Goofing off and a SF Giants Game

 

Goofing Off.

I haven’t been very productive the last couple of days. The weather has been a bit cold, gray and rainy so I have just been puttering around in the shop, picking up tools and generally cleaning up. The rest off the time I’ve been reading, relaxing and staying warm and dry.

SF Giants game.

Yesterday Patti went to San Francisco to watch the Giants play baseball.

Left to right;
MY nephew John, my niece Joanne, Joanne’s husband, Dave and Cindy (John’s wife). Standing in line for the ferry to take them from Larkspur to AT&T Park.

 

I Didn’t Go.

I suppose you noticed that I didn’t go with them. I am not a sports fan so I didn’t want to spend around $200 to go to the city, stand in lines, be crowded into a small area with thousands of people, sit in the cold and rain for the whole day watching a game that I have no interested in.

My View.

Since I wasn’t there I will have to just show you a few pictures Patti took and give you my interpretation from what information I got from Patti.

Here is the ferry they went on.

The ferry dropped them off near the marina gate to the ball park.

This is the main score board.

Advertising?

I wonder who’s job it is to keep that glove clean and how do the do it.

Batter up!

Buster Posey at bat.

Here is the gang in the stands.

The game went 13 innings and the Giants won 2 to 1.

The gang got home around 9:00 after stopping for supper.

A Couple of Projects.

As it turned out yesterday was a bit more productive than I expected.

Ammo Can Power Supply.

I managed to repair the ‘ammo can power supply’. The socket would short out when the plug was inserted.

I took the socket apart, it is kind of like two tubes, one inserted into the other. The inner tube has the + 12v, the outside tube is the ground. When the plug is put into the socket there are some fingers that short the inner tube to the outer tube. I taped around the outside of the inner tube. That should insulate the two parts from each other when the plug is plugged in.

Transfer Case Adjustment.

When I left for the cabin last week I had adjusted the transfer case linkage so I had 4 low and 2 high but couldn’t get into 4 high.

Yesterday I managed to get it adjusted so now it has all the 4 wheel drive gears.

Just goofed off the rest of the day but at least I got some things accomplished.

Family Visit

 

My nephew John and his wife Cindy from Sparks Nevada are visiting family in our area.

They came to our house yesterday. We had a nice visit and I fed them ‘unstuffed cabbage roles’ for supper.

“ Boy, That was short and sweet”.

Today looks like it is going to be pretty low key so don’t expect too much in tomorrows blog.

Five Days at the Cabin

Thursday.

Visitors.

Around 9:30 Joanne, Dave and their 2 year old granddaughter, Riley, stopped by for a visit.
Kids are so great at that age.

Arrive at the Cabin.

I arrived at the cabin around 1:30 and got moved in.

Started the refrigerator. At first it wouldn't work but it turned out that I just needed to wiggle the connections a bit.

Next I tried to get the XM radio to work. When I plugged it into the power supply one of the wires burned up. It turned out that the socket for the 12 volt plug is faulty and shorts out when the plug is plugged in. I pulled the battery out of the box and just hooked wires from the battery to the plug for the XM. Now I have radio entertainment.

Cow Horns.

I found some cow horns in my supplies at home that I thought would work to replace the ones that are missing on the skull that is on the stump and brought them up.

I took the skull off the stump and worked the new horn's onto the stub of the horns that I trimmed on the skull. After that was done I hung the skull from the gable beam at the front of the cabin.

 

Bob Show's up.

Bob showed up around 6:00. We sat around and visited until around 9:00 when Bob went to his van for the night.

Okay, that was Thursday.

FRIDAY.

Slept in, had breakfast, hung out in front of the fire until Bob came in, then hung out in front of the fire with Bob.
It was a cold morning with gusty wind so the fire in the wood stove was very welcome.
Eventually we got our stuff together and worked on a couple projects.
We fixed a squeaky chair.
Bob took a walk up the trail from the cabin and did some work on the trail.
I made a hanger for towels, coats etc.

The Hanger.

It started with a 1”X 6” X 18” board.

I drilled a 2” hole in one end of the board with my T handle drill.

