The Door (Part 2)

I got the door assembled at home and transported it to Basking Ridge where it was then installed. When Timmy saw me with my tools, he quickly got his own tool box and carried it into the kitchen commenting, "This is heavy." Both Timmy and Bridget watched me carefully and provided helpful assistance by handing me nails as needed and by asking many question along with showing me that they had toy tools similar to mine. The installation went smoothly. I now must finish off the top, install catches and make a smooth transition to the top closet shelf.

 

While this is going on, I must continue with the Great Shelving Adventure, but cutting the wood to proper length, sanding and having Harry help me apply stain.

The Door

I have been working on Teddy and Patti's door for their closet and hope to be able to deliver and install it this Saturday. So far things have gone well. I am putting a poly stain on it and I'm finding it tough to spot little runs of varnish which show up quite plainly the next day after it is dry. I am building a frame from measurements that I took at their house, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything fits ok. If it doesn't quite fit like I hope, Timmy got some tools for Christmas, I think and maybe he can help me fix it. Then we will proceed to Harry's shelving. I didn't buy the stain for that yet because I want to give Harry a few samples from which to choose. Maybe that's making things more complicated, but it's his room and I want him to be happy when it is all done.

The Great American Shelving Adventure (Part 2)

 I went to Home Depot today to get shelving for my grandson Harry's room. I don't know how these stores make a profit with the lousy wood they sell. They had a lot of 1x10x8 shelving so I thought it would be easy go get what I needed, but each piece I picked up was worse than the one before it. I had gone through three quarters of their supply to get descent pieces. All of which was a piece of cake compared with my visit to Lowes the other day. I looked at the line by the cash registers and there was none, so I got my cart and loaded up with a piece of plywood for his desk and shelving brackets, along with a door for Timmy and Bridget's house. When I reached the register there was one couple ahead of me and then it happened. Every cash register in the store went dead. All the lights were on, but the registers were not. The couple ahead of me had to leave to get their daughter from school, but now there were all these people behind me. I don't know where they came from; the store seemed empty a few moments before. Everyone just stood there, customers and employees alike, not knowing what to do. Finally a woman came out of the office carrying plastic boxes with paper forms and announced that the cashiers would have to manually write up each item and since nothing has a price tag on it anymore, they would have to GO BACK INTO THE STORE AND LOOK FOR EACH ITEM TO GET THE PRICE!!! Fortunately, I had a pretty good idea of what my items cost and they accepted my numbers, except for two sizes of brackets, which I didn't know and which another employee went back to check while the cashier was handwriting everything. I was lucky. My cashier said she had another job in a clothing store and that they always had to write things up manually. There was generally a chorus of groans from the other cashiers that "We never did this before. How do we do this? We haven't been trained on what to do." To pay, I gave the girl my Lowes credit card which they laid under a piece of paper and proceeded to rub with a pencil to get an impression of it. I didn't mind so much the time I wasted because the whole thing was such a hoot.

  

I now have most of (maybe all) the shelving and brackets I need. I want to let it dry a little before I do anything else with it. Tomorrow, I'll look for some stain. I hope that won't be as adventuresome. In the meantime, where's that dram of Scotch?

The Handyman

We had a man in today from Roto Rooter to clean out our house drain and he remarked on seeing my workshop that "You must be a handyman." I though that yes, I guess I am a handyman, but not just any handyman. I have a special calling in life. I knew for years that I had a destiny in home repairs, from digging trenches to put in light posts, remodeling the second floor and putting in a new bathroom at our former home in Ewing, building a darkroom and shelves at or home in Aberdeen to removing bushes, digging tons of dirt, building porch steps and more shelving at our present home. In fact, I have built so many shelves, I suggested to my spouse that my tombstone should read, "He Built Shelves." I have repaired water lines, faucets, tight doors, rebuilt kitchen cabinets, replaced or added electrical outlets, wired rooms for stereo speakers, wallpapered and painted, refinished floors and the list goes on. I recently bought a pressure washer [family take note] to clean gutters, remove paint, clean soffits and outdoor equipment. I am truly a handyman. No, not a handyman, I am The Handyman of Morning Glory Alley. 

