Projects

I've got a few projects that I've done, or am working on.

The Studebaker came with a ring of keys, but that was all. It has a hidden release for the shaved handled door. My dad had some sort of fob with the mechanism to release it, but I have no idea what became of it. It wasn't hard to make up a design of my own to replace it, but I had to have something worthy.

I bought some cherry wood sheets and fashioned it into a new generation 512 key chain, with the requisite mechanism contained therein. Sanded it down to buttery smooth, and I'm quite pleased with the result!!!

On the subject of key chains, several years ago the younger came up with his alter ego character, Catnip. When I was doing CAD design, I took a few moments and came up with a couple of designs for a Catnip key chain. Back around that time, one of his friends was taking classes for CAD design and machining, and I sent him the file hoping he would have the machine time to whip one out, but that didn't happen. If I get back into the game, maybe I'll get a chance to do it myself.

Back a little before Christmas, he had made mention that he was interested in getting a wood Catnip medallion made up. It would have been cool to have made it up and had it ready before Christmas came around, but that didn't happen. I'd started in on it, but it wasn't ready for prime time yet. In both of the pictures I've got of it here, it's on the jig saw that my dad had gotten from somewhere and didn't have a place for or a use for, so he had given it to me. I've done a few things on it, and I did a lot of the medallion on it.

When I was drilling the eye or string holes (I'm pretty sure it was one of the string holes) it split down the length of the left side. I used some wood glue to put it back together, and it came out pretty good. I can still see where the break was. Bought a length of leather string and set it up on it. Kind of looks like he's got a headband on with the leather string!!! I was pleased with the way it came out (other than the break) and the younger likes it.

It's been more than 10 years since I had the windows replaced by the most incompetent and crooked contractors shysters I've ever done business with, YYB Construction, and I'm still cleaning up the mess they left!!! They always say you'll save so much money with double pane windows, but I haven't seen it. They are better than what we had, but not so much on the savings. Oh, and naturally the rat bastards never made with the actual window price information so that they could be deducted from our taxes. The window frames were left a mess, as you see.

They had been behind some light blue curtains, so they were largely out of sight, but I knew the shoddy condition behind them and have wanted to fix them up for a while. That's been another project that's still in the works. So far I've finished the two in the corner where I had my work desk, and they came out excellent!!! The two behind the couch are still in process, and their location behind the couch makes it a bit more difficult!!!

We have 5 panel doors in several of the rooms, and I've painted the transitions around the panels and the door frames in different colors for various rooms. The bathroom is black, the kitchen is green, and the front room is orange. If I get to it, I'll probably do the bedroom purple and the laundry room yellow. The doors have been used as the backdrops for a few of my shirt posts, as well as the costume the younger had on the most recent Halloween. The frames of the windows are also to be painted to match. The orange had been a quart that my parents had left over from some project, and the original paint had gone over, so I had to pick up another quart.

Oh yea, don't know if I ever made mention, but I bought a window mount air conditioner years ago, and took one of the sliding window panes out and added plywood sheet with a 12” x 24” Plexiglas window (the largest size my previous employer carried) installed. In the upper portion I put in an electrical junction box with a motion detector light over the outside stairs. This may be the first picture I've posted of it!!! I've been thinking for a while of getting a mini split air conditioner system installed, and if I do, I'll have to find a new way to mount the motion detector light.

I'm really happy with the way the two that are completed came out!!! It will be nice when the other two are done. I'm also thinking of doing an accent wall on the wall with the heater and TV on it. I plan on using the same orange, but starting at the top with the full color, and fading it lighter as it goes down. That wall has been splotchily repainted when the crap improvements were going on.

The final touch, my wife found some curtains that go nicely with the color. I repainted the curtain rods black to match the rings, and it came together really nicely!!!

Snowball Effect

I had mentioned at the end of my water heater post that I would likely be installing a new faucet in the bathroom. I did.

After I had installed the water heater I was talking to my friend who had recently bought the house mentioned in the Halloween post from last year. It's an old house, and the plumbing hasn't been updated. He mentioned how often one repair project will snowball into having to do something else, or more than you had intended.

We had a very basic single handle faucet that I'd put in years ago, and I know I'd replaced the cartridge one time. It had corroded around the base to where it had a couple low level holes on the base, so there was really no excuse to keep it. We spent quite a while looking at different styles, and finally settled on another single handle unit with a higher spout. It's installable with a 3-hole sink, or a single hole sink. With the 3-hole, as we have, it gets an oval plate that covers the other 2 holes. It was in stock, and as a bonus, it comes with a new, pop up drain (handy, since the old one had the pull stopper style).

