What did YOU do today?

[scotts90ranger]

I might have made a slight miscalculation... we had to shim a LOT, the back corner was 1 1/8" lower than the high corner so the L section we left mounted to the wall/floor and shimmed the top side, didn't have to make any too goofy of boards, dumbest were 37" long going from 3/4" to a point and there were two of those. The end section we were able to pull up since it was all jacked up but it took very little to get it squared up just from some shoddy workmanship initially...

Yeah, the counter wasn't original, it was all 3/4" plywood held in with 2" nails and conveniently very little glue, with two people lifting we were able to get enough room to get a wonder bar under the countertop and work it up. The long section we did cut into two pieces to make it easier than the ~12' long mess it would have been...

When we stopped for the night everything is attached and level, tomorrow my brother will come back over and we'll see what kinda mess it is to cut prefab countertops to length then work on getting the sink hole cut and so forth...

Oh and of course we found the areas where mice had been getting in and fixed all that we could see and mouse proofed the one cabinet they could get into aside from under the sink (standard shortcuts cutting drain holes). Conveniently I had a 4 pack of copper scrubbers left over from when I put the shop in so we used those...

Annoyingly the dishwasher is seeping somewhere so I'll have to look into that, we thought about getting a new one but not sure I want to deal with a new one that's designed to last just a few years...

 

[19Walt93]

I serviced my Ranger, rotated the tires, topped up the gas and parked it for the winter. The dealer didn't have an FL1A in stock(no surprise, the last vehicle to use one was a 2001 Explorer V8) so I got a Napa Gold filter, assuming they were still made by Wix. I took the Napa filter out of the box and saw a 'made in China' sticker so I went to another jobber and found a Motorcraft FL1A. Napa will get that piece of crap back.

 

[racsan]

Took down all the fall outside decorations & put up the Christmas stuff, Got the main tree decorated.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Made progress today on the counters but not as much as I was hoping, but it did get dumber so you get what you get... The prefab counters come in 10' 1" lengths and my counter is like 11.5' long so we had to figure out the best way to extend it. So far it's got a dozen or so clamps on it letting the wood glue dry. We did get the super heavy Kohler cast iron and porcelain sink cleaned of the old sealant and got the new faucet installed. There's a chance we can be done tomorrow night or at least mostly done with the counters and sink just leaving the backsplash for later. Oh and the built in backsplash thing on the counters is over an inch taller than the window sill, will likely just build up the window sill to match.

So far that's 20' of countertop out of the shop and one giant cast iron sink that have all been in my way so there's that!

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Made progress today on the counters but not as much as I was hoping, but it did get dumber so you get what you get... The prefab counters come in 10' 1" lengths and my counter is like 11.5' long so we had to figure out the best way to extend it. So far it's got a dozen or so clamps on it letting the wood glue dry. We did get the super heavy Kohler cast iron and porcelain sink cleaned of the old sealant and got the new faucet installed. There's a chance we can be done tomorrow night or at least mostly done with the counters and sink just leaving the backsplash for later. Oh and the built in backsplash thing on the counters is over an inch taller than the window sill, will likely just build up the window sill to match.

So far that's 20' of countertop out of the shop and one giant cast iron sink that have all been in my way so there's that!

Pics or it didn't happen!

 

[scotts90ranger]

Pics or it didn't happen!

Here ya go, first is this morning, next is just a couple minutes ago...

 

[Rick W]

I Re-dyed ole blue’s vinyl top with a new product. I’ll write it up after I touch it up and it’s done. It already looks 100 times better.

A bunch of little chores, checked all the vehicles for antifreeze for the freeze point, disconnected my garden hoses, and put the pressure washer in the bathroom in the garage, all so nothing will freeze. Tonight is the first night it’ll be a threat down here, predicted lower of 29°, but in the mid 20s, the next three or four days at night, and barely over freezing during the daytime.

I also disconnected all of Sweetpea’s hoses, turned off the inside valves, opened up the outside valves, etc. I got a plate of leftover turkey dinner for that, like I needed another one.

