The problem with having a lot to do and not much time to do it in, is that there are already too many distractions which occur during the day. So even on a normal day, I can't get enough done around here.
The day started off well with Mary and myself getting up early so that she could get to her ACT by 7:30 a.m. (the test started at 8). After I dropped her off at the school where the test was taking place, I headed over to the Big Boy's Toy Store, aka Harbor Freight, to check out some sand-blasting tools which might be of use in attending to the rust problem.
They supposedly have a sandblasting nozzle with a reservoir that can be used to sandblast small rusted things. (Admittedly, the top of the windshield frame isn't exactly small, but it can be done given enough time.) And I was thinking about getting it. But ... reading the instructions on the sandblasting tools, it soon because obvious that my pitiful little 6 gallon compressor isn't nearly powerful enough to provide the pressure required for the job. The nozzle requires a minimum of 6 Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) of airflow @ 90 psi, whereas my little Bostitch only puts out about 2.6 (S)CFM. Not even close.
Apparently, what I need is one of those monster 80-gallon compressors that puts out nearly 16 CFM @ 90 psi. Unfortunately, it comes along with a monster price.
So that will have to wait for another day.
In the meantime, it was time to head home so as to start on the basement work for the day. It was mid-morning already. Late! So it was important to hit the ground running, get my plans updated and then start implementing them.
The first task was fixing the bedroom doorway, which was about an inch and a half too narrow for the door we had chosen. I had to pull out the short framing section between the door and the back wall and re-cut the bottom and top plates; and besides the complication of it being the frame section containing the light switch, there was also the problem that the studs were both so twisted that it took quite a bit of doing to get all the screws put in place in such a way as to hold the desired shape.
Once that had been accomplished, it was time to hang the bathroom door. I had to put up some trimmer studs on either side of the doorframe because the opening was huge (32.5 inches for a 29-inch pre-hung door), and it all went well except that the door didn't hang right. One side was about 1/16 of an inch too high, even though I'd used the same section of flooring to rest both sides upon. And then my tape measure was complaining that the top of the frame was narrower than the bottom, even though my level confirmed that both sides were equally straight. Confound it! My brain couldn't handle it, so I moved on to the next task.
On the back wall, I had made a stupid error by building the bedroom suite wall up against the drywall on the back wall The framing guy says we're not supposed to build framing on top of drywall. I guess it's aesthetically unpleasant or something. So I had to cut out the drywall between the studs where the bedroom wall intersects the back wall. And that took some doing. I don't have a good tool for cutting through the drywall so had to use my utility knife. And the idiots who built the house used Liquid Nails to bond the drywall to the studs. Which meant that while I was being very careful to extract all the screws out of the drywall in order to avoid breaking it, as soon as I started to get it "loose", the drywall broke all apart since the back paper was stuck. Ooh, that made me angry!
Had to do that in two places, actually: one for the small bedroom, and one for the big bedroom.
After all that, it was suddenly six o'clock and time for dinner. And I was through working on the house for today.
With very little to show for it.
And tomorrow I need to figure out how to deal with the rust on the Camry windshield frame.
The day started off well with Mary and myself getting up early so that she could get to her ACT by 7:30 a.m. (the test started at 8). After I dropped her off at the school where the test was taking place, I headed over to the Big Boy's Toy Store, aka Harbor Freight, to check out some sand-blasting tools which might be of use in attending to the rust problem.
They supposedly have a sandblasting nozzle with a reservoir that can be used to sandblast small rusted things. (Admittedly, the top of the windshield frame isn't exactly small, but it can be done given enough time.) And I was thinking about getting it. But ... reading the instructions on the sandblasting tools, it soon because obvious that my pitiful little 6 gallon compressor isn't nearly powerful enough to provide the pressure required for the job. The nozzle requires a minimum of 6 Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) of airflow @ 90 psi, whereas my little Bostitch only puts out about 2.6 (S)CFM. Not even close.
Apparently, what I need is one of those monster 80-gallon compressors that puts out nearly 16 CFM @ 90 psi. Unfortunately, it comes along with a monster price.
So that will have to wait for another day.
In the meantime, it was time to head home so as to start on the basement work for the day. It was mid-morning already. Late! So it was important to hit the ground running, get my plans updated and then start implementing them.
The first task was fixing the bedroom doorway, which was about an inch and a half too narrow for the door we had chosen. I had to pull out the short framing section between the door and the back wall and re-cut the bottom and top plates; and besides the complication of it being the frame section containing the light switch, there was also the problem that the studs were both so twisted that it took quite a bit of doing to get all the screws put in place in such a way as to hold the desired shape.
Once that had been accomplished, it was time to hang the bathroom door. I had to put up some trimmer studs on either side of the doorframe because the opening was huge (32.5 inches for a 29-inch pre-hung door), and it all went well except that the door didn't hang right. One side was about 1/16 of an inch too high, even though I'd used the same section of flooring to rest both sides upon. And then my tape measure was complaining that the top of the frame was narrower than the bottom, even though my level confirmed that both sides were equally straight. Confound it! My brain couldn't handle it, so I moved on to the next task.
On the back wall, I had made a stupid error by building the bedroom suite wall up against the drywall on the back wall The framing guy says we're not supposed to build framing on top of drywall. I guess it's aesthetically unpleasant or something. So I had to cut out the drywall between the studs where the bedroom wall intersects the back wall. And that took some doing. I don't have a good tool for cutting through the drywall so had to use my utility knife. And the idiots who built the house used Liquid Nails to bond the drywall to the studs. Which meant that while I was being very careful to extract all the screws out of the drywall in order to avoid breaking it, as soon as I started to get it "loose", the drywall broke all apart since the back paper was stuck. Ooh, that made me angry!
Had to do that in two places, actually: one for the small bedroom, and one for the big bedroom.
After all that, it was suddenly six o'clock and time for dinner. And I was through working on the house for today.
With very little to show for it.
And tomorrow I need to figure out how to deal with the rust on the Camry windshield frame.
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