Watcha doing?

[tango]

This morning I put another coat of paint on my ceiling to cover over the patches where the drywall seams were showing through. Then a somewhat fast run, helping my wife put some lights up while it's warm enough to do it without freezing appendages that prefer not to be frozen, then I got some sockets connected in the room I'm working on. I stopped because I ran out of light and don't care much for working on the floor when I can only see because of a work light.

I got all but two sockets connected. The two remaining ones are recessed a bit so they need back box extenders, but to fit those I need to trim a little drywall away from immediately around the boxes, and I can't be bothered to do that in the dark. Once they are connected I can reactivate the circuit and test them all, then think about getting the ceiling fan and closet light connected up.

[Cloudwalker]

Friday I got a new "Santa" gig.  I will be playing "The Jolly Gentleman" for our county's historical society at an event at their Pioneer Village.  I will be ensconced in the train station  to greet the kids.  I'm thinking of getting a set of.those translation ear buds for next year.  After all Santa should be able to speak all languages and I certainly CAN'T.

[tango]

I got waylaid with some stuff this afternoon but managed to get the last two sockets wired and the whole circuit turned on and tested.

I need to tweak the positions of a couple of sockets - one is a little too far to one side and a slight glitch in the drywall is showing, so I need to shuffle it across a little. Another needs a small standoff made because the back box is recessed a little too awkwardly into the drywall for it to fit cleanly without it. It's no big deal, I can cut one from a piece of dowel and put the screw through the middle of it.

Next up is the ceiling fan. I would have done it tonight but I ran out of light and connecting electrical stuff using a work light gets a bit tedious.

[tango]

I cut the standoff from a scrap of thin plywood and now the socket is where I need it to be. I'll need to do a little repair work around the back box, the drywallers cut a little too much away so my options are either add a little filler around the box and paint over it, or replace all the surrounding plates with oversize ones. I don't feel like replacing all the plates, so a little filler it shall be.

I got the ceiling fan fitted and connected, and the closet light fitted and connected. It was fun fitting the closet light, I needed to drill a 4 1/4" hole through a 5/8" sheet of drywall. Needless to say that was a bit dusty. But now the electrics in there are mostly done, so I can think about window trim next.

ETA: For a small followup, a load of tools that are no longer needed in there are now put back in the basement, and I've been looking at cheap moving dollies to see if there's an easy way to move these radiators around.

[Cloudwalker]

I finished this year's Christmas poem last night.  Or, more accurately, very early this morning.   As often happens, the final stanza came around 1:30 AM as I was laying in bed going to sleep.  Per normal it woke me up and made me get up to write it down.

[tango]

I took a few days off from my house renovation. I need to get some wood to make window trim and didn't feel like rushing to the lumber store right before they closed on Friday.

Today it's a trip to Harbor Freight to get a couple of dollies to move these radiators. I found something that looks like it's intended to move cars - two dollies rated at 1500lb and crucially they have an indent in the platform which means I won't have to lift the radiator as high as I'd previously feared. My hope is that I can lift one end and get my wife to slide a dolly underneath, then do the same at the other end, then wheel the thing to put it somewhere else. The only question is whether the wheels will damage my floor, but hopefully I can put some heavy cardboard down to prevent that.

Once the radiators are out I can fiddle with the floor - another round of scraping, sanding and staining.

[tango]

The dollies are acquired. I haven't used them yet, I had a bunch of other stuff to do this afternoon and evening. Maybe tomorrow I can do battle with the radiators, in between helping my wife get food prepared for Thursday.

[RabbiKnife]

[tango]

I went for a run this morning. 35 degrees and 15mph winds, gusting to 35mph. Among the ideas I had for today, going for a run wasn't one of the better ones. But I completed my run, made room for some turkey, and then got down to the serious business of eating a heavy meal.

My new granddaughters wanted to play after the meal. I was somewhat less mobile than before the meal, partly due to having a very full tummy, but still got to play with them for a while.

[Cloudwalker]

Went to the new Wicked For Good yesterday.  Excellent movie.  I highly recommend it providing you saw the first movie.