The big project today was opening up my little HF battery tester and fixing it. I must have a half a dozen different kinds of meters, and that fancy smart battery charger, but the beauty of this one is it fits in your pocket and it tells you exactly what you want to know if you’re in a hurry. All it was was that the positive terminal pulled off the solder joint. Probably wasn’t really on there to begin with..

Now that I’m getting around better than I was a few years ago, assuming all the poking and prodding the doctors do works out. OK, I expect to be covering some more miles. So as I’m cleaning the shed of miracles and re-organizing some of my tools, I’m trying to do it in such a way that I have things that are easy to grab to take with me when I’m on the road. This little guy will probably be the first addition to the travel box.

Oh, and a friend out of Tennessee helped me clean up a little bit and we got all the fun and festive and merry set up in the living room with the tree, and the dining room with the Christmas plates. If my feeble body holds out, I should have everything up for the holiday by tomorrow night After caffeine and octane.

I played musical vehicles and moved the trailer around and hooked it up to the road Ranger. It only took me about 15 minutes. I finally figured out the correct procedure and I’m not nervous about doing it anymore.

And, and, and, one last thought, I met my new neighbors. Really nice younger couple. We’ll probably share a dinner and a wine later this week to get acquainted.

i’m not feeling too merry yet myself, but I can feel it creeping up

 

[scotts90ranger]

One neat thing I learned yesterday was that a 40 grit flap disc in an angle grinder removes wood like a mofo! A couple years ago we made a straight edge from a couple 4" offcuts from OSB when sheeting the inside of the shop and screwed them together and used the factory edge as a straight edge. We reused that this weekend cutting pieces but the circular saw motor was hitting the top board for a bit, tried a hand plane which worked but slow but I had my cordless grinder there with a new 40 grit flap disc to take down some screw tips that were poking through and tried that and holy cow the sawdust was flying!

 

[Rick W]

Drove to the lake today for some pleasant weather. A week plus of rain, felt good to go for some clean mountain air. Also went for a walk, getting difficult to walk even with my cane..I need to move as i can.

You’re inspiring, you old dude!

 

[scotts90ranger]

Made more progress today!

The kitchen is now functional again, the clamps are holding the board the front of the dishwasher will be screwed to but I needed to get to this point... only took two trips to town today, first for angle brackets to screw down the counter top with, the second to get a tight quarters angle drill adapter and the hex drive drill bits I would need since I couldn't find any (I know I have some somewhere).

Still have trim work to do obviously, need to iron on the end pieces and make something to fill in the gap between the backsplash and the window... that and put away a lot of tools, I got them out of the house but only some of them got the rest of the way put away...

 

[Rick W]

Made more progress today!

View attachment 120657

The kitchen is now functional again, the clamps are holding the board the front of the dishwasher will be screwed to but I needed to get to this point... only took two trips to town today, first for angle brackets to screw down the counter top with, the second to get a tight quarters angle drill adapter and the hex drive drill bits I would need since I couldn't find any (I know I have some somewhere).

Still have trim work to do obviously, need to iron on the end pieces and make something to fill in the gap between the backsplash and the window... that and put away a lot of tools, I got them out of the house but only some of them got the rest of the way put away...

Looks great! I like the way you matched the C clamps to the multicolor floor mat, even if temporary.

I have one concern. I think that evil hog-looking demon from the Amityville horror is reflecting in the window glass like it did in the movie. Sometimes that happens in old houses.

Might want to call a priest to bless the new counter…

 

[Bgunner]

Spent the last couple days upgrading my old laptop since the prices are so cheap right now.

Samsung Series 3 NP365E5C-S02UB

Old Spec. ____________________________ New Spec. ________________________ Cost
2x2GB = 4GB RAM __________________ 2x8GB = 16GB RAM ________________ $16.19
500GB HDD __________________________ 500GB SSD _________________________ $34.55
Stock Thermal Paste _________________ Corsair - XTM70 Thermal Paste _____ $21.59​

Thermal paste lowered temps by 8°C under load so it was time to re-paste since the laptop is tech from 2012 and has only been blown out keeping it dust free but no other maintenance other than OS stuff. The thermal paste was the most spendy of the over haul but it is some good stuff. The Corsair XTM70 is rated among some of the best that Igors Lab has tested and ranked higher than even Thermal Grizzly which blew my mind.

