[HokieMojo]

I just planed a board

It all sounded pretty normal. The first attempt was met with a lot of knocking. Perhaps I had it too low. Hitting stop, raising it, and trying again worked fine, though there were a few slightly raised lines, about 1/4+ wide. I must have chipped the blades slightly. No matter - I can flip them around to the new edges, and I have another pack waiting if I need them.

It does look like there's a slight difference between left and right sides, but I'm talking something like 1/64" or less. The board I ran was only a 1×4, and it came out 9/16" on 3 corners, and less than a paper's width under that on the last corner, which could just be snipe-related.

I'm pretty excited, though it's tempered by a bit of exhaustion, both mental and physical. This was stressful. Turning it on for the first time was a heart-stopping moment. I wasn't sure if it would work it all, and I wasn't sure if it would shoot gears at me. In the end, I had only a washer left over unaccounted for. Most of the screws and washers were evident either by quantity, or by the scratches left over on things where they'd bin. Match up the scratch diameter, and you have the screw, or washer. Match up the number of like places that need a screw with the number of like screws that match the scratches, and it's obvious what goes where. I had to consult my manual - in the filing cabinet under "shop manuals" (at least one thing is organized) to figure out where a spring-loaded catch went, but that was easy to fit. One part I actually figured out again by the red filings under its flange. It had been screwed through the thing with the red enamel coat

A lot of things fit together so snugly they required the heat/cool method, light sanding with high-grit sandpaper, and using things like clamps and wedges to urge into their holes. It was quite an undertaking, and one of the more involved things I've ever done in my shop. Now I only hope the bearing holds up for some length of time, unlike the last one.

Thanks again, all, for your support through these troubled times. Now let's all make something!

after i finish getting my garage drywalled, painted, and organized, I'm going to turn my attention to a 12 year old grizzly jointer I bought a while back. interestingly enough, the part that concerns me most of all is the bearing replacement that I'm going to need to do.

Also of interest might be that I planned to spend a few hours stripping the parts off, a couple days soaking them in evaporust, and a day reassembling it. So far, day 1 occured and all the parts are sitting around just waiting to get lost for 6 months since.

I have a manual (which will be a help I'm sure) but getting everything reassembled is not going to be easy. I should have been sure I'd have the time to finish the project before starting. You've given me hope though!

 

[gfixler]

I just planed a board

It all sounded pretty normal. The first attempt was met with a lot of knocking. Perhaps I had it too low. Hitting stop, raising it, and trying again worked fine, though there were a few slightly raised lines, about 1/4+ wide. I must have chipped the blades slightly. No matter - I can flip them around to the new edges, and I have another pack waiting if I need them.

It does look like there's a slight difference between left and right sides, but I'm talking something like 1/64" or less. The board I ran was only a 1×4, and it came out 9/16" on 3 corners, and less than a paper's width under that on the last corner, which could just be snipe-related.

I'm pretty excited, though it's tempered by a bit of exhaustion, both mental and physical. This was stressful. Turning it on for the first time was a heart-stopping moment. I wasn't sure if it would work it all, and I wasn't sure if it would shoot gears at me. In the end, I had only a washer left over unaccounted for. Most of the screws and washers were evident either by quantity, or by the scratches left over on things where they'd bin. Match up the scratch diameter, and you have the screw, or washer. Match up the number of like places that need a screw with the number of like screws that match the scratches, and it's obvious what goes where. I had to consult my manual - in the filing cabinet under "shop manuals" (at least one thing is organized) to figure out where a spring-loaded catch went, but that was easy to fit. One part I actually figured out again by the red filings under its flange. It had been screwed through the thing with the red enamel coat

A lot of things fit together so snugly they required the heat/cool method, light sanding with high-grit sandpaper, and using things like clamps and wedges to urge into their holes. It was quite an undertaking, and one of the more involved things I've ever done in my shop. Now I only hope the bearing holds up for some length of time, unlike the last one.

Thanks again, all, for your support through these troubled times. Now let's all make something!

Lew - it's a good idea. I took a few while disassembling, but wasn't actually trying to show myself where everything went so much as I was just doing my usual documentation of everything I do in my life

Hokie - there is hope! I learned a lot - mostly from folks here - while repairing this thing. Here are a few things:

1) I don't have to just give up when a machine fails rather considerably. Machines are made by people and repaired by people. I'm a people, and it's possible for me to repair them, too. I think a lot of my fellow people would never believe they had this power, but most, if not all of us do
2) bearings can be better fit by heating them, and cooling the shaft upon which they will go
3) take pictures of every section you'll disassemble. Heck, take pictures of all the screws you've taken out of a spot in your hand in front of that spot, so it's very clear where they were, and what they look like!
4) an old socket that fits over the shaft and isn't wider than the inner ring of the bearing can be used to tap the bearing home after heating/cooling
5) make sure the bearing and shaft are clean and free of grit and oil when sliding the bearing on. Grit will tear up the metal; oil, though making it easier to slide on, will also help it slide off later
6) a fine grit sandpaper can smooth the shaft a bit for really tough fits
7) LumberJocks are an awesome bunch of people

