Furnace Replacement - Day 1

Today was truly one of those best of times, worst of times kind of days. This morning, I had the misfortune of experiencing the death of a pet. Beth published a wonderful eulogy for our boy Milo on her blog. He was a good boy and will be missed.

Given the grief of this morning, it was a welcome diversion to have our HVAC guys start on the new heating system today as well. I delayed the install a week due to some business travel, which meant the house has been COLD for an extra week. To drive home the impact of that decision even more, we got out fist real snow & ice last night. yippee... The saving grace for us has been the pellet stove we installed in the kitchen/breakfast room and the space heaters we bought when the knittas came to town. With these things running 24-7, there's just enough heat to keep us from becoming popsicles in these beginnings of a frigid NY winter.

The new system is a complete overhaul, with a boiler and hydro-coil air handlers replacing the normal gas furnace. We decided to go this route so we could place a second air handler in the attic to handle the 2nd floor independently. The guys focused on the basement today, removing all of the old equipment and installing the first air handler (photo below) and new duct work. What may not translate in this simple photo is the joy that comes with the fact that this unit will NEVER come in contact with any water that could reside on the floor of our basement. That fact alone is huge in this old house...

They'll be back tomorrow to begin the install work in the attic. We're on track to have real heat again by the end of the week. Hallelujah...

Look What I Got!

Yep. That's what they call in these parts 'One Kick-Ass Snowblower'. I was the major recipient of some good will last week when our Friend Todd let Beth know that he was getting a new one and wanted to give his "old" one away. Well, this isn't what I was expecting. For being 'old', this thing is awesome...8 HP, electric start, hand controls, you get the picture. For a guy who's never had one of these, I am feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. Many thanks to our Upstate Mom & Pop for this fine gift as we later found out that this belonged to them. THANK YOU!! I'm actually looking forward to our first major snowfall just so I can run this big bad boy around the driveway!!

As you may expect, it's been rather quiet on the master bath front. I've been traveling quite a bit lately and we've also decided to take the plunge on the furnace replacement. I did manage to make a little progress this morning while Beth was making Mac & Cheese for Thanksgiving dinner...

These are the new mirrors and flyover lights. They have the same finish as the vanity and storage cabinet that will eventually grace this room, in case you're wondering how this whole experiment may look when it's done. Hopefully within my lifetime it will be.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you all have a fun-filled day with your families and get plenty to eat in the process.

A Weekend of 'Plan B's'

For all of you that have been reading cigars and other 'yarny' blogs, you've likely got a belly full of the sheep & wool weekend by now. But alas, there was even more that went on that weekend. How can that be, you may ask? Well, the boys got a bit bored with sheep & wool so we went off and did some fun stuff on our own.

Saturday afternoon, Paul & I wandered our way back from Rhinebeck and hit a few of my favorite places (beer store, the Newburgh waterfront, and a beer bar)! We bought a few choice selections at Half-Time and had fun kicking back with a few pints with Brian and the gang over at the Rail. In between was spent taking some photos of the Hudson River and surrounding mountains. The first shot of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge is below (more on that in a bit).

Plan B #1 came when trying to find dinner on Saturday. We both wanted barbecue, but the only place in Newburgh had a 30-minute wait. This wasn't going to work, so we ended up getting a pizza and going back to the house to watch Game 6 of the ALCS, which the Red Sox won 12-2. All was well...

Sunday, we decided to hang back locally and do some hiking and picture-taking. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we both wanted to do something a bit more active than the eating & drinking routine we had basically perfectly the rest of the weekend. We tried to hike at Mohonk, but were denied at the gate by an ornery parking attendant and a sign that unceremoniously said "No Day Hiking Today." It would've been nice if they posted this on their website, but NOOOOOOO...please drive 30 minutes out of your way before we totally ruin your plans for the day. bastards... However, not all was lost as 'Plan B' #2 was hatched.

I have been wanting to hike up Breakneck Ridge again for a long time and today served as a perfect opportunity to do it. I remembered that it was a tough hike, but Paul was game so we decided to give it a whirl. Here's Paul at the trailhead.

Breakneck is a rocky scramble up about 1200' of vertical terrain in about a half-mile. It did not disappoint. I found a pretty good summary of it written by someone else here. We tagged along with a few groups who helped us navigate the various trails without getting lost. It was an excellent way to spend 3.5 hours on a beautiful fall day.

