Not sure what it is like in your part of the country, but here we are having severe heat. Yesterday the heat index was 110 and what really makes it bad is the humidity is about 85%. So you walk outside and you are soaked. I will be working on finished some cutting boards that I glued up in the final glue up yesterday. These are all large end grain boards.

 

I got in a sheet of Cherry Ply and the rope trim arrived yesterday for a night stand I am working on. I probably won't get it going this weekend but it will be at the top of the list for next week.

 

For the most part I will be out in the heat for a while and in the cool for a while trying to balance it out. I will be working on getting the framing up for the shop expansion. I put down one sill board late yesterday and found out the concrete guy didn't get things as square as he should have. Took me a bit to get this first sill board down and square. I'll move to the other end today and get that wall up and work back to this one so I don't have to go around or through the wall to work on the others.

 

So this is my agenda for the weekend, what is on your Patriot Woodworker agenda? All of us here at TPW love to see your projects and we are interest in your woodworking. So I'm looking forward to hearing for all of you.

 

 

Since my wife started having issues with her right hip back in June, we have been working towards getting her squared away for a total hip replacement surgery. So that means that I am being her care taker making sure she doesn't hurt herself, or others, especially me. So lots of doctor appointments and testing and having to hurry up and wait as they go through all the tests to make sure she doesn't have any infections or other things that could cause contamination to the hip replacement. So she should be able to get the surgery done in August once all the dust settles. So due to that, not much going on in the woodworking end for me. The only thing that I will be working on is making some simple boxes for my wife's school office to put files in. The school secretary asked if I could make a few to replace the old ones (circa 1970's) that have been repaired numerous times. So I got some 1/2" Baltic Birch Ply that should do the trick and will hold up well. So other than that, my woodworking life has been in hibernation in the 100+ degree heat of summer.

Looks like fun John.

 

Allen I hope she can get that hip replaced soon.

 

I will try to get a pen made that has been on order since just before I was hospitalized, but we'll see. Other than small stuff like that, I wont be doing much until my lifting limits are removed.

We have the same sweltering heat here in Indiana that John has in Alabama.  Luckily, my shop will well insulated and air conditioned.  I have a show next Saturday and I'm wrapping up some pig shaped cutting boards this weekend and maybe I can get started on a bookcase for my daughter. 

Edited July 22, 20169 yr by Ron Dudelston

Having lunch right now in the cab of my survey truck, just popped in here and thought about things I have done this past week. Woodworking related specifically! So I dug deep and got creative.

My main project at my day job is an interstate overpass with all the cloverleaf ramps an utilities. The past couple weeks we been busy laying out two bridge abutments for the steel and carpenters to come in and form up the abutment footings. There is wood in there if you look close enough! My crew laid out the abutment, and the concrete footings, and the piles, you can see the men starting to build to our layout. the steel I-Beams you see are the piles, they are driven in by the pile driver about 40 feet into the ground, and the bridge abutment footings are secured to those piles. the carpenters are forming up the footings.

 

 

 

The abutment below is almost complete, it's the abutment on the opposite side of the freeway.

 

We lay out structures to the 0.01 of a foot. Accuracy is a must in order for all the parts to come together by the time the deck is ready to be laid. I live for this work, it's great fun to see our work come together, and all the parts fit by our direction in the field, and it's really fun when it's 107 degrees! Yikes! Our truck is nice and cool right now, got the AC running, but we'll be diving back out soon to finish our layout for the day.

Hey, there's wood in there!

 

Have a great weekend folks and please do share your projects with us. Inquiring minds, love to see others work.

 

Allen, sure hoping the procedure goes well and her recovery is swift. 

Moody, ya shoulda had Morris and crew lay out your slab.

Ron, is it legal to cut chicken on a board like that. Good luck in swelling the AR account. 

Can't save an EDIT again.

Eldorado stone is not as easy to put up as the salesman said. But then, I guess I should not believe a salesman.

3 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

Allen, sure hoping the procedure goes well and her recovery is swift. 

Moody, ya shoulda had Morris and crew lay out your slab.

Ron, is it legal to cut chicken on a board like that. Good luck in swelling the AR account. 

I wish they had Gene. I would be done by now. 

3 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

Allen, sure hoping the procedure goes well and her recovery is swift. 

Moody, ya shoulda had Morris and crew lay out your slab.

Ron, is it legal to cut chicken on a board like that. Good luck in swelling the AR account. 

Yeah Gene,  the chicken will still be kosher.

5 hours ago, John Morris said:

Having lunch right now in the cab of my survey truck, just popped in here and thought about things I have done this past week. Woodworking related specifically! So I dug deep and got creative.

My main project at my day job is an interstate overpass with all the cloverleaf ramps an utilities. The past couple weeks we been busy laying out two bridge abutments for the steel and carpenters to come in and form up the abutment footings. There is wood in there if you look close enough! My crew laid out the abutment, and the concrete footings, and the piles, you can see the men starting to build to our layout. the steel I-Beams you see are the piles, they are driven in by the pile driver about 40 feet into the ground, and the bridge abutment footings are secured to those piles. the carpenters are forming up the footings.

 

 

 

The abutment below is almost complete, it's the abutment on the opposite side of the freeway.

 

We lay out structures to the 0.01 of a foot. Accuracy is a must in order for all the parts to come together by the time the deck is ready to be laid. I live for this work, it's great fun to see our work come together, and all the parts fit by our direction in the field, and it's really fun when it's 107 degrees! Yikes! Our truck is nice and cool right now, got the AC running, but we'll be diving back out soon to finish our layout for the day.

Hey, there's wood in there!

 

Have a great weekend folks and please do share your projects with us. Inquiring minds, love to see others work.

 

Which interstate John?

2 hours ago, Ron Dudelston said:

Which interstate John?

That'd be the I-215 Ron. The overpass is called Newport Rd. You may have traveled it when you here visiting Allen and Tami.

8 hours ago, John Morris said:

That'd be the I-215 Ron. The overpass is called Newport Rd. You may have traveled it when you here visiting Allen and Tami.

Just a section of it John.  Chicago has two seasons.  Winter and road construction.  I found out that California has but one.  Road construction.

1 hour ago, Ron Dudelston said:

Just a section of it John.  Chicago has two seasons.  Winter and road construction.  I found out that California has but one.  Road construction.

You got that right. Seems that is all we do. Our state has plenty of gas tax money to spend on roads, but only a portion of it actually gets to the local roads. We have plenty of interstate projects going on, but our local county roads are suffering, we can't seem to recoup any of the funding for our own roads. Once the gov gets a hold of our gas tax they don't push it back out to us like they are supposed too.

For awhile there we had some funding coming from Obama's Shovel Ready projects but it wasn't much. It was about 5% of any given budget for a project.

Funny thing is, even though 5% of the funding was from Obama, we had to erect a project sign at both ends of the job, with big bold letters, "This project is being funded by your federal tax dollars". Yet it was only 5% of the budget for a given project. Go figure.