Continuing Thread: What Are You Fix-It'ing Today?

[oldE]

I spent about an hour this afternoon cleaning up 100 bricks ( about a 3rd of what I dragged home). It was easy to see why a 45 year old chimney failed. The mortar was not mixed consistently. Some of it was hard and adhered well to the bricks. Much was dislodged with a single glancing blow. With those ones, it was not unusual to have loose material run out of the holes once the " mortar " had been knocked off.
Yikes!

Best
Les

[Evans, Marv]

Got my storage conainer set, leveled, and thick plastic sheet underneath. Next, down the line, will be a paint job. Looking on UTube, it looks like a bunch of work ahead to get it prepped followed by about 4 gallons of paint. My 40 y.o. airless spray rig will come in handy for the first time in 16+ years. Next will be to get a load of crushed asphalt to spread for the approach.

[Evans, Marv]

[Baz]

Originally Posted by Zeke

I like that flex fitting.

Baz, is your truck lowered just a bit? Mu '89 was using -2" front springs and shackles in the back. It sat level with tools on board. Was pretty handy in the curves unloaded for a truck. My 2006 is bone stock.

Yeah "Flex pipe" is what I call it - it's also called "Spa pipe" sometimes. You can get it in all diameters. I don't remember why I used that section there but must have had an obstacle I had to go over.

Also, using (2) 45's to change altitudes between two lines is an trick I have used for years. You know...instead of elbowing it to death!

Truck isn't lowered, to answer your question. It's always been at that height since I bought it in '05. Served me well with my landscaping work loading and unloading plants, tool, materials, etc etc.

Even taking a bicycle somewhere (for example) - the nice low profile really helps!

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by oldE

Much was dislodged with a single glancing blow.

I know what you are talking about Some of these brick buildings are only held together by gravity.

As a teenager I had a job in Sydney Australia replacing bricks in residential buildings in the east. The mortar had been made with beach sand and the salt had eaten away the cement/lime. Sydney better pray to God they don't have an earthquake.

[mthomas58]

Originally Posted by mthomas58

Lowered hight of reel mower with front steel roller to partially scalp zoyzia yard then aerated, top dressed with 1/2 yard of river sand and spread lime to promote root growth. Although it looks very smooth the soil is remarkably uneven most noticably when waling on it and as I lower the mowing height is scalps very unevenly. I don't have a leveling rake to spread the sand so I used a Bow Rake turned upside down with the tines facing up. I've got 5 5-gallon HD buckets of sand left over than I can further fill in low spots.

Any tips from yard pro's highly welcomed! Unfortunately, I do not get full sun due to large trees so it grows slowly after mowing.

UDATE: So, 6 days after aerating, scalping, top dressing with sand and spreading lime I raised the cutting height 1 notch above my scalping height and mowed using the reel mower with the steel roller. Noticeably smoother rolling after sand leveling. Very encouraged!

[HobieMarty]

That looks very nice, like a putting green!!! I scalp my yard from time to time, but not on purpose!!!

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[Scott Douglas]

I'd love to share what I've been working on but you'd only laugh at my very rank amateur wood working skills.

[oldE]

As I said above I have a bit of a brick work project coming up. Not having done any work of that sort before, I lacked a brick layer's trowel ( and the required know how, but that never stopped me in the past).
So I cut up a bit of steel plate from an old water heater, grabbed and bent some 3/16 rod and turned a handle. It took longer to set up and put away my little welder than to actually weld the handle to the trowel, but here it is.
If it looks like a rush job that's because I have less than an hour in the thing.
The load of sand arrived the other day so as soon as I get the rest of the bricks cleaned off and get my act in gear, I guess I can try to learn how to make a 4 course brick retaining wall.

Best
Les

[HobieMarty]

Looks pretty dang good to me!!! Good job and good luck with the wall.

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[Scott Douglas]

My wife the quilter decided her quilt frame and Qbot weren't working any more. She's figured out how to quilt quilts on her sewing machines to her own satisfaction so the quilt frame was/is no longer needed.
The room it was in has her quilt wall on one wall. She pins her quilt pieces to it to figure out the patterns etc, and then has to take them into the family room which is where all her sewing machines are set up.
My task, her ask, was for me to modify the quilt frame (16ft long) and make a sewing table small enough for the room so she can do the piecing work in there instead of the family room. Patterns were suffering from the 'Which way does this go' syndrome from the walk room to room.
So, first I took the frame apart and got the requirements for how big she wanted the table to end up.
Next, I cut down the frame rails and reassembled them to check the size.
Now I had to come up with an 'elevator' system to suspend the sewing machine from such that I could level it with the table top.
Once I figured that out I had to find a suitable top material.
I looked into melamine board but it was going to be $$$ for what was needed and it would require gluing which equals time.
So I started looking at purchasing butcher block table tops. $$$$. Nope, not going to happen.
Then I got an idea. Why not look on Craig's List for a table with a top I could use instead.
Found a butcher block table big enough to make the top for $50. Got my buddy Hank to help me pick it up with his truck and trailer.
Now I needed some new saw blades, drill bits and sand paper and I was ready to borrow my bro-in-law's jigsaw and have at it.
This is what I ended up with after this morning's thrash in the garage.