This is the view from the first lookout point. Storm King Mountain is in the background. They've recently added the US and POW flags. I don't remember them from the last time I was up here, circa 2000 or so.

That's the same Newburgh-Beacon Bridge in the distance. The only detriment to the whole day was that it was a bit hazy, but otherwise a perfect day. The boys part of the weekend ended by grilling up a chicken & shrimp feast for the knitta's that turned out to be a perfect way to wrap up the weekend.

Pics (as promised)...

Hello again. Here's a few updated shots of the bathroom. All of the wainscoting is installed and we're using the shower. Can I get a hallelujah? All that's to do on this side of the room is paint the lower portion of the walls and install a few more fixtures.

Now that door I was telling you about. Here's a shot to go with the description in my previous post. As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words...

I just couldn't bring myself to changing this doorway. I went with what the house was giving me and am glad I did. It's strange little quirks like this one that make our house unique and interesting. Eventually, the door and trim will be painted the same color as the wainscoting, but that's pretty low on the priority list right now. Must get vanity, countertop, and sinks installed first.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 5

Hello all. Sorry for the delay since the last post, but I spent last week on the road for work and this week has been a mad dash to get the house ready for Snarktoberfest 2007 :-) However, with all the hub-bub going on around us, we basically met our goal of having a 'functional' master bath before the kinttas arrive. We did have to make some sacrifices in the name of 'functional,' like no sinks and an unfinished floor (more on that later), but the new shower is pretty darned cool. In fact, Beth and I have been taking our morning showers in it all week :)

The latest finished tasks are completed wainscoting and re-hanging the door. We're keeping all of the the original doors that were left in the house when we bought it. They're in great shape and just need some scraping and re-painting to make them look perfect again. The master bath door is quite funny since at some point in the past, the house settled about 2 inches near this doorway (as shown by the sloping floor and slanted door framing! So, what did they do? They trimmed the top of the door to be shorter on one side! It looks rather odd on its own , but inside the door frame, it fits perfectly. I had to trim it down a bit more on all sides to accommodate the new casings, but it's good to go now.

I had the best intentions of re-finishing the floor too, but we just ran out of time. What it boiled down to was I didn't want to run the risk of having tacky polyurethane on the floor when a house full of people needed to take showers. It can wait until the October rush is past and it's just me, Beth , and the kitties again. No pictures to post right now but I'll get a few up soon.

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 4

This week has been going great. The Red Sox shut out the Angels 4-0 in Game 1 of the ALDS last night, AND I've been working in the bathroom all week. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't spend 8 hours a day at work! As of my last post, the bags of pellets were doing their thing and I was prepping things for the plumbers to come back. The floor sanding adventure went well, although it did take two trips to the rental center to get the right kind of sander. I originally rented a vibrating pad sander since I was terrified that a belt-type in my hands would gouge the floor. The problem with the pad type is that even with 20-grit paper, I would've been sanding the floor for about a week. It was the equivalent of trying to dig a ditch with a teaspoon. Given our limited time-frame, I broke down and rented the belt-sander. I was relieved to see that my fears were very much overblown. Don't get me wrong, you can gouge the floor if you're not careful, but they're easier to control than I thought. I had the entire floor sanded smooth in ~4 hours. Here's what the unfinished floor looks like now. You can see the before & after at the doorway transition.

The plumbers returned today to get the toilet and shower stuff installed. Well, I'm happy to report that this latest round of plumbing work went off without a hitch and we're now the proud owners of a working master shower and toilet! thank you...thank you very much... I even got the shower seat and trim pieces installed (see lovely blue painters tape in the photos, which is needed until the silicone sets up).

The plumbers will have to come back one last time to install valves on the hot & cold supply lines to the vanity. Unfortunately, the vanity we picked out has an enclosed back, which means that valves shouldn't be installed ahead of time unless you want to cut out huge holes in the back of the cabinet to let them through. Oh well, I'm not too troubled by that. After all, we have a toilet and shower again >;-D

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 3

We just came off of another fabulous weekend. Beth's Mom, JoAnn, and Nancy left today to head back to GA. We had so much fun, no matter what we were doing. After entertaining a house full of people all weekend, it's rather quiet now.

I took this week off of work to focus on the bathroom. It's the last push to get it functional before Sheep & Wool. I've managed to make a little progress over the weekend and today. Sunday was spent getting the new shower panels installed. The install went as expected, but as always, a few hiccups here and there getting them trimmed and notched. Thankfully, no catastrophes to report.