The SSD is the biggest performance booster as now it loads the OS fully in under a full 90 seconds faster. Another upside is that the OS no longer hangs at times when loading programs or switching windows.

Because the APU uses the RAM for VRAM, 512MB selected, and the OS was using 2 GB of Ram that only left me with around, and usually under, 1.5GB for programs creating resource issues. Programs requesting RAM space were having to wipe space and load the information causing a major slow down and hangs. I considered only doing a total of 8GB of ram but for $1 more I could get double that and the laptop supported it so why not go bigger? The BIOS is locked being a cheap laptop so changing timings and speed of the ram is problematic at best so I just got the same speed and timings just more space.

I'm still running into temp issues trying to run old games so I've been looking at laptop coolers that will force air through the vents on the laptop. This will allow the CPU to cool better as the stock fan just doesn't move a lot of air. Since the update from Win 8 to Win 10 I have lost control of the fan so the motherboard now controls it and Programs do not recognize the motherboard so they can not control the fan. The best option is a laptop cooler for my needs. As of now I am running into the the thermal limit on the APU so it drops the CPU frequency to stay cool.

Long story short: for $73 I got a major speed bump in performance in my old laptop to keep it usable for a while longer.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Spent the last couple days upgrading my old laptop since the prices are so cheap right now.

Samsung Series 3 NP365E5C-S02UB

Old Spec. ____________________________ New Spec. ________________________ Cost
2x2GB = 4GB RAM __________________ 2x8GB = 16GB RAM ________________ $16.19
500GB HDD __________________________ 500GB SSD _________________________ $34.55
Stock Thermal Paste _________________ Corsair - XTM70 Thermal Paste _____ $21.59​

Thermal paste lowered temps by 8°C under load so it was time to re-paste since the laptop is tech from 2012 and has only been blown out keeping it dust free but no other maintenance other than OS stuff. The thermal paste was the most spendy of the over haul but it is some good stuff. The Corsair XTM70 is rated among some of the best that Igors Lab has tested and ranked higher than even Thermal Grizzly which blew my mind.

The SSD is the biggest performance booster as now it loads the OS fully in under a full 90 seconds faster. Another upside is that the OS no longer hangs at times when loading programs or switching windows.

Because the APU uses the RAM for VRAM, 512MB selected, and the OS was using 2 GB of Ram that only left me with around, and usually under, 1.5GB for programs creating resource issues. Programs requesting RAM space were having to wipe space and load the information causing a major slow down and hangs. I considered only doing a total of 8GB of ram but for $1 more I could get double that and the laptop supported it so why not go bigger? The BIOS is locked being a cheap laptop so changing timings and speed of the ram is problematic at best so I just got the same speed and timings just more space.

I'm still running into temp issues trying to run old games so I've been looking at laptop coolers that will force air through the vents on the laptop. This will allow the CPU to cool better as the stock fan just doesn't move a lot of air. Since the update from Win 8 to Win 10 I have lost control of the fan so the motherboard now controls it and Programs do not recognize the motherboard so they can not control the fan. The best option is a laptop cooler for my needs. As of now I am running into the the thermal limit on the APU so it drops the CPU frequency to stay cool.

Long story short: for $73 I got a major speed bump in performance in my old laptop to keep it usable for a while longer.

I just put a new CMOS/BIOS battery in my one laptop and I need to do my other one. The one I did already is a Lenovo Thinkpad that I was given and that was super simple. The one I have yet to do is a Toshiba Satellite and you have to split the case and solder the battery on the motherboard.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Looks great! I like the way you matched the C clamps to the multicolor floor mat, even if temporary.

I have one concern. I think that evil hog-looking demon from the Amityville horror is reflecting in the window glass like it did in the movie. Sometimes that happens in old houses.


View attachment 120662
Might want to call a priest to bless the new counter…

That's a lamp shade not manbearpig...

 

[Rick W]

That's a lamp shade not manbearpig...

haha, I see it now. When I first looked, it looked like somebody looking down into an iPhone, taking a picture. I poke fun at everything, but I had to think long and hard about saying “hog like.” I was afraid it would be your wife and you’d come beat me into the ground like a tent stake!