stuff you're doing while at home

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Winter is coming and looks like another explosion of the virus, 1053 new cases in our state again today probably be locked down again, so I bought me another new stratocaster to play around with over the winter.

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terri and me used the last 1/2 bag of ballast today concreting the last bit of 'path' from the new gate to the 'front door' of the new garage. it should be set by wednesday, i've got 4 more dumpy bags of ballast coming to do the floor inside and 2 will be sat on what we did today. my back does not like concreting these days that's for sure.
neil.
 
bit more on the garage, yesterday and today i've shuttered the floor area into 3 bays for concreting. i've dug and raked level the high and low areas of the first one behind the up n over door, the other side one needs filling in some more so i've added 2 dumpy bags of sub base to tomorrows order. the last one in the middle looks like once the highs are spread into the lows it'll be about right but the other 2 are first so we'll see how we go on thursday. it'll be nice if we can get it all done by the weekend so it can dry for storage rack making next week. at this rate i'll get my valiant in my 'old' garage before christmas, woohoo!
neil.
 
yesterday terri and me levelled the 2 other 'bays' to be concreted by lunchtime which gave us all afternoon to concrete the outer 2. by almost the end of the first it was clear we weren't going to have enough ballast for all 3 so i decided to substitute a couple of shovels of the remaining bag of sub base to each mix to 'a' use that up and 'b' get more done. the stones are bigger of course but as long as the depth of concrete is more than the size of the biggest stones it's not an issue. once proven at the end of that first bay we continued with the mix in all of the second until we were done. now we could work out how much more ballast and cement was needed for the middle bay which is slightly wider than the other 2 by about 10". the reason for the bigger middle bay is simple, when i was shuttering them i used my 6' spirit level working off of the 'footings' each side. this left a bigger bay in the middle which doesn't matter as long as the tamping board is long enough. i've ordered the ballast and cement which won't be here until next tuesday so we'll get the last bit done wednesday, at least my back will have a chance to rest up :rolleyes:
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neil.

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picked terri up this morning and we finished the floor in the new shed. still had to get more ballast, 2 mixes short of finishing. had to shoot up to jewson and get a dozen bags in my car (the transit would've been more sensible but it's full of chevy truck). all done now and friday we'll start filling the shed with **** from my garage, lol.
neil.
 
i found something in my garage (next to the house not the new one) today, a floor!!!!
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i haven't seen it for ages and forgot what it looked like
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. i also found a couple of 25 litre tubs of grey floor paint so once i've got it fully cleared out i'm only going to paint the floor all posh like
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neil.
 
terri and me started to board the short wall front to back before we put up racking/shelves along that wall the other day once we'd had enough of moving stuff from the garage. we used chinese packing cases that i flat packed while working at rally design (waste not want not). today i finished up to the eaves and as dawn and me got white paint yesterday (amongst other diy stuff to do once we're locked down again) i can get it all painted so it's easier to see what's on the shelves.
i'll try to remember pics once it's all white tomorrow.
neil.
 
i got the second coat of white on the 'wall' today so i can start making shelves/racking next. i forgot the camera, but it's a wall made of packing cases painted white so pretty easy to visualise.
then i cut and dug a soakaway next to our front porch. it turns out rain needs somewhere to drain to or if it's heavy it floods in front of the porch, whoodathunkit! anyway about a foot by a foot by a foot filled with pebbles, that'll work then.
neil.
 
Took the snow blower out to change plug, oil, and make adjustments to get the stupid thing ready for the winter. :mad: Man I hate winter. Used to make a living because of it, now :mad::mad:
 
here's how the packing case wall looks with a couple of coats of paint. good enough to backup some shelves for sure.
neil.
oh, and one of the neighbours was clearing his dad's sheds out and skipping stuff today. like a vulture i was there retrieving 3 rolls of flex, a bench grinder, a mitre saw, 3 morse taper chucks, a tub of morse taper drills and a cantilever toolbox full of 'engineers' tools. he's also got a 6' metal 'cubby hole' rack that he said i can have once he gets back to it. result.

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i got my nice new shiny plasma cutter out today
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i've got a load of escort front crossmembers to cut the rack mounts off of and weld new ones on in the right place
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it's all extra pocket money to spend on the valiant and i'd previously made a jig to hold the rack mounts so they don't take long. from memory my mate said the batch that was wrong was only about 100 and he's dropping off 20 at a time.
neil.
 
ashley arrived lunchtime today with the back of his voyager dragging it's backside. one of the units where he works was having now racking fitted and had put the old stuff out for the scrap man. it's proper pallet racking so good and strong. i'll narrow it down to 2 feet wide shelf size and to the right height for my shed but i'm well chuffed. i've roped terri in (again) to help me alter it all and set it up on tuesday.
neil.
 
Have to rebuild two of these for my 5 yr old granddaughter. Neighbor brought them over while they were cleaning out the basement. Guess these things are about 3x3. Never done this soooooo.. noticed I'm getting clumsy in my later years sooooooo.. taking them apart soon so we'll see :)

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terri and me disassembled the racking sections today, cut them to size with my new shiny plasma cutter and reassembled them in the shed with wooden shelves. there's enough left to fit a third 'bay' across the back in the corner, but for now i can at least start to stack stuff out of the way on and under the shelves.
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neil.

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My middle son advised he was heading to his fiance's uncle's ranch in Arkansas for pig, deer, etc., over Thanksgiving. He has recently purchased a Henry lever gun in 357/38 threaded. So new to handloading he owned little, particularly small magnum pistol primers. I have thousands so I loaded up the Hornady 180 gr XTP stiff over H110 and got them UPS pronto today. He will have them Friday.
 
Well in Doc Holiday fashion with three Old Fashioned's down my wife, sitting in the back patio sipping wine, gives the armadillo shout. My Smith M63 22 RF and I headed out back. With a flashlight in my left hand and the Smith in my right it ran away and took a bullet in the azz. He/she turned "charging" and took one in the forehead. Clean up tomorrow morning...
 
Found an old Sylvania tube tester I forgot I had. Shaft was broken in one adjustment pot. It was a phenolic shaft, so I grabbed the poor old burned up Drake T4XC transmitter that went through a house fire, and salvaged a piece of the shaft out of the switch gang, and away we went

I need to find a better knob to replace the green one which is what I fixed.

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The above came on the heals of a Jackson I found locally for 45 bucks. Waiting for a couple of tube sockets which are worn out. The box with the tube sockets pulls out, turns upside down, and exposes about 7 different sockets. The black rectangular connector is what makes the box "work"

I also have an old Heatkit and an Eico. All of them "need something."

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Put my wife on an airplane, probably will never see her again, have mixed feelings about that.
 
67Dart273 said:
The above came on the heals of a Jackson I found locally for 45 bucks. Waiting for a couple of tube sockets which are worn out. The box with the tube sockets pulls out, turns upside down, and exposes about 7 different sockets. The black rectangular connector is what makes the box "work"

I also have an old Heatkit and an Eico. All of them "need something."

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Those testers are cool! Alot of people who still play tube amps would love to have one of those. It's sad they don't make tubes in the US anymore, I think there mostly made in Russia now by Sovetech. My amps are solid state now days, I doubt if I could even pack a good sized valve amp these days!
 
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