Re: What Projects / Tasks do you have going on / to do??

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Looks good, but also looks unfinished without fascia boards over the ends of the rafters.  Once painted or stained I guess they won't stand out as much.

[RVR II]

Looks good, but also looks unfinished without fascia boards over the ends of the rafters.  Once painted or stained I guess they won't stand out as much.

Thanks! Yeah we're actually planning on staining it Monday with Flood Cedar color stain

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Looks good, but also looks unfinished without fascia boards over the ends of the rafters.  Once painted or stained I guess they won't stand out as much.

Thanks! Yeah we're actually planning on staining it Monday with Flood Cedar color stain

That color should look nice.  Other thing I was wondering about are the shingles along the top edge, hope they put extra staples or nails along the edge so a strong wind doesn't lift them.  A lot of shingles have glue but that doesn't hold for 10+ years like mechanical fasteners.  Or put a strip of drip edge along the top just as a 2nd method of preventing lift.

[RVR II]

Looks good, but also looks unfinished without fascia boards over the ends of the rafters.  Once painted or stained I guess they won't stand out as much.

Thanks! Yeah we're actually planning on staining it Monday with Flood Cedar color stain

That color should look nice.  Other thing I was wondering about are the shingles along the top edge, hope they put extra staples or nails along the edge so a strong wind doesn't lift them.  A lot of shingles have glue but that doesn't hold for 10+ years like mechanical fasteners.  Or put a strip of drip edge along the top just as a 2nd method of preventing lift.

Just saw this..
The cedar color turned out great! We're very sore from staining for nearly 7 hours straight then sorting and moving everything back under the new carport Yes the roofers did put extra nails on all 4 edges for storm resistance. I'm planning on having them come back to re-shingle my house possibly next year.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Replaced the rusty old lamp for the back porch, much easier job than the front, still lots of rust but the bolts holding everything came apart easily after the first few turns.

[RVR II]

I mentioned this in the Completely Random Thoughts thread about the vacant lot behind my house that was purchased back in April of this year and that the lot was completely cleared to make way for a future house to be constructed on it..
Well that forced me to expedite repairs to my back yard fence before construction begins; Chain link fence repair, 2 privacy fence panels and privacy lattice replaced.
Completed yesterday (Sunday):
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/pK50y_BJZcw" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/pK50y_BJZcw</a>

[MartyS (Gromit)]

At work they were throwing away a metal frame on wheels, took it home and just got done adding a plywood top and bottom shelf, it's going to be a nice workbench:



I thought about putting a nicer top on that frame, but had another idea while looking at butcher block tops, Lowes had some kitchen counter top sections that weren't too expensive.  So I picked up a $50 one and put it on top of the desk I've been using for model making and other fine work.  This is going to be a much better work area, and no more parts rolling off the back of the desk resulting in long searches for them.

[RVR II]

One final project for the year will be to repair my dining room ceiling that was damaged when my new HVAC condenser missed the drip pan in the attic by a foot and leaked through the dining room ceiling fan and damaged the ceiling sheetrock..
6 er so months later the sheetrock contractor has finally scheduled me in to come over this coming weekend to replace the damaged ceiling sheetrock. I went through my building supplies in my shed and I have plenty of both 1/2 inch sheetrock as well as 5/8 inch sheetrock and also plastic to hang over the shelves and doorways in the dining room to keep the sheetrock dust contained.
Spent the day removing everything out of the dining room because they don't know how much of the ceiling they will have to remove but they will know more once they get started. Everything labor wise will be covered by the HVAC company and this project will use up some of my extra sheetrock I've had stored for years from projects past

[RVR II]

The guys showed up right on time at 8am and after an hour of cutting and removing the damaged ceiling sheetrock, it's ready for 1 new sheet of 3/8" thick sheetrock. There was 1 x 4 in tongue and groove slat boards behind the sheetrock like I thought so all they had to do was run a few screws into the slat boards for reinforcement so the sheetrock can cover it over. Just install the sheetrock mud in the cracks and let it set till tomorrow morning.
They could be done by noon in time for NFL football this afternoon

[RVR II]

And onto yet another (unexpected) project; Electrical stuff
My Mega Shed I helped build almost 10 years ago has fluorescent lights that shine upwards and reflect off the arch ceiling and one ballast failed last year but the other one worked fine and shined enough light in the room until it failed a couple months back. I'm not an expert at replacing bad ballasts so I decided to install a light kit in the ceiling fan that's about 12+ feet high for the time being only to discover there's no power to the light kit wires
So I called an electrician friend that said he could come out around lunchtime today to see what he could do. While he's here I might get him to install some new ceiling fan/light switches in 4 rooms and eliminate the old dimmable light switches that don't work well with my LED light bulbs. Never used the dim settings much anyway.

[RVR II]

I was right, there was no power run to the light kit wires in the ceiling fan so he had to splice into the ceiling fan power wires to get them to work.
The ballasts need to be ordered and will run just under $100. They will be installed next weekend.
The 4 light and fan switches weren't too bad to replace except for the fact that the wiring diagram for the light and fan was backwards so all 4 had to be taken back out and rewired.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

My keyboard/piano X stand is too tall and my wrists were starting to bother me, the stands that are made for the piano cost $100 to $120 for what I'm sure is particle board, and only 3 pieces of it, so went to Lowe's and got some wood and made one myself, maple plywood and pine for the back for less than $40.

Didn't account for sinkage into the carpet so had to make some blocks to get it an inch taller.
Someday I'll probably get a set of those adjustable furniture feet and put them in the side panels.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Project that started 2 weekends ago and finished before I did the piano stand was adding to and rearranging my work area in the basement.  Added a cheap drill press, extended my compressed air line, and rearranged the shelving and storage.

Also took apart 2 clamp on lamps and using those parts and parts from an ugly spot light that was on my kitchen ceiling (replaced it the first year I was in the house) to make a flexible lamp for the work area and a spot light for the drill press table.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

And I also put a coat of dark walnut stain on that piano stand, may give it another coat in a week to make it a little darker:

[MartyS (Gromit)]

More work on my piano stand, I had bought some aluminum when I got the wood but when building the stand I thought the 3/4 inch plywood would be strong enough to not need any cross bracing.  After a week I decided the tiny flexing of the sides with the heavy piano on top was just a little too much, so I added the aluminum cross braces.  Now it's solid and doesn't flex at all.

Didn't want to smell stain for another week and even though I got furniture grade plywood it didn't take stain evenly so wasn't sure another coat would be any better.  So I used my airbrush with very thinned out black paint to darken the areas where the stain didn't do it's job.

Camera flash makes the color seem uneven, to the naked eye it looks much more even color and the grain of the wood shows through better than in the photo.