The faucet installation was incredibly easy, and I was thrilled with how it came out!!! The new drain, though...

First of all, the old one was a pain to get out. You have to unscrew it from the chrome flange in the sink, and naturally it didn't want to come. Ended up bending the edge of it up, and got it's number. Hard part is over, right??? Went to put the new one in, and the threaded portion goes through with not much trouble, but it wouldn't go all the way down, stopping a couple of inches short. I tried to force the issue, but it wasn't working. I saw how it was looking chewed up at the end of the threads, and noticed it looked a little larger. Pulled out my calipers, and sure enough, the shank past the threads is an even 0.100” larger!!! What the hell??? I got the box and receipt together and took it back to the store to see if anything can be done. I had a feeling all of them are going to be like that. Of course, I wasn't taking the faucet part back, it's fine. The guy who helped me was great, since the kit wasn't complete, he said I could buy another, swap the drain and then return the whole thing. Of course, I was going to just check it before I got into all that, and as suspected, they have the same thing. Looked at the stand alone drains, and all pop ups have the same design, as did the pull rod type. They had ones with a grate that had the same size all the way up, but no. I took my new old box and drain and walked right out.

I considered buying a whole new sink bowl (maybe one with a single hole!!! And ours is a little worn looking, not terrible though) but I'm already way further into this than I wanted. I headed home, pulled out my little die grinder and went to work on the drain hole. It scattered brown dust everywhere, and stank, but I eventually got it hogged out enough for the wider portion, and after a little clean up, it went together without any more hitches.

Glad to be done with that!!!

Kutcher Swallows a Water Heater

Welcome to the season of blogging very much!!!

On Monday afternoon my wife was doing the dishes, and she says, “Why isn't the water warming up??” Huh. I've heard this kind of thing before...

Down to the basement I go, and sure enough, it's wet on the floor around the water heater. Not a lot, I've seen worse, but bad enough to put out the pilot light. I tried re firing it, and it came on for a moment, but wouldn't stay going. Back upstairs, I dig through my warranty file, thinking it was a while ago, but not that long. Thought I had a 10 year warranty, but that was wishful thinking, it was only 6. Now, when did I buy it??? Here's where there's a practical application for blogging!!!

When I first did the math in my head, I'd thought it was just about 7 months out of warranty, but it's actually 2 years and 7 months. Shopped around that night and ordered the same brand, but with a 12 year warranty. Not making that mistake again!!! Or rather, I'm paying the extra $300 to get one with twice the warranty. I'd also broke loose the water inlet and outlet pipes, and ran a hose out to the street and started it draining.

I don't think I've made mention recently, but I'm back on the weekend shift for a little more than a year now. When I'd started doing this shift, it was 4 hours on Saturdays, and Tuesday through Friday for 9 hours a day. Once again, they bump your pay some for doing the weekend shift, but in my current role, it's a good amount more than when I was filling. Found out after I'd started, when the company has a paid holiday and it falls on a day you have as your day off... they give you your day off. No extra, no you get to take a different day off. I voiced my view on it and was told, “Oh, it all evens out!” SO, for Memorial Day, Labor Day, and both Christmas and New Years I got boned. When the time came around this year, I had a couple of requests. First, can I get a different day off, either Tuesday or Wednesday, and is it possible to start my Saturday shift later. I had been starting on Saturday afternoons at 3:00, and it put a time crimp in the afternoons sometimes, I asked to start later, up to 6:00 PM, and they came through with starting at 5:00, and so far (2 weekends thus far) I've liked it fine. And, long story short, now I have Tuesdays off!!!

The younger and I got in the wife's Matrix and headed over to pick up the new water heater. Took a bunch of rope, being unsure how it would fit. Slid the front seats all the way forward, and it slid right in , and the hatch closed without issue!!! If Scruffy can do it, then so can the Kutch!!! (None of us ever call it Kutcher, it's always the Toyota or the Matrix) Will It Fit: Matrix Edition part II!!! Driving back was a challenge, though, I was so far forward I couldn't really move my right foot over to the brake, so I was 2-footing it!!!