There is a funny story associated with the installation, however. The swanstone panels get attached to the wall using double-stick tape and construction adhesive. You put gobs of adhesive on the backside and use wood braces to apply pressure while the adhesive sets up. There's even a nice diagram with the suggested bracing layout. Sounds simple, right? Well, for the two opposing walls, it was. I was able to get the braces in nice and tight. The back wall, on the other hand, was another story. Since there's no opposing wall to provide resistance, I had a hard time applying enough pressure to keep the panels adhered on my rather wavy walls. The cute diagram I mentioned previously just wasn't cutting it, so I had to get creative...

Scary, huh? and yes, those are bags of pellets for my stove. I rigged up some diagonal 2x4 braces that got wedged against the lip of the shower pan and nailed a few pieces of wood to the brace to make shelves for the pellet bags to sit on. Trust me, this worked much better than standing there pushing against the wall for 24-hours! Each bag weighs 40-lbs, so I figure I've got approximately 100 lbs of lateral force being applied to the wall. I checked for pull-away and haven't see any. So far, so good. We'll see what happens when I take this contraption apart!

Today's fun was trimming out the new window. I re-created the colonial style trim on my other upstairs windows using stock 1x4's and some off the shelf moulding from my local lumberyard. Here's what it looks like.

Tomorrow's starts the hardwood floor refinishing adventure. I'm renting a sander in the morning and hope it get the floor ready for polyurethane by the end of the day. We'll see if I actually get that far.

The madness begins...

The month of October is going to be nuts for us. We're gearing up for YarnFest, trying to get the new bathroom in shape in time, and I'm looking at a little business travel inbetween. On top of this, my mother-in-law and two of her best friends (JoAnn and Nancy) are on their way to NY as I type this to spend the weekend with us. J&N are practically aunts to Beth & I and we absolutely love having them up to the house. Some of our most memorable travel memories have been with some or all of this crew, so I have high expectations that this weekend will be no different.

Well, in preparation for their arrival, I've had to delay some of the planned bathroom work that I mentioned in my last post in favor of cleaning up alot of my construction messes. For example, the den/bedroom was my construction staging area, so in order for someone to sleep there, it needed some TLC. This was actually good timing though since it forced me to put alot of stuff I didn't need anymore away.

I did get a good start on the shower, but only managed to get the trim work done. The panels each have to be custom cut to fit, so I decided to wait until I had a little more time to concentrate. I only get one shot to get this right, so I can't mess it up. I may get back in there tonight, after I clean the 'working' bathrooms :-)

BTW...the Red Sox magic number is down to 3 after our win & the Yankee loss last night. It's been a rocky ride the last month or so, but at least they've clinched a playoff spot. Now the October fun starts!

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 2

Hello all. It's that time again, when I share progress we've made on the new bathroom. I'm actually quite surprised at how it's coming along. The drywall work is done (THANK GOD!) and it came out ok. It's not a professional job by any means, but luckily for me, the rest of the drywall work in my house is awful, so by comparison mine looks outstanding :-)

I had a business trip to Annapolis, MD this week so I didn't get a chance to do any work during the week. However, my wife did (Yay Beth!). She got 2 coats of paint on the walls done so the bathroom looked like this by the time I got back...

Now before you start asking too many questions, it's supposed to look like this. We're installing wainscoting along the bottom portion of the walls (toilet area to the right of the new wall), and shower panels to the left. Now, as for not painting straight lines, you'll have to ask Beth about that yourself :)

I started in on the beaded board wainscoting today since it's the last major item needed before we can have the new toilet installed. The kits I bought are working out nicely. For those of you who are interested, I went with MDF since it's inexpensive and going to be painted anyway. I found these complete wainscoting kits on-line at Elite Trimworks.com. A photo of the toilet area as I left it today (sans paint & toilet) is below. I'm really happy with how it's looking. The entire bathroom will have this installed eventually.

The last few things we did today was install the baffles on the recessed light fixtures and cut a hole for the recessed shampoo shelf that will be installed after the shower panels go in. Beth thought it would be cute to get the obligatory "Where's Joe?" photo. She's taken these when I installed the laundry room window, master bath window, you get the picture...

