six-point socket's tidbits of Home Improvement, small projects and other stuff.

[nclemmons]

I have not done a tour of their factory.  I will check to see if they even offer one.

 

[six-point socket II]

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Hi!

So here are some impressions from my sanding extravaganza.

As I wrote this morning, shortly before I got out of bed it started to rain quite a bit and thunder and lightning decided to come along ... Not ideal to be messing with scaffolding ...

I sat out the first round and then picked up the scaffolding and brought it home.

Sat out a second round of thunder and lightning and then I could set it up start working.

Sometime into the job I decided that the mask I was wearing was too heavy duty/overkill for this and changed to a lighter one. You can easily spot where I sanded and where not.

Close up.

Moving on.

Lunch break.

What I can say is that Granat Net is by far my favorite abrasive, even with the "old" DTS 400 it works it's magic and if you could see my tack cloth you'd ask me if I even used it ...

Progress and already masked

There's one task were the old "Brilliant 2" abrasive outperforms Granat Net - when sanding over a wet/ strongly weathered spot and when "cleaning" residue from roots of ivy ...

I'm happy to report that everything got sanded, except for a few small spots I will take care of tomorrow. Everything is masked so I'm well within my schedule.

This screamed for a cigar break along with some adult beverage, I shouldn't, but sometimes I can't resist.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Tinker]

The steel staging brings me o another quick story from out of the past.

I had just started my mason contracting biz and had landed a job doing fireplaces, chimneys, foundations (concrete block) footings and clear slabs for a local developer of somewhat shady reputation. Luckily, I knew about him long before he knew about me and I eventually left him with no more loss to me than $165. His carpentry crew were old country Swedes.  I have many stories of my experiences with the builder and some about working with that Swedish crew. Let it be known that i have nothing against Swedes, in fact my best friend from college days was a "first generation" Swede. It is just that I worked with that crazy crew for nearly a year and. for the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed their antics. BUT, i could not understand a word they said.

As mentioned, that was my first really big job that got me off and running. For running up my first chimney for the development, I was continuing to use 2x lumber for framing and ledgers with 1x's for bracing. I did not figure that newly developed steel staging was within my budget. On the side of the house where I was doing the chimney, I had already put in footings and foundation for a garage. The carpenters, I thought, would not be starting the garage framing for a couple of days. My chimney would be completed by then. As I neared the top and completion, I felt a slight, unfamiliar, jolt to my scaffolding. I looked down to see, surprisingly, one of the carpenters  sawing off one of my scaffolding ledgers and a couple of lower braces.  I yelled, but he could not understand any better than I could understand him.  Right then, I decided to invest in steel.

I scrambled down my ladder, left directions for my helper to tear down our staging and headed for Bridgeport and my equipment supplier. By the time I returned a few hours later, the carpenters had the garage all framed with roof sheathing in place. I did have to reframe my scaffolding to finish that chimney above the garage, but for ever after, I used steel where ever possible.
Tinker

 

[grobkuschelig]

Hi Oliver,

Nice work! Congratulations on finishing in time.
Love the pictures, as always.
But the cigar break is the best of the bunch! Great shot! And earned!

Thanks for the tip regarding Brilliant 2 for Ivy removal. Might come in handy sooner than I‘m hoping.

Let us know how you get along painting today.
Looks like less thunder and lightning today, at least over here in Hessen...

 

[Peter_C]

Curious what the aluminum roll up shutter is for? Security?

We don't have things like that here in the USA. Shutters are very common in France. My French wife says it is a look, and I say they have a high crime rate. In the USA in high crime areas they do use bars on the windows, which are also common in France's bigger cities. I have yet to visit England, but it is near the top of the list

 

[RustE]

Curious what the aluminum roll up shutter is for? Security?

We don't have things like that here in the USA.
...

I’ve seen shutters like that in Ohio for securing businesses after hours. Usually in downtown areas that are not the most pleasant after dark.

Also seen similar storm shutters on the east coast.

 

[leakyroof]

Curious what the aluminum roll up shutter is for? Security?

We don't have things like that here in the USA.
...

I’ve seen shutters like that in Ohio for securing businesses after hours. Usually in downtown areas that are not the most pleasant after dark.

Also seen similar storm shutters on the east coast.

. Anti Zombie Shutters..... [wink]

 

[six-point socket II]

Hi Oliver,

Nice work! Congratulations on finishing in time.
Love the pictures, as always.
But the cigar break is the best of the bunch! Great shot! And earned!

