Craigslist Treasures & The Deck is done.

Marlys was in Minnesota at the lake with her friends this weekend, which left me with time to finish the deck and work (play) with some items I picked up off of Criagslist this week.

I only had the cap rails to complete on the deck so it went pretty quickly, I also got out the router and bull nosed all of the end edges. The deck turned out pretty nice, but that mostly goes to the design, which is pretty basic.

After reading a book I picked up on furniture design, I have come to the conclusion that I need much work in this area. Luckily there are a lot of plans and pictures that I can use to build items.

Speaking of building, last Monday morning at 6:40 I checked Craigslist to see what may have been posted over the weekend. I noticed an ad for clamps that had been placed just a few minutes before. The ad had a picture of a table filled with bar clamps and a price of $1-$3 per clamp.

I may not have a great deal of woodworking experience, but I have become a believer in the adage that you can never have enough clamps.

The ad said to call after 5:30PM. I figured though that someone had placed these ads just a few minutes ago so I would give it a try. Lucky me, someone answered and I said I would take all of the clamps. She asked if there was anything else. I went back to CL and I noticed a series of ads with everything normally in a well equipped wood shop, so I asked the reason for sale and she said they were moving to Mexico and didn't want to store the equipment.

Quickly looking through the ad's I said I would take the jointer and the radial arm saw too.

Marlys, Derek and I picked everything up on Monday evening.

Derek was looking at a dismantled downdraft kiln that was beside the workshop. His art classes must be paying off because it just looked like a pile of bricks, chimney liner and some type of tile tome. It could have been a BBQ for all I knew.

There ended up being 48 clamps in all and the price was $50. So I spent Saturday building a rack to hold these along with those already in the inventory.

I had to come up in with my own design because as mentioned above I am challenged in that area.

I had a nice clamp rack plan, but I think it is in Minnesota at the aforementioned lake in the hands of "Bill the Consultant".

He also got me started on looking for a shop liquidations as a place to pick up good gear. Most of his shop came from a cabinet maker, who if I recall right was retiring or upgrading. Any way I have been on the look out for one of these sales for a long time, kinda like the legend of the Corvette, in the snow bank with the smell.

This shop also had a couple year old Unisaw with a complete station and cabinets for sale at agreat price, but I have a hard time getting everything out of my current saw, so this would be way beyond my skill level.

After finishing the deck I unloaded the truck and setup the gear.

The radial arm saw is a vintage 1960's Dewalt 925. It still had the original trunk finish green paint. I paid $25 for it and the table it sat on. Ray said the motor was starting to bog and it would probably need to be re-wound.

I am not sure about that, because I made allot of saw dust with it this weekend and am amazed at how well it works.

This RAS is so old that it doesn't even have a trigger switch on the handle, but a key that is mounted on the arm to turn it on.

The other piece is a 6" Grizzly Jointer. My current jointer is an old off brand that needs a tune-up badly, so picking up a 3 year old jointer for $70 seemed like a good buy. Ya, 70 bucks. Ray said to watch the blades as they were new. I made some saw dust with this on Saturday too. Actually a lot of saw dust.

The jointer is really one of the keystones of good woodworking in that if you don't start with flat, square material it is just about impossible to end up with a good item.

So I spent the weekend throwing the ball for Dusty, having a few Modelo's and playing with the new gear. And Marlys thought I was going to have a lonely weekend with the high point being beans and franks for dinner.

Flying Bugs, Water and Deck Progress

After the fiasco with emptying the cistern a few weeks ago. I asked Rick's to put in a water usage meter so we could check what our consumption actually is.

Yes, I understand that this doesn't help in watching the cistern, but it does give us get a feel for water flow and the amount going into the house.

This is a pretty standard water meter made by Master Meter. I apologize for the poor picture quality, but again it was the phone camera... in the dark ... the basement... at floor level.

Our usage from Friday evening until Sunday at noon, which included heavy washer usage, was 190 gallons.

The last time I measured the recovery rate on our well, which was 2005, we recovered at 265 gallons a day. This is the key measure, not the pumping rate, as that is more a factor of the pump itself, case in point our well report says 5 gallons a minute, which it does for 15 minutes at a time.

I have our Pump Saver set to pump the well dry (to pump suspension level) every 180 minutes, unless the cistern is full.

On to the deck.