 

[308Gap]

I just planed a board

It all sounded pretty normal. The first attempt was met with a lot of knocking. Perhaps I had it too low. Hitting stop, raising it, and trying again worked fine, though there were a few slightly raised lines, about 1/4+ wide. I must have chipped the blades slightly. No matter - I can flip them around to the new edges, and I have another pack waiting if I need them.

It does look like there's a slight difference between left and right sides, but I'm talking something like 1/64" or less. The board I ran was only a 1×4, and it came out 9/16" on 3 corners, and less than a paper's width under that on the last corner, which could just be snipe-related.

I'm pretty excited, though it's tempered by a bit of exhaustion, both mental and physical. This was stressful. Turning it on for the first time was a heart-stopping moment. I wasn't sure if it would work it all, and I wasn't sure if it would shoot gears at me. In the end, I had only a washer left over unaccounted for. Most of the screws and washers were evident either by quantity, or by the scratches left over on things where they'd bin. Match up the scratch diameter, and you have the screw, or washer. Match up the number of like places that need a screw with the number of like screws that match the scratches, and it's obvious what goes where. I had to consult my manual - in the filing cabinet under "shop manuals" (at least one thing is organized) to figure out where a spring-loaded catch went, but that was easy to fit. One part I actually figured out again by the red filings under its flange. It had been screwed through the thing with the red enamel coat

A lot of things fit together so snugly they required the heat/cool method, light sanding with high-grit sandpaper, and using things like clamps and wedges to urge into their holes. It was quite an undertaking, and one of the more involved things I've ever done in my shop. Now I only hope the bearing holds up for some length of time, unlike the last one.

Thanks again, all, for your support through these troubled times. Now let's all make something!

Glad it works now, I was getting tense with the 12:55 close time. Try driving a truck and trailer in LA, I've had people drive under my trailer. I was also a mechanic for 10 yrs before trucking and we used freon to freeze parts and beer.

 

[FatherHooligan]

I just planed a board

It all sounded pretty normal. The first attempt was met with a lot of knocking. Perhaps I had it too low. Hitting stop, raising it, and trying again worked fine, though there were a few slightly raised lines, about 1/4+ wide. I must have chipped the blades slightly. No matter - I can flip them around to the new edges, and I have another pack waiting if I need them.

It does look like there's a slight difference between left and right sides, but I'm talking something like 1/64" or less. The board I ran was only a 1×4, and it came out 9/16" on 3 corners, and less than a paper's width under that on the last corner, which could just be snipe-related.

I'm pretty excited, though it's tempered by a bit of exhaustion, both mental and physical. This was stressful. Turning it on for the first time was a heart-stopping moment. I wasn't sure if it would work it all, and I wasn't sure if it would shoot gears at me. In the end, I had only a washer left over unaccounted for. Most of the screws and washers were evident either by quantity, or by the scratches left over on things where they'd bin. Match up the scratch diameter, and you have the screw, or washer. Match up the number of like places that need a screw with the number of like screws that match the scratches, and it's obvious what goes where. I had to consult my manual - in the filing cabinet under "shop manuals" (at least one thing is organized) to figure out where a spring-loaded catch went, but that was easy to fit. One part I actually figured out again by the red filings under its flange. It had been screwed through the thing with the red enamel coat

A lot of things fit together so snugly they required the heat/cool method, light sanding with high-grit sandpaper, and using things like clamps and wedges to urge into their holes. It was quite an undertaking, and one of the more involved things I've ever done in my shop. Now I only hope the bearing holds up for some length of time, unlike the last one.

Thanks again, all, for your support through these troubled times. Now let's all make something!

"1) I don't have to just give up when a machine fails rather considerably. Machines are made by people and repaired by people. I'm a people, and it's possible for me to repair them, too. I think a lot of my fellow people would never believe they had this power, but most, if not all of us do"

When I used to instruct at the college level it was my firm belief that anybody could learn the discipline I was teaching in…I think you've aptly stated that same philosophy directed at repairing things. "I'm a people …" a great bit of logic/common sense that seems to escape far too many people. Glad you got it up and running again.

 

[gfixler]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

 

[davidmicraig]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

Feel your pain and joy Gary. My house is a fixer upper and have had to deal with the breaks. I posted a roofing project on homerefurbishers that a buddy and I completed last summer. Big mess and nearly made me cry when it was finally completed.