Not as fancy as some of the wood work you guys do but it works for me and my wife says it's way better than she expected.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

.....my wife says it's way better than she expected.

So, the key to a happy marriage is low expectations!

JK, that looks super.

[oldE]

Well done! Functional and good looking.

Best
Les

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by oldE

As I said above I have a bit of a brick work project coming up. Not having done any work of that sort before, I lacked a brick layer's trowel ( and the required know how, but that never stopped me in the past).
So I cut up a bit of steel plate from an old water heater, grabbed and bent some 3/16 rod and turned a handle. It took longer to set up and put away my little welder than to actually weld the handle to the trowel, but here it is.
If it looks like a rush job that's because I have less than an hour in the thing.
The load of sand arrived the other day so as soon as I get the rest of the bricks cleaned off and get my act in gear, I guess I can try to learn how to make a 4 course brick retaining wall.

Best
Les

Not big enough. I used my small triangle trowel last week to lay bricks. I was too lazy to get my standard trowel out of my storage. If there were more than 2 dozen bricks I would have.

The deal is you can limit the amount of mud on a bigger trowel and have more control than a mound of mud on a dinky one. YMMV.

[oldE]

Thanks, Milt. This is going to be a learning experience for sure. If I have calculated correctly, I will be laying about 130 bricks in total. Just like cleaning the old material off the used bricks (I ended up with 382.) I will likely figure it out as I go along.

Maybe next week.

Best
Les

[Zeke]

I really like this one. He does the end fill differently.



If you want to work like these guys you can't use store bought mortar. Mix you own. FOA, get plasterer's sand. It's graded finer but not as fine as silica play sand. 2nd, mix 4 parts sand to 1 part cement and add 1/2 part lime. It doesn't matter much what type of cement you use, but you will find mostly portland cement for sale. There is also Type 3 High/early cement for a faster set in cold weather. This is what they use on the concrete roadways when repairing.

You can buy Mason's cement which has the lime in it as well as some type of air entrainment. The ratio is still the same but you don't need the added lime. You can go richer using 3:1 mix but a pro would find that too expensive at the end of a day. It will handle like soft butter.

Lime comes in big sacks so you will have too much. Garden lime is not slaked so it won't work. There might be some slaked lime sold as food grade. That will be pricey but your mortar will be sticky like in the videos. The pros have an advantage because they buy lots of material and don't waste any.

Well mixed mortar will slump quite a bit. It should pour out onto your mortar board like a big fat pancake. Wet your board first and keep tossing the mortar as you work because the water likes to sink. When you slide the trowel under the pancake, raises it up and shake down once, you should see about an inch of mud on your trowel. If it's a big mound, your mix is too dry.

Don't wet the bricks unless it's a real hot and dry day. Then only mist the pile now and then to keep them cool. Hot very dry bricks are hard to adjust when the hit the bed and being an amateur, you will not be very fast in tapping the brick into place.
'
Use your levels, long and short and level and plumb 2 ways. Strings (dry lines [no chauk]) are good. Best of luck.

[TimT]

Developed an exhaust leak on my Cayman...

So I got the car up on the lift at about 10:30 this morning... no signs of leaks, no carbon traces...everything looks in order...

So I dropped the header on the side where I heard a leak... Headers cracked at the weld between the cat and the collector.. cleaned up the weld on the wire wheel... welded the crack closed.. Reinstalled the headers...

Car was back on the ground at 1:10 for a test ride..

2 hour 40 minutes roughly...And this was with the regular Saturday BSing..

Not bad...

Sorry no pics... that would have required time..

BTW Fabspeed headers with 200 cell cats for a 987.1 they all crack eventually

[pete3799]

Replace the front right wheel speed sensor on my F-550 that i ripped off with the tire chains this last storm..

[Scott Douglas]

Added some bracing to the sewing table as it had too much shake in it when she tested it out.
It's rock solid now and higher too so it should work better. Will be tested tomorrow after moving it back into the house.

[Scott Douglas]

So we finally cut the cable this past month and they didn't want the set top boxes back. We've paid for these things many times over since we've had them forever. Since they were going to the E-waste pile, wherever that may be, I decided to see what was inside.
Found a perfectly good, albeit somewhat old, Seagate 500GB hard drive in both boxes.
I formatted them in my Sabrent stand alone drive box and gained almost a terabyte of storage for photos.