The deck is almost complete. Yahoo!

Then I get to start Marlys next project ,which is the cabinetry for the laundry room, which I believe is going to include a wine cooler.

I, of course, was told I could look on Craig's List for a used refrigerator to put in the barn for beer. I guess I know our priorities.

I am still short four pieces of Trex for the deck itself and the top rails. Chuck at Sonny's called and said they were in last week, so I should complete this project on Saturday. Then Marlys' work begins in sealing and finishing to match the front.

I don't know if you remember from a post in late 2006, but our electricians had left one of their impact drivers behind after the rough-in (they claimed it during the finish) and I had mentioned to them how much I liked using it. They got me one, which I use virtually every weekend on different projects. Securing the decking was made for this tool.

This is not some high(er) voltage cordless tool, but a 12 volt, 3 AMH Panasonic impact driver. It has driven in every fastner on this deck from the 8" framelocks, 2" joist hangers and the hundreds of 2.5" composite decking screws.

It hasn't missed a beat and the battery has only been switched out maybe 6 times. I know this since the charger is in the barn and I need to walk down the hill to swap them out.

I noticed that Fine Woodworking or Homebuilding has an article this month on why it is you need to have an impact driver. Haven't read it but I can tell you I am sold on their use.

OK, now to the next subject, entomology.

This summer I have noticed a new (to me) flying insect around the house. Its identification has be the subject of an ongoing email thread with the CSU Extension Service.

This insect is about an 1.5" long and only seems to fly a few inches to a foot off the ground, alone or in small groups of ~6. The insect has a wide reddish orange band around its adomen. Initially I didn't have a picture of it so it was thought to be some species of a robber fly. Robber flies are predator critters that tend to go after spiders and other insects.

I was finally able to capture one of these critters, when it wandered in to the insecticide kill zone around the house and went into convulsions and died. Guess that isn't so much a capture, as a pick it up.

I made an exceptional (CSI quality) post mortem picture on the edge of the pickup box.

Whitney has now identified this as a:
Response (Whitney Cranshaw) - 07/21/2008 03:04 PM This looks like a hunting wasp in the genus Ammophila. They are solitary wasps (i.e., do not make a colony) and nest in the soil. The females hunt caterpillars that they paralyze, drag back to the nest, and provide for their young to feed on.

I mentioned about a month ago the number of woolly bear caterpillar's around this year, which may explain their presence (and the tiger moths).

Tune in for next week's episode - The Treasures Found on Craig's List, or I too tripped on to a wood shop liquidation sale (so there Bill).

Got a few things done...and the cistern bandit.

Derek and I were able to get as much done as materials allowed on the rear deck.

If only I had ordered 2 more 16' pieces of TREX and if only I had ordered the rail tops.


We have decided against the pergola I had been thinking of because it seemed to over power the deck and did not balance well with the front deck which is viewable when stand in the driveway, so the deck is now a match to the front.


Marlys cut all 100+ balusters and she is now quite proficient at running the miter saw.


Couple that with the garage painting, now including the floor, and she is getting more capable of doing her own "honey do's".


The garage floor is a nice red tile color and quite glossy, which when stepped on with wet feet can make for an exciting ride.


She also spent a day sanding down our old kitchen table and chairs, to re-finish and put back in to service in the place we are moving to in Parker the end of the month (from the Downtown apartment).


She has a full card this coming weekend in applying poly to the garage glulams and table/chairs.


So, it was pretty busy next time.


Oh ya, the cistern bandit. When we got back up to PR last Monday and I turned on the water, I heard the down stairs toilet running, so I went into the BR and it was...right up to the point it was full, then it stopped.


What gives?


That was my likely suspect.


I went through the house and checked everything now that I had water in system. This was one of my errors from previous in that I would not see any leaks without water in the system.


Everything seemed to be OK, so I gave up and went outside to work on the deck. But something was amiss there.


The back fill around one of the deck footings had settled, as if water had ponded around it.

There was a wet trail from the footing back under the pile of TREX laying on the deck joists.

The trail lead right up to the rear faucet on the house and the ground below it had a water hole dug into it, from it runnin.

So this seems to be the leak. I didn't see it the week before because of the pile of TREX blocking the view of the faucet. I must have rubbed against it when working on the deck and opened it up. So I guess in that regard I have found the colpret and it is me.