Tomorrow starts the shower panel adventure. With any luck, the bathroom will at least look like it has a working shower by the end of the day. I'll let you know if it actually works out that way. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. We are :-)

Great Weekend

We had a marvelous weekend. Celebrated E's 13th birthday with most of the upstate 'clam-steam' folk on Saturday. This made up for Beth & I missing the ACTUAL clam steam a few weeks back. The photos we took on Saturday are up on the gallery, plus Beth has a cool post as well. Even better is a URL to our first-ever YouTube video post. Yippee! You can imagine our glee when it worked. I was playing around with the video mode on the new camera and was amazed at how good they came out. I learned a valuable lesson though...640x480 video mode EATS memory space. A 20 sec clip was over 40 MB! Next time I think I'll go 320x240. I'm sure it will look fine for YouTube viewing, and likely won't take near as long to upload.

Even before we headed over for the birthday shindig, I made a new batch of beer. I racked a Fat Tire amber ale clone recipe that I got from Northern Brewer. I can't get this beer where I live since New Belgium Brewing doesn't distribute east of the Mississippi River (they're located in Ft. Collins, Co). It's one of my favorite beers, and I try to have one whenever I'm traveling west. The goal is to have it ready by the time our distinguished knitting guests arrive. It's gonna be close, but I'm hopeful that we'll all be able to enjoy a glass or two together!

I Just Love My New Camera

Here's a few shots I'll taken since I bought the new camera.

This is my favorite view of our house. It shows the porch, the odd collection of roof lines we now have, and our front yard. If we ever have to sell our house, this will be the photo in the brochure.

A view of my windsor chair, taken in sepia mode. I loved how the light was coming through the dining room window. This would be a near-perfect shot if I hadn't failed to notice that the front left leg is levitating...DOH!

Our sweet Cozmo. The poor guy doesn't venture from this spot much anymore. He's a handsome boy, but looks rather sad.

This is a pie safe in our dining room. It's amazing how sepia mode can hide so much...I wish this room looked this good in color.

I'm going to post the rest of the 2007 General Montgomery Day shots up to our Kodak gallery. Hopefully, within the next few days.

Retail Silliness

I decided that yesterday was the day that Beth & I got a new digital camera. Our old one still works, but it 6 years old and has certain personality disorders that drive us absolutely crazy when we're picture taking. The worst of which is a 1-2 sec shutter lag that cost us a personal memento photo with Robin Williams, not to mention countless other shots that passed us by before the damn camera was ready. Well, no more! After doing a bunch of research, a lot of wishing, and a lot more waiting, I decided to buy a Canon S5 IS. It seemed like the perfect mid-point between a point & shoot and an SLR. Plus the price was in the palatable range. I'm quite the novice photographer, but am interested in getting better. Having several friends who are quite good provides added inspiration to take better shots as well.

OK, now to my retail story...After looking at many many websites, I realized that Circuit City had the best price. An added bonus is that they allow pick-up of on-line orders at their stores, which is nice since I have one a few minutes from my office. So I ask myself a simple question..."If they allow on-line pickup, then they'll surely honor the on-line price in the store, right?" WRONG! The same camera was on the shelf at $50 more than on-line. I ask a few of the floor sales people WTF? They told me "why don't you just order it on-line at this computer? You'll be able to it up in 5 minutes from the counter." Needless to say, I stood there dumbfounded. Being the engineer that I am, I stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out how they could do this and stay in business. I think I've got an explanation but won't bore you with it. :-) Bottom line, I got it at the price I wanted so that made me happy.

The silver lining is that the new camera ROCKS and I can't wait to post a few new galleries with it. Today is General Montgomery Day in the village, so there will be plenty of opportunities.

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 1

If you read Beth's blog, you're at least familiar with the trials & tribulations of the master bath remodel we're currently doing. Well, since the whole woodworking and home improvement slant is supposed to be MY thing, I thought it was about time that I blogged about it.

We're currently in the middle of putting up drywall, which has turned out to one of the most significant tasks to overcome. I've done drywall work before, but never an entire room from scratch, from sizing and screwing up the sheets, taping and mudding the joints, and the sanding. Drywall sanding is kinda like paying taxes, just when you think you may be done, there's more- lots more. Well, we started doing the ceiling last night and luckily, we rented a lift to provide the muscle. A machine like this can save a marriage, and I'm convinced that if I hadn't rented it, Beth and I would have ended up killing each other while trying to do it ourselves.

