What did you do today?

[Pondhockey]

Here's the router sled, resting on a support (and the other end on the table saw fence.)

 

[mat60]

Thanks @Pondhockey .  Looks like it  being adjustable will very helpful. I take it the rails will be close to the jig so you wont get any sag .

[Pondhockey]

4 hours ago, mat60 said:

Thanks @Pondhockey .  Looks like it  being adjustable will very helpful. I take it the rails will be close to the jig so you wont get any sag .

The design came from a FIne Woodworking article featuring Nick Offerman (Google it.)  The rigidity of the sled comes from the plywood sides; there's no sag.  In my use of the sled I wanted it on top  my table saw table so I added the base/cross members to support it.  To work on full size slabs you would mount it more like Offerman does.

Based on advice from this forum, I'm using a Porter Cable 8715 fixed base router - I like it.  I haven't figured out dust collection yet.

[Jfitz]

Minimal 'shop time' today.  We had some pretty terrible weather come through there, and much of the town is still without power because of downed trees.  I spent most of the day helping to chop up a tree that fell in a neighbor's yard, fetching gas and propane, trying to ix my chainsaw, etc etc and whatnot.  I did pull and rinse/dry the parts from a recent #7 jointer purchase from its rust removal bath.  So far, I'm impressed the product.  I'll post more on it later (the product and also the cleaned up pieces).  Looking forward to a glass of wine (or something) and some dinner.

[Pondhockey]

In my neck of the woods, there's a fine line between chain saws and table saws; I'd say you did some woodworking today ;-)

Did you keep any of the wood?

 

[Jfitz]

1 minute ago, Pondhockey said:

In my neck of the woods, there's a fine line between chain saws and table saws; I'd say you did some woodworking today ;-)

Did you keep any of the wood?

 

Thanks!  I like your thinking!

I did - that was actually the whole purpose of "offering" to help. My wife's idea  . A bunch of the brush went out behind their house.  Smaller and medium stuff is piled up in my back yard for firewood. And the larger stuff - the stuff I really wanted - I'll cut down tomorrow.  It was probably an 18"-20" trunk.  There are some decent pieces that I think will be firewood, but there are some good pieces that I can either mill on my bandsaw, or cut into turning blanks for bowls. I can't recall what type of tree it is (they're the row of street trees planted when they built our subdivision) so I'll call them "FOG" (found on ground) and see what they come out to be. 

[Coop]

It’s that time of year again where I feel the need to extend an invite to you guys to MOVE!   72* here and I see signs of blooms on my tomato plants. And you can get a 3,000 sq. ft. house here for under 300k. Just saying. 

[Jfitz]

Sorry Coop.  I like the snow. And winter.  Mostly at least.  It'd take a lot for me to move out of this area.

 

[Pondhockey]

That's nice of you, Coop.  But I've been there;  I know that you probably have an air conditioned shop and can get into your a/c car in your a/c garage and drive to the a/c drive up liquor store, but hey, you have to get out of the house some time!  (Besides, the pond hockey is not so great in Houston.)

When the weather get's too brutal this summer (is that about now or in April?) think about coming North ;-)

[Pondhockey]

1 hour ago, Jfitz said:

Thanks!  I like your thinking!

I did - that was actually the whole purpose of "offering" to help. My wife's idea  . A bunch of the brush went out behind their house.  Smaller and medium stuff is piled up in my back yard for firewood. And the larger stuff - the stuff I really wanted - I'll cut down tomorrow.  It was probably an 18"-20" trunk.  There are some decent pieces that I think will be firewood, but there are some good pieces that I can either mill on my bandsaw, or cut into turning blanks for bowls. I can't recall what type of tree it is (they're the row of street trees planted when they built our subdivision) so I'll call them "FOG" (found on ground) and see what they come out to be. 

Nice.  You used almost everything but the "bark".

[Coop]

20 minutes ago, Pondhockey said:

That's nice of you, Coop.  But I've been there;  I know that you probably have an air conditioned shop and can get into your a/c car in your a/c garage and drive to the a/c drive up liquor store, but hey, you have to get out of the house some time!  (Besides, the pond hockey is not so great in Houston.)

When the weather get's too brutal this summer (is that about now or in April?) think about coming North ;-)

From the pics I’ve seen of Idaho, I’d probably rather live there than Hawaii. It’s on my bucket list. 

[Pondhockey]

42 minutes ago, K Cooper said:

From the pics I’ve seen of Idaho, I’d probably rather live there than Hawaii. It’s on my bucket list. 

If you come up, I'll get you on an ice hockey team (my beer league team won the championship this week.)  Or if it's just a visit, then at the very least, you'll have a place to stay, with shop privileges.  (You can show me how to use my stuff.)

In Hawaii's and Houston's favor there's no extended Mud Season (shudder; it's coming.}

[Tom King]

Not what I did today, but sort of a funny story from what I did late yesterday.   I'll try to shorten it.

We have a point on the lake that had mixed hardwoods, and Pines on it.   The Pines has grown mature enough that they covered the ground with seedlings every year, and way too many large Pine cones.   The hardwoods have grown to the point that they will provide the canopy we want, and would be better off without the Pines.

Last Spring we had the timber here thinned, and I wanted the timber crew to cut all the Pines down on the point.  You have to go under a low powerline on the way down there, the road down to drive down onto the point if paved, but with fairly thin pavement, so they didn't want to go down there, even when I offered to give them the several thousand dollars worth of trees.

I found a guy with a small truck, and Bobcat loader who was glad to get the logs to sell.   I knew there would be a mass of piles of limbs to burn, but he piled them up for me.

