screw the mounting plate and rod securely, locked in place 

During this time, our youngest grand daughter's got dropped off here for a short time, and kept asking me if I was done... If you know me, you know I have lots of patience while I am busy working :-)

Put it all together just to realized, I forgot to unscrew the final nut from the fitting before installing it before the cover.  Which meant, cannot screw cover, it has to all come down and re do it all over again, fishing wires and all.  At that point the chandelier was still on top of the tables, so thankfully it was not a biggie but... Ohh annoying miss-steak, if I ever had one :-)

The hardest was to refrain to swear in both official language while she asked again: Are you done yet :-)

Gave her my best smile, Soon sweeties :-)

Why her rush?  She was anxious to play on Gramma's phone, she knows better than ask Grampa for his phone :-)

Second time went without a hitch, cleanup my messes, re-arranged some furniture...while my Fiancée  went shopping with the grand peanut.  Thanks Sweeties :-)

Almost done, covers need a good clean up

 and I broke one, somehow, oups.

OK now I'm done.  Tag you're it Babe, 

I do not know which table covers you want :-)

In between all of these still managed to find a marking gauge in my bureaucratic travels, which I gave a quick clean up before storing it.

As found.  Look pitiful, hence low price.  

There was another one on another table for $20, in much better condition.

Yes, it is a Stanley No 65, one of my favorite design, 

Because of the beam shape it locks better and straighter than most.

Having its patent date still, makes it an early one.

Brass plate is sticking out, brass plated steel screw is badly rusted,

the point is ... something like a finish nail??

The all important brass shoe is present.  

Earlier models were cast, later thinner and stamped.

It is oxidizing, the green stuff you see.

That little screw at the end of the beam is what kept that brass shoe in place all along.  

The head cannot be removed unless you first unscrew it..

As long as head is on beam, brass shoe is safe from going MIA.

A few rust stains, here and there, brass plated steel screw is in rough shape

Screw holding the cutting bit is about to be lost to rust

All the metal bits are soaking in fresh Evaporust.

Yes, even the brass parts.

Got another 4 Ltr of the stuff in my bureaucratic related travels :-)

24 hrs or so later, rinsed under water, brushed with a brass brush

A tad small for the wire wheel...

See the round spot in the middle of the Brass shoe?

That is the Achille heel of this design.  The cast brass shoe is supposed to prevent damages to the beam from the screw, but being brass plated steel, not brass, it is harder than the cast brass and will invariably drill a hole, deflect the shoe so it is now scratching and binding on the beam etc.

On the stamped brass one they can really get damaged badly.  Always check the shoe condition.

Which you cannot do without removing a screw, but

you can get a reasonable idea by feeling how the head slide on the beam.

Now, if it wasn't for Ham fisted people, these should not see much damages, that design lock solid without Gorilla strength... Honest. 

  

That shiny but heavily eroded surface is what remains of the good metal, 

all the rust is gone, leaving pits.  Will make a new scribing pin later.

After some file works on head, re-installed screw.

Plates were pressed in the steel vice, you can see why one end of the brass shoe 

always had an opening in order for the pin to lay flush at zero on the head.

All put back together, de- rusted, cleaned, lubricated (oil and wax, metal and wood)

Done, put it in storage in the Basket - O - Gauge 

Yeah, I know, I am overdue for a gauge till :-)

A project for later in my married years ahead...

Bob, awaiting Tuesday anxiously...