The next thing was to find the proper sized stick to use as a rod. I took a short walk and found a suitable Fir sapling laying on the ground. I cut about 10 feet of the end and took it back to camp where I trimmed the branches off, cut it to size and pealed off the bark.

I hung the whole works to the right of the wood stove. The board is screwed to the rafter and the small end of the stick is screwed to the door post above the door.

When there is something hanging on the hanger it does block a small part of my view outside but I will just have to get used to it.

A Flower.

I noticed this pretty flower along the trail up to the bench by the stump.
It looks like some kind of poppy.

There is another flower near this one that is just about ready to open.

We are finely seeing some blooms from all the seeds and bulbs we have planted here over the last few years.

I'll just keep planting and hoping for the best.

Saturday.

After getting up, having breakfast and sitting around for a while; Bob and I went up the trail from the cabin and did some work on the trail.

We worked on that for a couple hours until it was time for lunch.

After lunch and a long break we went to the wood yard with the van and got a couple of boards to make new shelves for the kitchen in the cabin.

Sunday.

After breakfast Bob went up to do a little more work on the trail.

I stayed at the cabin and did a couple chores.

I have always thought that the table was a bit short so I took it apart and added a couple of one inch boards to where the base connects to the top. That brought the table top up an inch.

The top of the table also was getting a little weak so I added a couple of blocks to stiffen things up.

I had hung one of the lanterns from a rafter over the table but when it is lit it throws a shadow over the table. I moved the hanger to the outside beam and that seems to help get more light on the table.

The rest of the day I spent just enjoying the passage of time.

Monday.

Bob left around noon on Monday.

I hung out until around 4:30. I spent my time replacing the legs on the bench that Patti and I broke a couple weeks ago.

Making the Legs.

I used some old redwood fence posts for the legs and shaped them with a draw knife.

After shaping the legs I drove them into the holes in the bench seat with the back of a heavy ax.

Here is the finished bench.

Flower.

The second poppy bloomed so here it is.

Going Home.

On the way out I dropped off the bench at its spot along the road.

I got home around 6:00. Patti and I went to Mary's Pizza Shack for dinner.

Okay that was my trip to the cabin.

Finish Door Repair

Finished the Door Repair.

It may seem like it took me a long time to finish this repair but most of the time was spent waiting for epoxi to cure or paint to dry.
I painted the door on Monday and installed it yesterday.

  Transfer Case Linkage Adjustment.

The transfer case linkage on the van has been kind of sloppy and has been hard to shift so I took it apart yesterday to see if I could find anything amiss. It mostly looked good so I put it all back together and back on the van. I added a couple of washers to where the pivot points are and bolted it down good. Everything is nice and stable now.
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to adjust the linkage. I still haven't gotten it right so if the rain stops today, I'll try it some more.

The rest of the time we have been just goofing off.
Patti had a doctors appointment yesterday to have minor surgery on her left hand.

I am going to the cabin on Thursday (tomorrow) afternoon or Friday morning. I will be there until Monday so no posts for a while

More on the Door

The Door.

I did some more work on the van door.
I tried to braze the patch to the door skin but I didn't like the way it was going. After a coupe of inches the metal was distorting so bad that I stopped trying to braze it together.
I decided that I was going to have to some how glue the metal together. I spent a lot of time running around looking for some kind of construction adhesive for automobiles.  I wasn't sure that liquid nails would do the trick. Eventually I decided that some JB Weld would probably have the best chance of working. I had a couple of partial tubes of JB Weld so I mixed them up and slathered the epoxy on the metal and clamped the patch to the door.

The epoxy was hardened by about 8:00 last night so I removed the clamps and the patch  stayed stuck to the door.
So far, so good.

You can see the rust on the bottom edge of the door in the picture below.

I wire brushed the area and sprayed some rust stopper on it. I will seal it with epoxy putti. The putti will also seal the bottom of the patch and stick it to the door.

Okay that's it for today.

Working on Van Door

Van Door.

Yesterday I did some more work on the van door.

I cut and shaped a piece of sheet metal to fit the bottom of the door.

I will start by screwing the piece in place then probably braze it along the edge. I think I will epoxy it at the bottom since the door there is pretty rusted out.

Okay that is as far as I have gotten on this project. I'll probably do more today.