[Cloudwalker]

  Hurricane season is officially over.  And, for once, not a single Hurricane made landfall in the US.  I ordered new Santa boots in November.  I called the company this morning because they hadn't arrived yet.  They traced them and said they had arrived at the Orlando PO on Friday.  So there is a chance I'll get them before the end of the week.

[tango]

Still kinda stalling at the thought of trying to move two radiators that each weigh at least double what I weigh. I have everything I need to move them except the inclination to lift them to slide wheeled doodads underneath them.

I can't sand the floor until the radiators are gone, so I might as well quit stalling and get on with it. It's just that the thought of lifting one end of a radiator high enough that my wife can slide a platform underneath it doesn't fill me with joy.

[teddyv]

Still kinda stalling at the thought of trying to move two radiators that each weigh at least double what I weigh. I have everything I need to move them except the inclination to lift them to slide wheeled doodads underneath them.

I can't sand the floor until the radiators are gone, so I might as well quit stalling and get on with it. It's just that the thought of lifting one end of a radiator high enough that my wife can slide a platform underneath it doesn't fill me with joy.

I was in tango-mode this weekend as new carpets are coming today. Empty out rooms, pull out the olde carpet and underlay, patch and paint walls...

[tango]

I decided to try my hand at something new. I've seen a few bandsaw boxes and couldn't figure out how they were made - on the face of it the cuts aren't possible. So I did a bit of research with Google and decided to see how it would work out.

I only have a small tabletop bandsaw - I bought it to help cut blanks for carving spoons - so rapidly hit the limitations of my saw. But I did make my first ever bandsaw box, which is now finally finished. Today's job was lacquering it, having glued everything together, stained the outline and cut tiny handles to put on the very small drawers.

It's going to be a Christmas present for one of my new granddaughters. She's 15, so I hope she likes having something personal that's hand made by her new Pap. My wife loves it, as does her mom, so we're hopeful.

Because I hit the limitations of my bandsaw so soon I'm debating whether to simply deal with making small boxes (two dimensions need to be 3.5" or less, to fit in the saw, or drop several hundred dollars on a bigger saw that will also have the drawback of being heavy enough that I can't just pick it up and put it somewhere else. One big advantage of the one I have now is that it only weighs about 50lb so moving it around is a trivial process. The ones I've been looking at range from about $600 - 1400 and weigh from 150-280lb.

I wish I could gauge how much I'd actually use a bigger saw, I don't want to drop four figures on a saw and find I kinda lose interest in boxes after making half a dozen of them, but also dont want to spend $6-700 on a saw and hit the limitations within a few months again.

So anyway, if you lot are stuck for ideas what to get me for Christmas, consider the above a hint

[Cloudwalker]

I decided to try my hand at something new. I've seen a few bandsaw boxes and couldn't figure out how they were made - on the face of it the cuts aren't possible. So I did a bit of research with Google and decided to see how it would work out.

I only have a small tabletop bandsaw - I bought it to help cut blanks for carving spoons - so rapidly hit the limitations of my saw. But I did make my first ever bandsaw box, which is now finally finished. Today's job was lacquering it, having glued everything together, stained the outline and cut tiny handles to put on the very small drawers.

It's going to be a Christmas present for one of my new granddaughters. She's 15, so I hope she likes having something personal that's hand made by her new Pap. My wife loves it, as does her mom, so we're hopeful.

Because I hit the limitations of my bandsaw so soon I'm debating whether to simply deal with making small boxes (two dimensions need to be 3.5" or less, to fit in the saw, or drop several hundred dollars on a bigger saw that will also have the drawback of being heavy enough that I can't just pick it up and put it somewhere else. One big advantage of the one I have now is that it only weighs about 50lb so moving it around is a trivial process. The ones I've been looking at range from about $600 - 1400 and weigh from 150-280lb.

I wish I could gauge how much I'd actually use a bigger saw, I don't want to drop four figures on a saw and find I kinda lose interest in boxes after making half a dozen of them, but also dont want to spend $6-700 on a saw and hit the limitations within a few months again.

So anyway, if you lot are stuck for ideas what to get me for Christmas, consider the above a hint

Would love to see the box.  My dad was a woodwork.  But he was more into lathe wotk.