Little distraction today

 You know you been in a heat wave for a while, when you go to the store and think, man its cold, its 18C, I turned off the AC in the car, then turned it up later when it went up to 19C on  my way back.

Today being Saturday, I checked out my usual yard sales vendors for tools.  Picking is getting slim at times (Mea Culpea :-) but I did managed to found some stuff at reasonable prices.  It seems lately, if its a tool and rusty, its worth money, the rustier, more money. 

Today's find.

A small shingling hatchet, a skew rabbet plane, a dual beam marking gauge 

and a Centurion tank missing its main gun :-)

The hatchet

Did not saw any markings on it, yet, still need to be separated of its haft and soak in Evaporust.

The classic, nail puller notch

The classic octagonal peen.

The edge is in surprisingly good shape

Nothing special about the handle (haft), I will replaced it

An idea of its size besides my two single bevel axes.

Bucket of shavings from making my sill plates.

The rabbet plane.

Being a skew rabbet, it is a more practical worker, read, more valuable.-

Did not look too far gone, but the blade and wedge were solidly rusted together.  Took a lot of jarring and soaking in WD 40 before she finally let go.

I paid $6 for that plane, got my money worth

But it sure looks like it is about time that poor plane get rescued

Remember the blade is bevel down.

That is the surface that rest on the frog.

Yap, will need some work :-)

The back is in good shape, edge is still amazingly sharp.

Currently soaking in Evaporust

 

The Marking gauge

It is a dual beam wooden gauge, featuring two removable brass plate to changed the scribers, two brass plated steel screw to lock the head, two cast brass shoes, with little damages.  No discernable markings yet, looks like a copy of Stanley.  Well worth the full asking price of $15

Has brass plates where the wear will happen

The two beams show no wear

Cast brass shoes, showing very little damages 

from over torqueing the steel locking screws

The side bearing on the wood.

The shiny spots are the pressure points from the locking screws.  

Again very little damages, not much use.

It got its first uses today, I used it to mark my piece to be splitted.

One whack of the mallet and it split beautifully by my mark.

A few swipes of the block plane and TaDa

Working on my plywood piece on the garage floor

Surface left after the split.

The Centurion Mk III Main Battle Tank

A Lesney model, would later be Matchbox

A whimsical buy at $1 

I will give him a new main gun down the road

That was the tank we used when I joined, later replaced by Leopard.

I could honestly say: When I joined Centurion was a tank, not a rank :-)

Its main armaments is MIA 

Lost both tracks in action.

Good luck finding replacements???

But it was not all play and no work, made more progress

Made the mating piece section for the sill plate and a shim for under.

Tomorrow I should be able to install my first sill plate

3 cuts on the table saw to cut the groove.  

It is not a dado, it is running along the grain

Then one last cut to separate my piece to proper width.  It was safer to keep my work piece wider to cut the groove.

Now to tweak my groove walls to fit sill

A few swipes of the block planes later, we have a fit

 

My finished pieces for the day

good fit for now.  

Will tweak later for a seamless fit

My outdoor work bench before the sun

 comes around in the afternoon

Meanwhile, the small stool frame got glued back and pined.

Legs have their blocks fitted.

Those would be glued and screwed to corners

And a few more small projects whose turns are coming up.

Bob, back with the AC on inside the house, starting to sweat :-)

3 in 1 projects today

 Yesterday I left off with a rough shaped blade.  Today I finished it and made a holder

Where I left off yesterday

Obviously too narrow at the bottom, which means, flattening the bottom will shorten it

No problems, will simply cut off some more depth

Profile cover my groove, will file to fit

Happy with fit after a some file work

Knock off the sharp teeth with my hand grinder

Quick sharpening with 120 grit sandpaper, good to go.

Now that I got my blade shaped, time to make some sort of holder for it.

Could not find a suitable round piece of dowel.  Would had made the fence too easy, just drill a hole of appropriate diameter.

Found a suitable maple rectangular piece.

First cut, I tried a large tenon saw, in order to make a deep cut. Wavered off in Lala Land.

 

Dusted off and got the bandsaw ready, after a bit of coaxing the bandsaw, she was screaming like a Banshee.  Top wheel rubbing on top cover.

Humm, first cut with a large tenon saw at bottom went crooked (bottom), 

so did the first cut on the bandsaw (top)

Tweak the saw and fence , much better results

Drilled two holes, added bolt and washer/nut to secured the cutter

Beveled off the end so I can tilt.

Final pass must be vertical for correct profile.  

That worked good.  Did it free hand, no fence, having first delineate the width with a marking gauge and then used a chisel to quickly rough it out.  Final scraping indicated GO/NOGO

Softwood Construction lumber  (Spruce/Pine/Fir SPF) is stringy, does not scrape well compared to hardwoods but it does the job.  A perfect fit on my first try up my workbench in the sun on the window. 

But the main reason I got the Bandsaw out was to cut the corner piece for a stool I am fixing

First it was at the chop saw to cut my 45 degrees corners.

Did a trial test, they do make a 90 degrees corner, good to go

Then off to the bandsaw to cut the inside details

Quick work with a chisel to shaped it.

I'm using a piece of plywood on my garage floor.

Made two pieces in maple, only need one 

First dry fit

seems to to work OK

Should clamp the legs as it is tighten

Remain to glue up the frame square and screw in the corners block.