The photo may not show this in great detail, but several of the ceiling joists have wood shims installed over them. This is because back in the day, there was no need to ensure your framing was plumb & square since you could make it so when you applied the plaster. Well, it's not quite so easy with drywall...if you don't want walls that look like wavy mountain roads, you must shim the low spots, one by one, until all studs and joists are even. I cut sets of 1/8", 1/4", and 3/8" shims on the bandsaw so that the 5 joists from left to right would be level. Each wall had to be handled the same way, which is why it took me several weeks to get them done. It's tedious detail-oriented tasks like these that make me want a new house.

Another recent completed task is the new vent fan (shown below). We got a Panasonic whisper-wall, a direct vent model which true to its name, is very quiet. A major advantage to a complete remodel is total control over where to run the electrical. With this in mind, we went with the new fan, recessed overhead lighting, and three times the number of outlets and switches we had before. This photo also shows the new window, which is another major upgrade :)

Up next is taping & mudding the ceiling drywall, refinishing the oak floors, and priming everything. Before long we'll actually have a working toilet again (after 6 months or so) and a second shower (after 2 years). Geez, it's amazing what you're willing to live with. I've got a deadline of October 18 for finishing everything (anybody know why??), so the next 6 weeks ought to be quite busy...

Magic Number = 17

I just love this time of year. Pennant chases in baseball, college football is back (Go Ga Tech and Fla Gators!!), and the weather is cooling as we head into fall. For all these reasons, it's hard for me to feel sad on any day between September 1 and December 1.

Back to baseball...I've really become a big Boston Red Sox fan over the last few years. Alot of it has to do with my hatred of the Yankees (i.e., the evil empire) as well as my being a lifelong fan of those other perennial losers, my hometown Cubs. I can't really explain why I identify with the Red Sox, but I just do. I'm not that vocal about it in public since I live in Yankee hell, and a Yankee fan would just as soon run you over if you have a "B" on your hat...

But I digress...the good news is that the Sox are up 7 games with 23 to go, which gets us to the title of this post. I'm losing faith that the Mariners or Tigers will close the gap in the wild card, but that's OK. The playoffs are actually more satisfying when the Yankees are involved (and lose) >;-D

Can I get an Amen????

I heard a story from NPR yesterday in the "This, I Believe" series. Usually, these stories are testimonials of someone's convictions and/or experiences. This one is no different, except for one thing...It was about barbecue! That's right, kids. Good old fashioned barbecue. While I was listening to it, I found myself nodding, smiling, and sharing the joy. For all of you other barbecue lovers out there, you must listen to this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4827993

I couldn't have said it better myself. Makes me want to go fire up the smoker! Happy Labor Day All!

I Heard You...

Alright, alright, alright...I know I've been lazy, and busy, and lazy over the last few months. But that's no excuse. I promise to get back to bloggin' soon. I do have lots of old house renovation and construction stories to share so I hope all of my usual readers will be back to comment (and insult) at their usual frequency. :-)

Be back soon (and don't say "we heard that before...")

Tap-NY Recap

Hello campers. Well, a little over a week ago, I attended the 10th annual Tap NY Craft Beer and Fine Food Festival. What a great time. I traveled up to Hunter Mountain with a tour bus group from our favorite local haunt, the Golden Rail Ale House. Here's a photo of the group in front of the Hunter Mountain Ski Lodge.

This festival is a beer bonanza, with selections from over 30 NY state craft brewers. All of our favorites were there, including Lake Placid, Blue Point, and Brooklyn. Lake Placid took top honors this year as the best craft brewer in NYS. Well deserved, I think. If it's not my favorite brewer, it's in the top 2-3. I urge all of you to venture out and try selections from these incredible breweries if you can find them. If not these, then patronize your local craft brewhouses and breweries. It's well worth the effort. You will be rewarded!

What makes the trip even better is that I've gotten to know the organizer of the event (and many of the attendees), so it just feels like you're hanging out with friends. I've posted up the photos from the day on our Kodak Gallery website for all to view. Bear in mind that this day was in fact a day of drinking so several of the photos look incriminating. However, it was all in good fun.

I realize this has been a beer blog lately without much woodworking. That is going to change. Now that Spring is here, I have grand plans for getting back in the shop and starting a few new projects.

My Wife Rocks...