The younger and I were able to move it around fairly easily, the hardest part was the 4 steps from the street to the foot of the house. The box had instructions to cut along a dotted line around an inch up from the bottom, so that's what I did, and from there was able to roll it on the edge of the base pretty easy. The removal of the old one was easier this time, too, it seemed to have drained most every drop by having the hose attached to the drain all night. None of the fittings fought me, and about the hardest thing was locating a roll of Teflon pipe sealing tape!!! I know I had more that I'd bought from my work, but I found a roll that may have come with our house, so over 25 years old, but it worked just fine!!!

When I had gotten up on Tuesday (actually before I got out of bed) I had the thought that I should take the aerators off the kitchen and bathroom sinks, since having the water off gets a bunch of air in the lines, and it seems to knock a lot of crud loose when it comes back on. Didn't do it, and the bathroom one ended up nearly plugged. It didn't come off easy, but I flowed good once I got it off and cleaned out... but it kind of ovaled from the removal, and it seems like it's leaking down the inside now. Might be able to get it fixed up, but I'll probably be installing a new faucet soon.

Rando Blast

As always, there's a lot that happens, and I haven't been doing great at keeping up here. I'll catch a little up today.

A couple weeks ago I put in a new ceiling fan in the front room. The old one was one of the early home improvements I had done, and it was a bit more involved, as there was nothing there before!!! I added a junction box and a cross joist, and ran wiring inside a flexible conduit. The wiring was left as installed when the clowns re wired the place. Anyway, the old fan, in addition to looking a bit old, was getting noisy, and after I installed the one in the bedroom, I missed having a remote. I'm pleased with the results.

A month or so ago Menace from The Woody Show was doing an opening at a new Raising Cane's, so I took off work a couple hour early, and we headed down. The older boy was a fan of Cane's, but I'd never had it fresh, and it loses something when it's re heated. They were doing giveaways, and I got a sticker and key chain, and the younger got a new Woody Show T-shirt, which he accidentally grabbed two of them, so we both got one!!!

Bort was there, too, along with Heavy T, the King of Whittier. Speaking of shirts, Bort (real name Brett, but he got some critical email years ago where they called him Bort, and it's pretty much his name now!!!) liked my “Large Marge Sent Me” shirt I'd picked up at the Cabazon Dinosaurs gift shop.

Last week we were coming out to the car on a rainy afternoon, and my wife missed the last step and landed on her head. She also scraped her nose, and it was bleeding, and it looked like a gallon in the rain.

Got her back upstairs (after getting her up) and out of the rain, and she had the most huge cartoon lump you ever saw on her head!!! Nope, we're going to the emergency room to get that checked out!!! On the way, I pulled up my camera and told her to smile, and she totally did!!!

They X-rayed her and gave her a CAT scan, but (ha ha) they found nothing. One of the nurses had a bunch of tattoos on his arms, one of which was an asthma inhaler with a smiley sticker on it. The doctor told her to ice the lump, and she'd probably have a black eye, maybe two, the next day. He called it!!!

The younger had his birthday. Last year he never got to have the get-together with his friends that he wanted, but it worked out this year. One of his friends gave him the Baja Blast can-looking drink bottle, it's actually a double wall unit, really nice, but doesn't hold much. We got wings and one of those giant pizzas (it's been a long time since we've gotten on of those, I think a bunch of Caeser's would have been a better way to go, but oh well). The giant pizza place was always a pain to park at, but they just recently opened a Wing Stop just a little ways up, so I was able to park there and walk over. They played Binding of Isaac: 4 Souls. Several had to leave early, but four of them played until one had 9 souls!!!

I had repainted under the kitchen sink last year one time the drain had backed up. It was in bad shape under there. I added a couple motion detector LED light strips. Just recently I added some sub floor, and tiled under there. Looks better, but I question my tiling ability and am re thinking if I want to tile the bathroom myself. I had some large tiles, and was almost able to do it with just 4, but of course my OCD had me add the little strips on either side and center everything!!!

I've been kind of hoarding stardust in Pokemon GO, just recently got to over 10 million!!!

Fun fact, the gift shop for the Cabazon Dinosaurs is in the belly of a dinosaur!!!

About a month ago, we were in the neighborhood of this place, Charley's Philly Steaks. I'd never heard of the place, but I generally like Philly cheese steaks, except for I can't do bell peppers. Some places, they're part of the mix and you can't get it without them, but you're able to get it your way here!!!