As far as jeans go, if you have a Tractor Supply Company store where you live, pick up some of the CE Schmidt jeans they have there. They are economical and tough as nails. I was ripping out so many jeans around here I refused to buy new ones. I picked up two pair a few months ago and haven't torn a hole yet, which is like a guiness record for me.

Good luck with the projects, looking great so far.

David

 

[patron]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

clearly , you need to take a ' love boat ' cruise ,
for a month .
and re-evaluate your priorities ,
while an exorcist deals with the house .

just wear your life jacket the whole time (LOL) !

 

[lew]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

Ahh, the joys (?) of home ownership. Just when you think everything is right with the world, something else breaks.

Your story of the morning glories reminded me of a friends home. They have an ivy vine that grew into the house. They found it to work as a thermometer. When it went below 32 degrees outside, the leaves on the inside would droop. But, I think your situation may have been a little "over kill" on the sensing units.

Lew

 

[gfixler]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

David - good grief! I'm glad the place hasn't come to that yet! What a job. Also, thanks for the note on the pants. I grabbed 2 pair from OSH (Orchard Supply Headquarters) and those fell apart pretty quickly, too. I began to think no jeans were strong enough, but I'll definitely track down some CE Schmidts. I had a pair recently where the outer hem got loose. I was just watching TV with my hand on my leg and felt something weird. It was the front and back pulling apart and revealing the stitches like a ladder down the leg. I flipped them inside out and ran the whole hem with a tight, zig-zag stitch on my little sewing machine. Now they're good again. It's nice to be able to fix some things, but it was yet another of those "Why is everything falling apart?" moments.

David (Patron) - a vacation would probably be nice, as long as I could come back to no problems here. I don't know how that's possible

Lew - I'm only renting, so the real problems are my landlady's! I have grown a bit of an unnatural fear of morning glories after seeing how quickly they move. I swore I could almost watch them grow if I sat down long enough.

 

[TopamaxSurvivor]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

Coming from the farm I can tell you it is the forces of nature. When you live in town, nature is working against you. Things rust, wear out and need to be fixed and replaced. When you live on the farm, nature works for you. Every spring the new growth adds to your wealth and well being. The cows have calves, the horses colts, and the sheep lambs. A few seeds will give you reap bushels of wheat. Nature gives you more every year instead of constantly chipping away.

 

[gfixler]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

Your story cheers me up, Topamax! I think I need a farm, with a nice, huge patch of woods.

 

[LateNightOwl]

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

Your morning glories sound like they have been crossbred with kudzu!

 

[gfixler]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

 

[Dennisgrosen]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

niice saved
and I´m with you
this year everything´s
seems to fall apart
even my own body
had said stop for a while :-(
but at least I can enjoy
being on L J

 

[davidmicraig]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

Nice break down Gary (as in post, not the dryer). You added a few digits to the credit column to offset those tool purchases. Real life events that prove that justification one battles with before picking up the tool.

Good Job!

David

 

[docholladay]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

Isn't disassembling a washer or dryer fun. I almost totally disassembled my washing machine before I realized that I could have gotten to the parts I needed in about 3 steps. Before you spent all of that trouble and time to make your own parts, did you inquire as to the cost to purchase new - factory - parts for your dryer. I have repaired both my washer and dryer with similar types of problems and the parts were cheap. Usually, the small mechanical parts are not expensive at all. I think I spent $15.00 for the parts to repair my washing machine. That was after I had attempt to "fabricate" something and realized it wouldn't work. When I found out how cheap it was, I had a Homer Simpson "doh" moment.

 

[Jimthecarver]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

Two thumbs up on the repair Gary, but I do agree with doc. Those parts are very cheap.

 

[davidmicraig]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

Gary will have to answer, but I think in this particular case it was not about the bucks but about seeing if that metal lathe can be used to machine the parts that are needed. Way cool when you can play repair man and replace the parts that are needed. Way cooler to machine the parts you need and work it up from scratch. Personally, I would prefer to practice that technique on parts that are accessible then wait until a part breaks that I cannot find a manufacturer for.

David

 

[HokieMojo]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

While this was an impressive fix, here is one more idea. Why not build a drying rack? This method results in $0 of energy costs each time you have items to dry and it keeps your house cooler in the coming summer months. Don't get me wrong, a dryer is a wonderful thing to have on occasion, but I love my drying racks. They also don't wear out your clothes as fast (all that lint generated by the dryer is just worn away material). Just an idea.

 

[lew]

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

As David said, with all these successful experiences, you may well have started down the path to a new career. I'll bet there are plenty of building managers looking for a good maintenance guy. Should be easy work for a problem solver like you!

Lew