The Table Saw

Recently, my daughter said to me, "Father dear, oh Father dear, you have written about Scotch and about kayaking, but, alas and forsooth, you have written nary a word about a table saw which is part of the name of your venerable blog." When your daughter speaks to you in such a way you first wonder if she has been reading too much Medieval literature and then you decide that, lo, she is right, I have written nary a word about a table saw, so, I will set about to correct that situation.

A few weeks ago I bought a new table saw. It is a Ridgid model sold by Home Depot. Ridgid Tools is a part of the Emerson line of companies. Emerson was founded in 1890 as the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company and initially produced reliable fans. When I was a young boy, I had an Emerson phonograph. For those who may not remember, or are too young to know, a phonograph is a machine that spins a large plastic disk, called a record, upon which a tone arm is placed to produce music or other sound. Today it is often referred to as a turntable, except that a turntable usually lacks the phonograph's amplifier and speaker. I recall that my family subsequently acquired an Emerson High Fidelity phonograph with an automatic record changer and an Emerson television set. I should mention that I had an aunt who worked for Emerson Electric at the time.

 

Lest the reader get the impression that there was some nostalgic connection between the Emerson appliances of my youth and this brand of table saw, be assured that such is not the case. When I buy something like a tool, I usually try to do as much research as I can on the internet and by visiting stores to look at the item, which can be revealing and bring about a different impression than simply reading a description.

 

For many years my saw of choice has been and is a radial arm saw. I have had several over the years and find that I can cut on it about 80 percent of what I need to cut. For wide panels I have used a hand held power circular saw. There are those who advocate the purchase of a table saw as the first bench tool that a woodworker should undertake. Their arguments have merit, but I have been happy with my radial arm saw.

 

Still, there are things that can be done more accurately and easier on a table saw. I thought to incorporate a small one into my workbench and have it act as supplemental support for pieces being cut on my radial arm saw and vice versa. I had in mind a small saw, but when I looked at some and read about them, most were little more than junk. I don't have the space for what I would really like which is a stationary saw. When we moved into our present home with a full basement from a house with no basement, I looked at the cellar an envisioned a wonderful workshop, with a stationary tool here, a stationary tool there and stationary tools everywhere. Things did not turn out to be that way, all for the better actually.

 

Our cellar has been developing into something like a recreation room with a pool table, train set, craft table, stereo and wood stove, not to mention the infamous slot machine. The train set (O gauge) was beginning to take up the entire cellar area and I was getting resentful of the presence of the pool table which prevented me from creating an even larger railroad empire. I disassembled the 8 foot long craft table and began surrounding the hapless pool table with train track. Despite reading of enthusiasts who actually bought adjacent houses so they could expand their layouts, I had an epiphany and decided that, for now, that wasn't for me. I radically reduced the size until my layout is now approximately 8' x 10'. With the help of She Who Must Be Obeyed, I fit most of the accessories from my larger layout onto it. There is now space that can actually be used for something like sawing wood on my new table saw.

 

My workshop is separated from this area by a partition wall and shares the space with a laundry tub and clothes washer and dryer. I find that it is quite adequate for most projects. I even made raised panel doors and new drawer fronts for our kitchen cabinets there.

I thought about writing an ode to my table saw and for some reason the song "Dunderbach" keeps coming to mind. My late father-in-law loved to sing this and many other songs at family gatherings. I recently transposed a VHS tape onto a DVD including footage of him signing this song. I didn't remember all the words and figured that I could watch the DVD and reverse it until I wrote down the words. Then I decided to try checking the internet. Wow, I couldn't believe how much there was out there about "Dunderbach," or "Dunderbeck," or "Johnnie Verbeck" as he is variously named. I will allow any interested readers the pleasure of doing a Google search on "Dunderbach Oh Dunderbach" to find the many posts on this old folk song. In the meantime, here is a little ditty:

 

ODE TO A TABLE SAW

Oh Table Saw, oh Table Saw, you cut the wood so clean

You are an orange wonder, a really neat machine

Now all the boards and scraps of wood

Will never more be seen,

They'll all be turned to something else

By Grampy's new machine.

