Porch Handrailing

[Coop]

On 5/31/2022 at 1:10 PM, Chestnut said:

Also bird watching is interesting for people of all ages! I get more enjoyment from watching my feeder than most of the junk they put on TV these days.

+1

[Tom King]

This job will be on hold for a few days.  Pam's Mother died, and she has to go take care of things, so I'll have to stay at the house 24/7 with my Mother and the dogs and puppies while she's gone.

No sympathy needed.  When one has lived a very long life, and leaves without a lingering suffering, there are no complaints.

[drzaius]

When it's time, it's time. Ever built a casket Tom?

[Tom King]

No.  Never had time.

[RichardA]

On 6/14/2022 at 9:12 AM, drzaius said:

When it's time, it's time. Ever built a casket Tom?

I have for my wife.  The most painful construct I've ever had to do.  Also did two for an old couple, simple plain cedar caskets.  They loved them.

[drzaius]

On 6/14/2022 at 9:45 AM, RichardA said:

I have for my wife.  The most painful construct I've ever had to do.  Also did two for an old couple, simple plain cedar caskets.  They loved them.

I know what you mean. It's a very profound experience. I've built 5; for my mom, dad, 2 older sisters and my 5 month old grandson. Guess which one was the most difficult? I've had brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, wife in-laws, nephews and nieces in my shop with me helping out (not all at once). It is a fantastic way to grieve and support each other.

For my dad's funeral we went almost full DIY. The only thing we hired out was the embalming. Dressing dad with my brothers and a sister was a very spiritual and beautiful thing to have the honor of doing. 

There's a cautionary tale here though. We made dad's casket exactly 6' long outside because we couldn't get the bird's eye maple veneer any longer than that. No problem though, cause dad was only 5' 8". Wrong! Dad decided to point his feet downward when rigor mortis set in, so he wouldn't fit. Wow that was a tough job. For a minute we thought we were gonna have to start breaking legs.  We got it done though and had a good laugh after.

I believe our society has become a little to removed from the process of dying. That isn't to say that we should do it all ourselves, but that we should at least have the opportunity to be part of the process.

[Coop]

I met @RichardA at a Woodworking show along with a couple of other members here in Iowa while his wife was still doing fair. He later told me that her health was declining so I flew to Tennessee to meet her and to add a small part to her casket that he was building. She greeted me with a big hug and a “welcome home” and then said go help Rick with my final resting place. That was very humbling and bitter sweet. A very dedicated man he is! I know darn well I couldn’t have pulled it off. @drzaius, you done good, as Rick would say! 
Sorry Tom for the hj.

[RichardA]

Thanks for the mention guys, we do what we have to do for love!

[drzaius]

12 hours ago, RichardA said:

Thanks for the mention guys, we do what we have to do for love!

And wouldn't have it any other way.

[RichardA]

On 6/16/2022 at 8:50 AM, drzaius said:

And wouldn't have it any other way.

I have to add, that Ken inset a cross into the foot of my wife's casket and did it perfectly.  He's a good man.

[RichardA]

[Tom King]

This job will have to hold for a while longer.  Pam came back last night after the funeral yesterday, but we have someone renting the house.  They don't have kids or pets, don't drink, and didn't complain about no balusters.   I was prepared to offer a discount, but they were so carried away with the place that it didn't matter to them at all.

Maybe in another week.

 

[Coop]

I saw that Tom King posted on here last so I clicked on it and thought oh s*#t, he looks a lot like me. But then I realized, thank God, no one should be that unfortunate! 

[drzaius]

On 6/17/2022 at 11:41 AM, Tom King said:

This job will have to hold for a while longer.  Pam came back last night after the funeral yesterday, but we have someone renting the house.  They don't have kids or pets, don't drink, and didn't complain about no balusters.   I was prepared to offer a discount, but they were so carried away with the place that it didn't matter to them at all.

Maybe in another week.

 

That is a rather spectacular setting and it's no wonder they jumped on it.

[Tom King]

Since I'm having to wait a few days before I can do the next step, I ordered a couple of different kinds of Forstner bits to try.  The one I tried out of a Chinese set I had loads up with shavings, and I have to pick them out every hole.  I'll post pictures, and maybe even a video of how the different ones work.  The Amana has obviously tapered sides, so it should have less friction in the holes.