Late yesterday, the wind was finally blowing the right direction to take the smoke out over the lake, not towards any  houses,  the piles were good and dry now, so I went down there, and lit the burning piles.

All was going well, but one Red Oak, about 25 feet away from one of the smaller piles started smoking about 20 feet up, and dropping burning chunks on the leaves under it.  I thought maybe it was dead, and hollow, and the fire had followed a root, and the tree was now smoking out of a knot hole.  It was not a large tree, but the top was broken out of it, so it looked like it was dead.

Panicking, thinking the fire might get away from me, I drove back to the house and got a small chainsaw to drop that tree.  The guys that work for me had borrowed the larger chainsaws, along with the gas can of mixed gas.  The little saw needed some gas, so with heartbeat racing, I poured some out of one of the weedeaters into the saw.

As I was stumping the saw, I never hit a hollow.  It was a small tree, and didn't really hurt anything to have it gone anyway.  After it was on the ground, it was not hollow.  Somehow, the remnants of a dead limb has caught fire 20 feet off the ground.

As I was looking at the log, I realized it was nice and straight, and exactly the right size to rive some of the parts out of for the 20 Windsor chair job.  Someone gave the group an old chest freezer to keep the riven parts in until riven parts can be shaped into spindles.  I have that freezer in one of the storage buildings that has electricity.   Long story short, I cut the log into sections we can use, put the whole sections in the freezer, and plugged it in.   I don't know when we'll get to do anything with them.

Anyway, that's the only thing out of the ordinary that I did yesterday.

[Jfitz]

12 minutes ago, Tom King said:

 I'll try to shorten it

At least you tried.  

Sounds like a very roundabout way of getting some nice material for your chairs!

[mat60]

I no what I'm doing Thursday,,,  Moving 18in of  snow..  It is going to be a wet stuff and we will have strong winds. I am very much looking forward to it..

[wdwerker]

By shovel or by machine ?

[RichardA]

Finally, a sunny and dry day, played [put a politically incorrect term here and didn't want crap] and did a bunch of garden stuff, weeding cutting back some shrubery, turning some garden soil, bringing my driveway back from the street where it was pushed by heavy rain.   I don't know if this stuff is gettin old or I am.  It sure was work.

[Tpt life]

Three hours on a tractor??

[mat60]

3 hours ago, wdwerker said:

By shovel or by machine ?

Yes.

[Tom King]

For what we did today, in keeping with the thread title:   Pam and I spend half the day in Court today.   She was getting sued by a puppy buyer from 8 years ago.  We have a pretty comprehensive contract, especially for a Show Breeding prospect, like this dog was.   It was just for the purchase price of the dog, $2500, so the case was in small claims court.

The owners, a medical Doctor and his Wife, did not do a single thing according to the contract, signed in 2010.  The illness that the dog died from 8 years later can be congenital, which Pam guarantees against, but can also be caused by many more things.  There was no prolonged illness.

I had filed an Answer and Motion to Dismiss, that laid out the arguments against the Plaintiff, and listed facts by experts from nationally recognized Specialists in our support.

The Magistrate ( not heard before a Judge because it is small claims) questioned the Plaintiff.  He rambled on, and on, and never gave a good answer to any question.  His main argument was that he was a Doctor, and he knew it was a congenital problem.  He helped his case a lot when he said that the dog had come down with the illness when they were at their house on _________Island (the island where only very rich people own property).

When it came time for our part of the case, it was pretty obvious that the Judge had read my whole motion by questions that she had asked the Plaintiff.  I told her that we could stay, and discuss the details all afternoon if she needed to hear more, or if not, we were done.   She said she didn't need to hear anything else, and ruled in our favor.

As we just left the courtroom, the Plaintiffs came after us, and were getting right heated.  The Deputy, serving as the Bailiff,  came out and told them they would have to leave.   They still wouldn't leave, and the Magistrate came out, and told them she would have them put in jail if they didn't just leave without saying anything else.  Pam and I weren't worried, as the guy was not going to be any issue in any kind of fight.  The Wife said that we should at least give them $500 back, because she was not a good show dog.  They had showed her themselves, against Pro handlers, and she won both a Championship, and Grand Championship, but I have to admit that she didn't win any shows on TV.

After they left, I joked to the Magistrate asking if they had a show like this every week, and she said, "You'd be surprised."   I said, "after today, I probably wouldn't be surprised".   I commented to the Bailiff, and Magistrate that I used to not think that they smoked much dope in Medical school, back in the '60s, like everywhere else, but maybe I was wrong,  (the Doctor looked, and talked like an old hippy) and they both laughed heartily.   The Magistrate laughed so hard, tears started rolling down her cheeks, and she had to rest a hand on my shoulder to steady herself.   I think it was a good release for her.

I had already gotten on the good side of the Deputy/Bailiff, because he was the guy manning the metal detector on the way in.   There were some pennies left next to the tray where you lay the stuff out of your pockets.  I told him, "I see someone left you a tip", and he got a good laugh out of that.

[legenddc]

Good for you! That whole thing seems crazy to me.

[Tom King]

It was absolutely crazy, but anyone can sue for anything.

[..Kev]

Having done the dog breading bit, it's a testament to having a good contract!  I'm fortunate that mine has never been tested in court but, I'm happy to see that good ones do work!

Congrats!

[Tom King]

Ever seen the movie Best in Show?   It wasn't so funny to us-too much reality.

I think the pair were some of those people that believe they can't possibly be wrong, and that everyone else is dumber than they are.   Sounds way too familiar these days.

The guy probably thought we were so dumb, and would not want to go to the expense of hiring a lawyer, so would just pay up.   He picked the wrong ones for that though.

[Mick S]

Alison took out one of the support posts in the carport yesterday. I got to replace it.