My wife had a really trying week. I'm still out of town, and as such, the house Gods saw it fit to punish me again for it. Well, this week was no different. For a short history of what has happened, check this out. When I left NY, we were in the midst of one of the worst Spring Nor'Easters in history. As a frame of reference, we got the most rain in 24 hrs (7+ inches) since 1882! For the first time in my life, I experienced a real "100-year storm" that we frequently plan for at work. However, there was a silver lining to all of this. If this storm had happened in the 2004/2005 timeframe, it's likely that I would have been faced with a massive recovery effort. Who knows if it was luck, karma, or what that lead us to this point, but I'm grateful nonetheless.

As for the title of this post...my wife has come a LONG way since we got married. For an example, read this. She wasn't always this level-headed under pressure. In fact, if this happened 7-8 years ago, there's no doubt in my mind that we would having a serious discussion about my changing jobs. SOON. Luckily for me, we can now get through just about any house issues that are thrown at us, errrr, I mean thrown at HER :-)

Thanks to all who commented on her blog and shared their support during this week of hell. I appreciated them as much as she did.

What's wrong with this world?

Here I sit in beautiful (sic) Mentor, OH on a Friday night away from home watching a CNN feed of coverage from Johnson Space Center in Houston. Today had the unfortunate luck of being the second in a week where a questionably sane person decided to take a gun and shoot innocent people. The Virginia Tech shootings happended just 3 days ago, and the wake of those events are still on the front page. I'm sure that I don't have to share my feelings about these dispicable acts, as they likely echo those of 99.999% of all Americans. However, there are a few things that I feel I must talk about here, since at the moment it's my only outlet...

What I wrestle with more than anything during weeks like these is the contradiction of how they happen in our society. We live in a society predicated on free will, giving our citizens the ultimate in personal freedoms. The duality comes in when you realize that ultimate freedom also breeds ultimate carelessness. Our society gives people every opportunity to hurt others; we just hope & pray that won't. Why would they? I'm generally in favor of protecting people's freedoms because I truly want to believe in the good of people. Furthermore, I'm not really sure how beneficial to society as a whole it would be to ban all handguns. Something just tells me that mentally unstable people like the freaks of this week would simply find another means of doing their bidding. Which brings me to my final thought...

I'll be the first to admit that I understand very little about mental illness. I can't even imagine myself in that situation, where I've lost all appreciation for the value of human life and am willing to kill others and myself. Perhaps these two individuals were so out of their minds that their thoughts of hate and murder appeared to them to be pefectly lucid and sane. All I have to reconcile the acts of the past few days is the hope that they weren't fully aware, because the contrary really scares the hell out of me.

Tucson

Remember way back when I blogged about finally getting some head? (in my beer, you perverts...) I know, it's been a while. Well, at the end of that post, I lamented having to take a film camera with me on my trip to Tucson. During the lag of having to remember to take the film in to get developed, waiting for the HS kid behind the counter to do his magic, and remembering AGAIN to go pick up said film, over a month has gone by. A month! By digital standards, I'd having taken 1000 photos and blogged up at least 5 posts. I'm such a spoiled kid...But alas, my rant much end and I must share some cool pics I took while out there.

I was lucky enough to go to Tucson with some seasoned visitors. Several from my company make the annual pilgrimage to the Waste Management conference so over the course of the last 5-6 years, have discovered many cool day trips in the surrounding desert and mountains. On the Sunday I was there, we drove east a few hours to Chiracahua National Monument.

It's the former home of the Chiracahua Apache Indians from as far back as the 1400's (remember Cochise & Geronimo? Chiracahua Apaches). In addition to the historical context of the place, it also has some amazing geological formations, which look like stone towers rising out of the ground.

The only downside to this day was that we didn't have enough time to truly enjoy this place. We had to get back to Tucson by 4 in order to attend the conference reception. Work is always getting in the way of fun...

Next year the conference goes to Phoenix. I've never been there either so I'm hoping I get a chance to go. I've already heard great things about the red rocks of Sedona...

It's All About Patience

I decided to rack my latest brew (Sierra Nevada pale Ale Clone) to the secondary fermentor yesterday. It had been in the primary for 2 weeks, which is plenty long enough. Typically, 1 week in the primary is enough to finish fermentation, but I spent last week in Tucson at the Waste Management conference, so the beer just had to wait.