The younger had a teriyaki chicken sandwich, and the wife and I had cheese steaks. They have wings, but we had enough stuff. They were quite good sandwiches, but the prices were a bit on the high side.

For Christmas both last year and the year before, I bought a multi pack of Chicago deep dish pizzas. This year was Nancy's, where it's a stuffed pizza. Pretty good, but could have been bigger.

The year before I bought Lou Malnati's, which were bigger. Spent the same amount, roughly, but got only 4 instead of 6, but they were bigger. Photos thought they were cake!!!

When I went to install the ceiling fan, I turned the light on the old one off and went out and switched the breaker I thought went to it. Came back in, and the light was still on, so I had they younger come out and observe while I went through the other breakers. None of them shut it off, either, but when I did the first one again, he said the light flickered. Forgot, years ago I picked up a set of LED light bulbs with a self-contained battery back up!!!

The younger watched a few cooking videos, and wanted to try his hand making Monte Cristo sandwiches, and fried cheese curds. The cheese curds had a beer batter, and as always when cooking with beer, I wanted something with flavor. We headed off to BevMo! for the first time in a while. After locating a suitable base, we checked out the other stuff, as we do. I liked the Rat Bastard, but we didn't get any. They had Baja Blast in cans there, and since it's been hard to find, we picked up a 12. A couple weeks later, I was ordering some stuff to pick up from WalMart, and they had it there, too, for a much better price.

While we were doing the curds, we had plenty of batter, so cut up some onions for rings. Check 'em out cooking, it looks like The Riddler's cooking corner!!!

While I was on the ragtop quest, one of the candidates on my list was the PT Cruiser. As I've said, we've always been on the plus side of the polarizing styling. Now that I have the Sky, I haven't been really looking, but there's this one that I drive by pretty often. Well, a few weeks ago, a for sale sign shows up in it's window!!! Naturally, there's no price on the sign, just the number. I took this picture that shows the bulk of the damage below the taillight and the number. Eventually remembered and called the number, and the guy speaks nothing but Spanish. Had a friend call for me and get some of the details. It has 140,000 miles, current smog, and he's only asking $1,800!!! Like I need a hole in my head, but I'm considering it...

Baja Blast from the fountain at Taco Bell just hits different.

We all got our new glasses recently. The younger has had his for 4 or 5 years, and he thinks his new ones are like everything is in HD now!!! In the same center as the glasses place (I didn't have my exam with my favorite, Dr. Hu) there's a Jamba Juice, and we got some. In a scenario reminiscent of the Big Mac, after we were out enjoying our juicy treats, one of the workers came out and said they'd made an extra of one if we wanted it!!!

Roadwork

It's been a while, again. Here's a post I've been meaning to put together.

Back at the end of January, they started in on working on our street. The foreman for the project stopped by and told me what was going to happen.

They were putting in new natural gas lines for our street. They mapped out where they planned on cutting up the street, came back with a concrete saw and cut the outline, and then peeled up the concrete.

They started out great, taking care to cover the trench with steel plate, and even going so far as to weld the plates together!!! The next day, they came back and pulled up the plates, then put them back at the end of the day. They only did that two days.

Of course, they dug up our yard, too, to add in the pipe. The place where the gas line entered is about 10 feet below where the meter is, so they proposed moving the meter to the other side of the house, so it's only around 4 feet. It's not a big deal to me, so I let them go ahead and do it.

Here's where things got interesting. I believe it was early March when this happened. They had ran pipe across the front of the house to where the meter was, and had the supply pipe run to the other side of the house. On a Friday, they let us know the gas would be off for a while, while they connected everything.

They disconnected the meter, and it was late in the day and they hadn't re connected it. The pipe crossing over wasn't quite ready. I called the foreman, and he told me the gas company was going to put the meter back on where it was. They didn't. The technician said his work order was to install it to the new location, and that wasn't ready.

We got in touch, and the next morning they sent another tech out to put the meter back where it started. He then went to light the pilot light on the heater, and broke the control knob!!! Naturally, the week that followed was about the coldest weather of the year!!! It was Thursday before they got another tech out to replace it. Bonus, I've finally got a control with a thermostat connection. At that time, they also discovered that the valve at the water heater was leaking, so they had capped that line off until they could replace that valve. It made for an unpleasant week.

It was weeks after that before they came back and cemented the street back together as well as the four places they'd sawed the walkway by my house. The cement crew was slow and messy compared to the plumbing crew. One of the steel plates was sliding out of place down the street. One day while they were cementing the street across the street, they hadn't blocked off the street, and a couple of cars came down then had to back up the street, rolling through the wet cement.