Now moving on to next project make up a plug for the fan outlet in greenhouse.  Will effectively close and insulate that opening for cold temps.

Eyeballed the handle locations. the right hand one is a bit crooked

back side.

The idea is to spread the pull force over to the plywood 

Hum, I forgot which side was up, it is not square, 

so it fit as such.  It is a design feature :-)

And that was it for the day.  It is cooling off now, but it quickly warmed up this morning after last nite thunder showers.

Watering, weeding and closing the pool came next.

Done for today

Bob, who spent more times rehabbing power tools than using them

Working thru a heat wave.

Things have been busy around here, hence why my blog has been quiet for a while. We have been almost continually in a heatwave since early June, with not much signs of ending soon. It often pushed into the low 100 F in full sun areas.  106 F is my highest recorded so far, that I noticed.

Considering the sizes and locations of Jean's Botanical gardens around the house, it is a constant watering and weeding daily activities, watering morning and before dawn.  But in return you get a constantly changing vistas as the plants flower then dies and are replaced by other blooming on cue.

Scenes from this morning.

Yap, my red Spark is still in the garage having its engine rebuilt under warranty.

Still driving my 2019 loaner from garage, been more than a month now...

My favorite evening spot.

Have a small bistro table and chairs set up

Finally got my gates painted gloss black, were previously still primer grey.

First pic was taken in June.  You can see the flower bed is changing

Coming up project, scrape and paint metal frame, 

replace wood boards on the bench

As you can see my spaces around for my lawn tractor are becoming non existent

The shed in the background is soon to be demolished

Let's just say that as soon as those bed's location and size stabilized, I will deploy underground automated watering solutions.  I have the technology and tried some of it before Both Bluetooth and WIFI, Bluetooth interfaces I find a bit touchy at time, move away with your phone and loose comms.  I have a big yard :-)

Now, if only I could convince her that we don't need more specimens of whatever :-)

Add the constant work required with the pool and you got your work day already starting to fill before you even done anything else.

Scene thru the orchard.  

That black cover is a must on the pool.  It keep the crap out, 

protect the water from algae and also act like a solar heater.

Water temps stabilized well into the 80s F, 84 F is the warmest I seen so far. 

As much as I hate pools, that is a concession to Jean and the grandkids, 

But I will admit that it comes in handy in this heat ;-)

So, all that to say, heat or no heat, the jobs must go on.

Our daily users.

Walking stick with a whistle.  We have bears, coyotes and foxes around.

Rake, broom, Weed eater, LV push mower and weed bucket.

The citronella plant is used to brush your hands on it then run your hands on your face and arms.

Mother nature own mosquitoes repellent.

It is really not that bad if you take it easy, stay out of the open sun areas as much as you can or minimize exposure.  I have a few cooling stations located around the property to take refuge in or work :-)

Pacing yourself, take cover, take breaks often and hydrate (water) and vitally important, get back inside and have a nap :-) 

I usually finish the day inside the pool. May as well get inside to clean it :-)

Anyway, I am taking a break inside right now, hard to see when you have water dribbling in your glasses.  I should really wear a bandana...

For the last two days, I am finally back working on my last two window sashes.  

That meant dragging out machines and setting up shop outside.  

I had previously experimented with making a small sample with hand tools, to get a sense of the better sequences of cut.  The finished sill plate does not have much of a square surface left when done.  So it get tricky to hold, hence my experiments. Which quickly convinced me that I was not going to used my small plow plane as thought to cut the long tapered groove in construction lumber with solid knots in it.

Started by making a paper template

The groove is tapered, took the approximate size for the plow.

The only square surface left.

Made me experiment with my cut sequences.

That square surface on the RHS is only 5/16 in before it tapered, 

being the top surface of the sill

Got it all figured out.

Dimensions and cut sequences

The tools used.

Small plow for groove, LA Jack for the tapers, 

small side rabbet plane for tapering groove sides

Then decided to use the table saw to cut my groove straight walls then using hand tools to widen it in a tapered shape. That worked, but it is a lot of sweating work to trim and fit the groove to the window frame, I know....

Set up her portable Table saw in a shaded area.

Yes, Jean came with her own tools :-)

My first piece done yesterday.  

Finished by hand with jack plane and chisel

So today I have a Plan C, I will still do the bulk of the work with my trusty chisel, but will refine the shape with a scraper.  So I am now making a steel scraper profile to do that.  Then I'll cobble some sort of wooden holder to used it like a marking gauge, to both straighten the groove and ensuring a good fit first try up my work bench out in the sun :-)

Found a suitable piece of steel, a piece of a large bandsaw blade.

The napkin under is to prevent the ink bleeding on her table clothe.

I am allow to work on the dining room table just as long as.... :-)

Then off to the garage.

I don't have a metal vice on the kitchen table :-)

In this pic, the blue tool box is my original tool box issued to work on my first aircraft, the CP107 Argus.  I went away one year on courses for the new aircraft coming in, the CP140 Aurora.  When I came back, I could not return my tool box, all Argus sections having been stood down.  So I got to keep it.

The red vise is a Record Autovise 74, the hack saw is a MF Buck Rogers No 300 high tension frame hacksaw.

quick work to rough cut it to shape

By then I was sweating buckets, so I retreated inside, had lunch and made this blog.  Now time to go back out in the sun...

Bob, loosing or melting weight ??