 

That's probably enough of that. The fact that I have not written about my table saw until now may have something to do with the fact that I have yet to cut an actual piece of wood with it. I did turn it on and checked all of the surfaces for true and found everything to be well adjusted right out of the box. The table saw, besides being a real thing, is, in this blog, a symbol for all things relating to crafts, woodworking and home improvements. Into which category, a dram of Scotch, kayaking or a table saw will I fit my other interests: toy trains, attempting to play the banjo and photography? I guess you'll have to check back to find out.

The Great American Shelving Adventure (Part 1)

I promised my grandson, Stephen that I would help him build a bookcase for his bedroom. I should have left it at that, but I had to open my mouth and suggest that he might like adjustable shelving with some type of desk and storage space. That sounded good to him as long as there is a trap door someplace in it, like a secret compartment. I asked what he wanted to store in the compartment, so I could get an idea of the size it should be and it turns out he plans to store himself in it. A little larger compartment than I thought, but, oh well.

I went to the Home Depot near my office to price the uprights, brackets, wood, etc. I have to say I was dismayed. The collection of uprights was a jumble of different sizes and only a few of each. The labels on the shelves had the sizes cut off so it was difficult to know with which product they were associated. I managed to get one of the uprights out of the tangle and found that it was made by Rubbermaid. It was clearly metal and not rubber. I didn't quite know what to make of that so I headed to the lumber department and was even more dismayed that I wasn't able to find any 5/4 pine which I think goes better with the hardware I want to getthan 3/4 inch shelving. Tomorrow I will head off to Lowes and the saga will continue.

The Soap Dispenser Caper

When I installed a new sink in our kitchen, I inserted a soap dispenser in a hole in the top rim of the sink. That was only a year or so ago and I can still remember the contortions I went through to get it there. For some reason I had to install it after the sink was in place. 

Fast forward a year or so and my spouse pointed out that the metal tube in the thing had corroded to the point where it wasn't working. Off I went to the Home Depot and bought a new one which I determined had a plastic tube, so there was no longer a danger of corrosion. I then removed all of the stuff under the sink, gathered my tools, got on my back and immediately realized that that wasn't going to work very well. My back came in contact with the front of the sink cabinet and, as you might imagine, caused great pain and anguish. I secured a pillow to lie on, but this put me too high to be able to put my arms to good use. I got  a smaller pillow. Now I was under the sink and could barely reach the nut holding the dispenser. Fortunately, over the years I have accumulated various tools for odd situations such as this. I have a sink wrench, without which I would have been unable to proceed, but the proceeding went very slowly. After much angst I got the darn thing off and thought, "Oh well, the worst part is over." You can probably guess that Mr. Murphy was about to apply one of his laws.

After several false starts and a near paralyzed back, the new dispenser and soap bottle were installed. The only thing left was to insert the pump. Spouse said, "Why don't you run some water through it first because it will work better with the soap." O.K. I always do what Spouse says, especially in the kitchen, so, we inserted the tube in some water and pumped. And the water squirted out of the spout, where it was supposed to come out and from under the cap, where it wasn't supposed to come out. I examined the cap and saw a microscopic crack where the metal spout joined the tube in the underside of the cap. 

I had to return this thing, but I was not going under that sink again to try to extricate the now secure dispenser along with it's bottle filled with soap. I decided to just buy another one and to swap out the pump and return the defective unit. I went to our local Home Depot and, of course, they didn't have it in white. I had to wait until I went to work to go to the store where I bought the first one to get a replacement. I was wondering as I bought it if it would have the same defect. Luckily there was no problem with the new pump and we now have a soap dispenser that dispenses soap ans isn't corroded and won't ever corrode, I hope.