One basic tenet of homebrewing is that one must DRINK beer while making beer. So with this in mind, I decided to crack open one of my hazelnut porters, of which I've written much about lately. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that good things come to those who wait...

That's right, kids...the beer has CARBONATION! After thinking about it for a little while, a tiny light bulb went off in my engineer head. Yeast takes longer to do its thing when temps are low. Well, my kitchen rarely creeps above 60 in the winter unless the pellet stove is raging. Since this batch is sitting in boxes on the floor, I imagine the remaining yeast in these bottles was working at a snail's pace. No matter, the beer is now carbonated and the brewers are happy. The lesson I learned from this is that most things that happen during brewing are cause & effect, provided you know what to measure and where to look to see what it means. This all comes with experience and a few messed up batches along the way. The good part is the longer you do it, the higher the probability that the batch will turn out good.

Getting back to that Sierra Nevada...Russ & I have high hopes for this one. The first tasting was very positive. Nice bitterness and clarity. Should turn out even better since we just dry-hopped it with another ounce of cascade. We'll bottle in a week, then wait another 2-3 to try it out.

I'm planning to post some Tucson photos next. Wife stuck me with a film camera out there (the horror!) so I have to get it developed first.

Cheers!

Project for a Good Friend

A little ways back, my friend Dominic asked me to help him make a chess table for his new house. He priced out some tables in catalogs, but the nice ones he liked were well over $1000. Plus, he wanted the satisfaction of building one himself the way he wanted it. The plan was to make it almost entirely out of walnut, with an inlaid chess board made from alternating walnut & maple squares. Here's the finished product...

I've been meaning to take a few photos of this table for the last 2 years, but for those of you who know me well, I can be quite the procrastinator... The photos are from Dom's upstairs den, with some very nice chairs that I'm sure his wife Sue picked out :-) This was the first piece I made for someone else and have to admit that it's the one project I'm most proud of. Dom tells me that he & his family are pleased too.

If memory serves, it took us about a month to complete the construction, working mostly nights and weekends in my shop. The walnut was given to us by another friend, who also happens to be a professional woodworker. A very generous gesture indeed. We reverse-engineeredg the design of a similar table from a magazine, using a traditional shaker design. The table's legs are tapered on both inside edges and the stretchers have a bead detail along the bottom to dress them up a bit. The finish is 4 coats of a high-gloss Sutherland Welles polymerized tung oil. Dominic applied the finish himself. It left a very nice smooth finish but it took a little while to dry between coats.

Seeing this table again really has me motivated to get another project started. Any ideas?

Tink, Tink, Tink...

That's the sound of sleet against the windows of the house today. I'm just grateful that I can work from home.

New Tools!

Hello all. One peripheral benefit (errr...weakness?) of the windsor chair class I took is a new appreciation for good hand tools. So, I've been perusing Ebay lately looking for a few bargains. Luckily for me, I've found a couple.

I recently bought a Stanley #4 Type 11 smoothing plane (from about 1920), an outside caliper for doing lathe turnings, and an antique Stanley bevel gauge. A photo of a similar plane is shown in the photo. I doubt mine will be in this good of condition, but half the fun is restoring these old planes & bringing them back to life. I've put bids in on a few others as well, but they weren't successful. My wife is pleased that I still have the ability to practice restraint in this area, although I have been accused several times in the last week of having an Ebay problem...

Well, gotta go, there's auctions I'm watching (not...) :-P

Beer's still flat...

Now I'm stuck with ~1.5 cases of it. Disappointed...

Flat Beer & Frozen Pipes

There aren't many things that piss me off more than the two things mentioned in this post's title. I'll share a little bit about both today.

First, the beer...this being the hazelnut porter Russ & I made a few weeks ago. The yield was a bit low due to the crappy siphon I had. It wreaked havoc on my primary to secondary racking and cost me a little under a half-gallon of beer. That being said, when it came time to bottle, I cut back on the priming sugar since I didn't want to over-carbonate the beer and potentially cause bottles to spew their caps all over the kitchen. The last few beers I've made have been too carbonated, not to the point of exploding, but those that have to wait for 10 minutes after pouring due to the 4 inches of head in the glass. I definitely wanted to avoid this. SO, what happens next? I crack a few of these beers with great expectation only to find out they're flat. I mean TOTALLY flat. I can't tell you how disappointed I was. However, not wanting to throw in the towel, I decided to try & re-prime some of the bottles with more sugar. I figured the batch had nowhere to go but up, so what the hell? I haven't cracked one open yet but will share the results with you soon.

