thisnewday

Ya gotta love what'cha got when ya got it! And, this morning, we have clear blue skies.

So, this morning, I'm gonna try to get in 2 good outdoor bike rides because, in just a day or so, we're supposed to go from this to, like, 100% chance of rain over the entire day on Tuesday--and I don't ride in that anymore. Unlike back in my crazy days as a bicycle commuter.

This afternoon, my grandson is supposed to come over to help with what passes, these days, as a production-type project in the basement workshop.

The plan is to make a dozen storage bin bases to fit the mover's dollies I have under the bins of family keepsakes brought here last year from the house in the city.

I've built a very functional, cost-effective, even eye-pleasing--beauty being in the eye of the beholder, lol--prototype that we'll be working off of and I'm gonna pay him a few bucks to make up for the work he's missed at the restaurant over the past two days due to a Covid scare in his mom's household. (Tests came back negative, late yesterday. Thankfully.)

Hope everyone is having a good weekend...

LPK
Dreamwidth
10.24.2021

The grandson and I made good progress on the workshop project yesterday, getting all the pieces for the pegboard attatchment to the layout table marked, cut, and drilled. The only problem is that I had decided to use 2x3 lumber for the frame in order to minimize weight and the distance it overhangs the work surface of the table.

Unfortunately, 2x3 lumber, because of what it's used for--wall framing in the manufacture of house trailers and as spacers/nailers inside of walls or other structures--is not the best quality to begin with. And, having been in a hurry when I picked out the pieces we were using, I noticed a lot of splintering and other flaws as we started working with it.

So, I dunno. I'm thinking about picking up a pair of better-quality 2x4s this morning, cutting them to length, and then ripping them to 2x3 width before the grandson gets here to work today. That way, he'd only have to re-do the marking and drilling when he got here this afternoon.

I hate to waste any labor or material on any project but, frankly, he can use the practice and we do want a finished product that's at least minimally presentable, as well as functional, for the shop.

Anyway, I have to make that decision soon because, even though we don't have the added time constraints of an early dinner followed by soccer training, as we did yesterday and as we will have again tomorrow, I do want to be on time and on schedule for his visit today...

Later...

Went ahead and got the 2x4s, marked, cut, and drilled them so that we're ready for assembly when the grandson gets here. There's one more drilling operation on all the pieces, so he'll at least get some more practice at that although, I've gotta say, he's gotten pretty good with the drill press...

Later still...

We got the frame for the pegboard mostly assembled and it looks really good. I hadn't intended to do a lot of sanding or finishing on any of this stuff--it is, after all, a basement workshop--but when I went downstairs to have a look at it, later in the evening, I just couldn't resist picking up a sanding block and sanding some of the exposed end grain, etc.

I tell my grandson, at various intervals in the process, that "We're not building a piano," meaning let's be precise but not fussy, and there I am around midnight buffing up the 2x4s, lol...

LPK
@Dreamwidth
8.16.2016

Made good progress today on a couple of fronts. Finally finished the cutting bills and drilling diagrams for a pegboard add-on to the shop table that we're gonna use for layout work--the measuring, marking, punching for the cutting and drilling operations.

The pegboard will be the full length of the table and will be 30 inches above the curbing at the back of it. It'll hold all of the measuring and marking tools, used in laying out the given project, and will keep the tools within easy reach while keeping the work surface clear.

I also picked up extra page protectors, to keep our paperwork in good condition while it's on the shop floor, and also subject dividers and a binder to keep our drawings organized and in one place when they're not in use.

That's kind of what I did back in the day, when I was Chief Designer for the Gerrity/Wickes truss plant in Syracuse, but on a much larger, highly-computerized scale. Little did I know that THOSE were the days. "Too soon old, too late smart," as my old man used to say.

I did discuss the whole "employing the grandson" bit with my daughter when she was here for our "business meeting" on Sunday. I told her my idea of trying to make it a self-sustaining operation, at least as far as material costs are concerned and, beyond that, to recoup the costs of my grandson's very nominal hourly wage, if and when that became possible.

We actually had a good meeting, got some bills paid, tracked some income and expenses, and resolved the impasse we had unexpectedly encountered over her mother's estate. That was resolved by my writing two checks, so it was easy enough for her, lol.

Anyway, we tossed a couple of ideas around, very briefly, about the workshop business, with nothing actually resolved but some concepts suggested which may find life and substance in reality as things progress in the basement.

Apparently, my grandson has recovered from both his illness and his sports injury because he answered my inquiry about whether we were on for work, dinner, and soccer, tommorrow, in the affirmative.

So tonight, for a change and for now, it's all good...

LPK
@Dreamwidth
8.14.2017

On my own, over the weekend, I finished the workbench that my grandson and I were building together. He's been sick and I felt bad about having to do it that way, but I very much needed to do this, for something to do, to get the project done, to be able to look forward to the next thing.

I told him that, said I was sorry but that, as the saying goes, his fingerprints are still all over the thing, meaning that it's still "ours," and that there was much more ahead of us and that I looked forward to having him here to be part of it with me...

LPK
@Dreamwidth
7.26.2017

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