And, when they wrapped up, the boy and I both went over and did a little vandalisim!!!

The boy did his character, CatNip, and I, once again, put the mark of the 512!!!

Flushing More $$$

A few weeks ago, we had another clog in the plumbing. As I have previously stated, old construction sometimes has these issues.

The main area it tends to clog seems to be the upstairs toilet, where it goes from horizontal to the vertical drain pipe. When we had first moved in, I had un clogged it by going up on the roof, and using a long pipe down the roof vent. Later, I made up a weight with spikes around the outside with an eyebolt on it, that I would attach to a rope and drop down the vent.

I broke out the weight and used it, for the first time in a long time, and cleared it out. Over the weekend before last, it happened again. I returned to the roof, and tried again. I could tell the clog was moving down, but it didn't seem to break through like it has on previous occasions. Sure enough, the water had gone down in the toilet, so I tried flushing it, and it started backing up into the tub!!!

I called the number of a drain cleaning company I'd gotten a card from when they were out clearing my neighbors' drain, but they said they would have to come the next day. I called the same company who had done the outside line back in 2013, and they were out in an hour. They ran their camera into the pipe, and declared it was not only clogged, but had a break in the line down under the basement. Well, you know, a man will pay a good amount to have his fancy indoor plumbing!!!

In the first and fourth picture, you can see a 2" PVC pipe with a rubber adapter to the 4" steel pipe. That was one of the first plumbing jobs I'd done not long after we had moved in. That's the drain from the washing machine, which was broken by the first guy who'd came out last time. When we moved in, it was dropped into the 4" pipe, with a bunch of rags stuffed around it, and it was one of the first things that would back up. I added the rubber adapter. I always kind of wondered what happend under the concrete, it's right next to the pipe from upstairs. Once it was dug up, I got to see what happens. This is in the water heater room, and the other shot is in the walk in closet or pantry on the other side of the wall, just behind the downstairs bathroom.

Anyway, they shunted the washer drain right into the main pipe, with a clean out added in, replaced most of the pipe, and did a trenchless coating on the remaining stretch between the inside and the outside. These guys aren't cheap, but they are about the only home service repair people that I haven't had any complaints about, so I'm OK with it!!!

And, once the concrete was replaced, I was able to put the mark and date on it!!!

ReCover-Tree Point-0

This isn't my first time, or even my second time, but here we go again!!!

As you can see, the claw post is way past needing re done again. I've had the idea in my head on how to improve the design for a while.

Every time I've re done it, I've learned lessons. The first time, I learned an important lesson, namely, it takes more than 50' of rope to cover the post!!! The second time came out much improved, but it takes a long time to do it. I completely re-imagined the construction for round 3!!!

I got some 1 x 3" and some 1 x 4" clear pine, a couple of lengths of 3' x 3/8-16" threaded rod, a couple 3/8-16" to 1/4-20" adapters, and some 1/4-20" flat head socket screws, as well as various screws and nuts and washers. I made up a long hollow post and a stubby topper from the 1 x 4's, and another long hollow post of the 1 x 3".

I set a couple of blocks in the ends of the 4" posts with indexing blocks, and the hole pattern for the 3/8-16" threaded rod. I drilled a large hole for the rope in the end of the 3" post, and wrapped it in the rope.

I drilled the same pattern in the existing base (the only part of the original, and it's getting pretty swiss-cheesed!) and attached the 3/8-16" threaded rod with nuts on the top and bottom. Then, slid the long 4", the rope-wrapped 3", and the stubby 4" topper, put on the thread adapters, and capped it off with a thin square of plywood with the 1/4-20" flat head socket screws.

And there it is!!! Finally got it so it's pointing mostly straight up!!!

And another shot, just to bask in it's glory!!!

How does the man-cat like it??? Hmmm, the base smells the same... but the other parts are different...

Aw, what the heck, I'll claw it!!! I knew he would!!! With the old one, he'd hunker down low and claw at the bottom portion, it looked rather uncomfortable. With this new design, all it requires is to remove the flat head screws, the adapters, and it can be re-wound easily... with, what I think is less than 25' of rope!!! The claw zone is right at the height he likes, too!!! I'm very pleased with the results, and so is he!!!

Clawing so fast, his paws are just a blur!!!