Thanks for the tip regarding Brilliant 2 for Ivy removal. Might come in handy sooner than I‘m hoping.

Let us know how you get along painting today.
Looks like less thunder and lightning today, at least over here in Hessen...

Hi!

Thank you! Will start working on the update in the next couple of minutes.

Curious what the aluminum roll up shutter is for? Security?

We don't have things like that here in the USA. Shutters are very common in France. My French wife says it is a look, and I say they have a high crime rate. In the USA in high crime areas they do use bars on the windows, which are also common in France's bigger cities. I have yet to visit England, but it is near the top of the list

Curious what the aluminum roll up shutter is for? Security?

We don't have things like that here in the USA.
...

I’ve seen shutters like that in Ohio for securing businesses after hours. Usually in downtown areas that are not the most pleasant after dark.

Also seen similar storm shutters on the east coast.

Curious what the aluminum roll up shutter is for? Security?

We don't have things like that here in the USA.
...

I’ve seen shutters like that in Ohio for securing businesses after hours. Usually in downtown areas that are not the most pleasant after dark.

Also seen similar storm shutters on the east coast.

. Anti Zombie Shutters..... [wink]

Hi!

Where do I start? Maybe here: originally the house had wooden roll up shutters for both large window/door fronts facing the backyard. These were installed in all houses when they were built, back then the part of town started to grow significantly but could still be considered rural. The houses across the backyard, our backyards "meet" - are even older and those have cast iron bars in front of the windows because back in the day their backyards were pretty much "endless" - nothing but fields.

At some point we wanted to electrify these roll up shutters and were told there's no way to do this with the old wooden shutters, they are simply to heavy. (Rolling these up at least twice a day was a nice workout ...) So we went with new shutters.

Obviously they are part of our security concept, there's no denying. However our town is definitely not a high crime area.

But we're in a vulnerable spot - some banks whose ATM's were blown up and a lot of owners of new campers/mobile homes/caravans had to learn the hard way. Let's just say you're on the highway faster than the police can dispatch an officer to any given location, unless they're patrolling the area. Once you're on the highway, it's merely an hour before you reach the Netherlands and that's possible in two different directions  - at night, with a highly motorized vehicle there's nothing going to stop you. I think it's the same in the US now a days, police won't go into a high speed pursuit unless absolutely necessary to not endanger civilians/themselves?

At least here, no one is going to try to keep up with Audi S-Lines, Mercedes AMG or BMW M series that they never really saw (if at all), are stolen/ or at least have stolen plates and have anything between a 5 to 15 minutes head start and are pretty much exchanged before they cross the border ... For money/ stolen goods at least.

So yeah, we try to keep ourselves and our belongings safe. There's also no denying that while we don't see increasing numbers of crimes, actually they are going down, the crimes itself tend to get more violent with more "unnecessary" physical assaults while they rob you or create a lot of collateral damage (house burned down...) and stuff like that. There have been a couple of disturbing crimes within an area/radius closer than my "comfort zone" - so we step up our game.

But like I said, the shutters have been there forever, we just modernized them. They are primarily used as shades in the summer, they take some load of the AC - and during winter they help save some energy while heating.

The "end game" will be new windows for this house - highly likely with new shutters - there's no way around it. No matter how our life continues, or if we even will be the ones replacing them. New windows is a must in future.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[six-point socket II]

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Hi!

Here's the update.

Saturday started like Friday had finished - a couple of spots still needed to be sanded. Since I couldn't get there with the scaffolding, I had to use a ladder - the shoulder strap for the CTL-SYS comes in very handy here.

Then I needed to prepare everything for painting/varnishing. Laying out floor protection.

Since the scaffolding is a rental, and I didn't want to spent hours cleaning it, I wrapped it. If you're wondering about the ladder, it's easier to get on that way with paint/varnish and all...

Painting/varnishing.

Some closeups to show that FrogTape (masking tape) is a real helper, even on structured surfaces.

While I let the paint/varnish dry, I shortened that black cable and installed a piece of conduit - much cleaner looking now.

Then I painted the white stripe and removed the floor protection - by now it was about 9 PM and I called it a day.

Sunday was all about small installs for my party & BBQ lighting.

Drill/Driver Dream-Team.

Reaming plastic conduit with my Klein Tools VDE cable shears.

If it looks stupid but works, it isn't stupid.

CXS doing what it's supposed to do.

The CXS loves tight spots!

The aftermath.

Shutter cleaned, floor scrubbed - finished.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Cheese]

I’ve seen shutters like that in Ohio for securing businesses after hours. Usually in downtown areas that are not the most pleasant after dark.