[drzaius]

4 hours ago, Tom King said:

Since I'm having to wait a few days before I can do the next step, I ordered a couple of different kinds of Forstner bits to try.  The one I tried out of a Chinese set I had loads up with shavings, and I have to pick them out every hole.  I'll post pictures, and maybe even a video of how the different ones work.  The Amana has obviously tapered sides, so it should have less friction in the holes.

I have a really nice set from Lee Valley that are made of HSS. If it doesn't say otherwise, they are probably carbon steel, which works well, but the least bit of heat kills the edge. Forstners are so easy to get hot. I've got mine smoking hot so many times, but it hasn't affected the hardness.

I got a little silly and bought a 29 piece set of Forstner/saw tooth bits that go up to 3" and have only used about 2/3 of them. But it sure is nice to have whatever size is needed. They are real quality stuff.

[BonPacific]

I've got the 16pc Freud set, though I don't think they're HSS, which has been a good spread with everything I've needed shy of a 3" which I bought separately. I've also got an old Ryobi set which work as beaters I can destroy when I need a rough hole that's nicer than a spade bit.

[Tom King]

One of the bits I ordered was some model by Freud with wavy edges.  Ideally, all I want is fast, clean, and ejects the chips.

[Tom King]

The Amana bit came today, so I tried it out.  No comparison to the Chinese one.  It cuts fast, clean, throws chips, and no drag in the hole-all different than the cheap one.  I can't imagine the Freud one will be any better, or that any one needs to be any better.  I'll rig up something to suck up the chips when I cut the 250+ holes. 

The people in the rental house wanted to know if they could continue their stay through the weekend.  I told them that they had been no trouble, didn't call me for anything, and if they did their own bed laundry that they could stay there as long as they liked for 300 (pretty big discount, but don't have to go through rental agent) a night.  They came back a little while later and asked if the Wives could stay through next week, and the men come back next weekend.  I told them that would be fine if they didn't mind me spending a little bit of time when they were on the lake to work on the handrails, and that the rails would be down for maybe a day or two at the time.  They didn't hesitate to say yes.  They had already said they want to come back next year, and I'm not worried about this bunch falling off the porch.

 

[Tom King]

 

[Tom King]

I drilled all the holes yesterday morning after making that video.  The Amana bit has no drag in the holes, and ejects the shavings so each hole was quick to drill.  I'm setting the balusters 3/4" deep.

When I set up for this type of line drilling, I set the rollers ever so slightly higher than the drill press table, so I can very easily move the piece into position.

The Shop Vac cleared most of the ejected shavings away.  The opening in the LV fence was too low to work with the 2" thick pieces.  One good thing the bit allowed, was for me to see the divider leg made marks on the line through the blur of the side clearance slots on that bit without even having to bend over.

I think it was something over 200 holes, but it went fairly quickly.  The holes down the line worked good for a left hand finger to go into for fine control of positioning.

I keep some of these bags of paver setting sand dry under a shed for mixing with lime putty for small batches of lime plaster or mortar working on old houses.

 

[drzaius]

Good demo Tom. You got star power!

[curlyoak]

On 6/29/2022 at 8:16 AM, Tom King said:

I think it was something over 200 holes, but it went fairly quickly.

It is all the precision work to get to this point that takes lots of time. 

Great video. I enjoyed it.

[Tom King]

The balusters finally came.  One box is broken open, and some are sliding out of the end, so who knows if there will be enough.  I didn't refuse them because I wanted them even if I have to order some more smaller boxes.

I decided to go simple, and just round over all the corners with a 1/2" round over bit.  That's done, so if I can work on them tomorrow, they'll get painted.  Maybe it really is getting closer.  It seems like it's taking forever, but it's hard to get any time at all away from the house.

All the puppies from the last two litters are gone now, so that will help.  When I'm working over there, I have to park my truck headed to the house, and get called back several times during any short work session to help Pam with my Mother.  I've been trying to get one step done each day that I can work.  Not many steps left now.

[Tom King]

It went pretty quickly to get them sanded, ready for paint, this morning.

I didn't get this old and in fair shape by breathing sanding dust.