Also seen similar storm shutters on the east coast.

My folks owned a condo in Florida that was on the ocean. Everyone referred to those shutters, as hurricane shutters, and every unit in their condo building was required to have working hurricane shutters. Most owners chose shutters that were operated by electric motors over manually operated units. The only problem was that with all of that salt air exposure 24/7, the motors only lasted 3-4 years and each motor was $400.

 

[leakyroof]

I’ve seen shutters like that in Ohio for securing businesses after hours. Usually in downtown areas that are not the most pleasant after dark.

Also seen similar storm shutters on the east coast.

My folks owned a condo in Florida that was on the ocean. Everyone referred to those shutters, as hurricane shutters, and every unit in their condo building was required to have working hurricane shutters. Most owners chose shutters that were operated by electric motors over manually operated units. The only problem was that with all of that salt air exposure 24/7, the motors only lasted 3-4 years and each motor was $400.

  I can 2nd that.  We stayed at a friends Vacation Home in St. Augustine FL in 1994, those motorized shutters were common even back then..  Funny to watch the up and down procession of Shutters on multiple houses through the day....

 

[six-point socket II]

[blink] [eek] [scared]

[eek] [eek] [eek]  [sad] [crying] [mad]

There's always something to do ...  [smile] [big grin] [wink]

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[leakyroof]

[blink] [eek] [scared]

[eek] [eek] [eek]  [sad] [crying] [mad]

There's always something to do ...  [smile] [big grin] [wink]

Kind regards,
Oliver

  As one 'might' hear in the US about this, "Well, right there's your trouble".... [wink]  [poke]

 

[six-point socket II]

Yeah, I've heard that before [member=10952]leakyroof[/member]  [big grin]

--

So, a new plug was easily installed.

--

Also today, part of the new party lighting (LED tube light) was delivered, and I placed it in it's brackets.

(This was also Murphy at it's best: I took down the old tube light on Thursday. I cleaned it with a moist rag and put it away. (It was fully working ...) Sunday I placed it in the newly installed brackets, turn it on and about half of the light tube didn't light up anymore ...

So I ordered a new one.

And a couple of details from the BBQ light. I think I placed that conduit quite good, you can only see it from very few angles at all.

(Yes, I need to ream that last part one more time.)

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[six-point socket II]

And some shots at dusk.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[mike_aa]

Oliver, Looks like party time!  It all came together very nicely and as usual, you did a great job.

Thank you for sharing your photos and progress.  I've been lurking around here for some time and I really enjoy this thread!

Mike A.

 

[six-point socket II]

Hi!

Thanks Mike!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Cheese]

Hey Oliver, this is my call to party...neon signs hung outside. They’re colorful, they’re obvious, they’re mesmerizing.  [cool] [cool] [cool]

 

[six-point socket II]

Those are very cool [member=44099]Cheese[/member] , Thank you for sharing them!

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[six-point socket II]

Advertisement.

Hi!

Sadly our local market for agricultural products (tools, chemicals, animal stuff, lifestyle products ... not a farmers market) is closing it's doors in a week or two and they're having a sale right now. So I went there yesterday to pick up some stuff. When I came across a shelve of Peugeot Saveurs Moulins (mills) I couldn't resist the discount and bought two more. I love these, and now we have an additional set to use by the BBQ.

The night came and I relaxed with a cigar on the patio. Over the course of the day the 2nd party string light had arrived.

Then came today. A couple of hours ago, my better half said to me: "Honey, can you please exchange the broken light assembly/bulb in the basement storage room?" My reply was: "Yes, sweetheart." And downstairs I went.

Switched of the lights, waited a minute or two and got the broken light assembly/bulb out. When I touched the cable it felt still quite hot not just warm.

Of course I didn't have a new light assembly/bulb, when I looked for it - so I had to hurry a little to get to "home depot" in time, to get some new light assemblies/bulbs, before they close.

Back home I took some temperature measurements. ( ° C )

Lights switched on, no bulb in the one that was broken.

Lights switched on, taking temperature measurements on one that wasn't broken.

Lights switched on, new light assembly/bulb inserted.

Verifying results.

Not quite sure what to make of this yet. All of the cables stay at or around 30° C only the first one gets easily over 60° C over the same amount of time. Not normal.

It's not really a super high risk right now, the light assemblies/ bulbs heat up to 110° C but I'd like to find out what's up with that one cable. (They are all the same and were scope of supply.)

Kind regards,
Oliver