Now for those pipes...Beth has been very good at keeping the friends & family up to date on our house woes, so shouldn't be new to any of you. However, it IS relatively new to find out that you have a house can have pipes on the 2nd floor freeze when those on the 1st are fine. Sound strange? Well, giving full credit to the idiot who owned our house previously, our feed pipes to the second floor are right next to an uninsulated outdoor wall that happens to have some draft issues. I must admit that a little influence is also due to sub-zero wind chills we've been having in NY lately too. All of these things together equals no water in upstairs bathrooms. Luckily for me, the pipes were in reach and could be insulated and heat-traced without needing either a sledge hammer or a chiropractor. 3.5 hours on a ladder in my basement's stairwell was all it took. In my house, that's not too shabby...

On a completely unrelated note, I urge all of you who visit here to read the following. Over the last few weeks, there has been ALOT of press on the recent findings of the IPCC on global warming and the potential influence of man (and his CO2) on it. What I find fascinating about this topic in the press is the near addictive quality of buzzwords and sometimes unsupported conclusions that are reported. I'm of the opinion that much of what gets reported on this topic (given the current level of understanding) is likely more due to politicos and not scientists. I'd like to see far more SCIENCE reported and far less propaganda. However, science doesn't sell. That is unless geeks like me are reading it...

All's Well that Ends Well

Hey all. My apologies for being so lazy with my posts. BUT, thanks to my lovely wife bustin' my chops to get something done, I'm back....!

The title of this post says it all about the latter portion of my windsor chair class. I spent the better part of last weekend finishing it up. This was the second 3-day weekend (out of 2), with the expectation that I would be able to actually complete it. Luckily for me, I actually did, but not without some drama and a few near disasters...

I should have known that problems would arise when glue-up began. My first ever chair glue-up was no exception. It started out well, with turning tenons on a lathe. My first mistake was using too much of my prior woodworking knowledge as a basis. Rule #1 - CHAIRS ARE DIFFERENT. The sooner you accept this, the better off you'll be. So, with that in mind, I started assembling the legs & stretchers. This is shown on the right in the first photo (with Ferris making it look way too easy). Mine didn't go so well.

When I attempted to glue up the base assembly, I learned that I had made the tenons too fat, which didn't give me near enough time to make adjustments before the glue set up (Reference Rule #1 above). What happened next almost made my cry. When twisting the legs and stretchers to line them up, I heard a loud CRACK! The side stretchers both sheared right off . The 'lining' on this black cloud was that the legs were saved.

The rest of the class went much better. And I actually finished a day early. This took a colossal effort on Sunday (at the shop until 9 PM). I saw first hand what makes these chairs so strong. Every major arm, leg, and spindle piece is a wedged, through tenon joint. When done properly, it makes the parts near impossible to take apart. Below is an example of some of these wedges. It's a shot of the top bow where the spindles get secured. I just love the way the uncut wedges look like a bad Coolio-style hairdo. I deem this photo "Bad Chair Day". Bad pun, but I thought it was funny...

The whole process was quite enlightenening and very satisfying. Up until it was actually done, I had SERIOUS doubts about whether I could actually make a chair. Now I know I can, which is a really cool feeling. The last photo is the graduation shot with me & my chair, freshly painted and looking spiffy. The other chair is the one my instructor made. I must admit, mine didn't turn out too bad...Hooray!

The next thing I'm planning along these lines are a couple of stools with hand-turned legs. I want to do the proverbial "crawl-before-I-walk" thing in my shop since I won't have an instructor correcting my mistakes at every turn. I hope to start on those in the next few weeks.

It's a good beer day

I've recently got back into homebrewing. I made my first few batches in college, but they didn't turn out that great because I really had no idea what I was doing. Luckily for me (and most of my friends), good beer isn't a necessity in college, so it served its purpose. Nowadays, I'm far more interested in drinking GOOD beer. So to make beers actually worth drinking, I'm finding it takes a little more preparation and care during the brewing process.

We bottled the latest batch today. It's a hazelnut porter, made with a standard porter kit from MoreBeer.com. Now we buy supplies locally from Party Creations in Red Hook, NY. Bruce & Gloria run a great store, and have all the supplies and expertise brewers need to make great beer. My fellow brewer Russ is a big fan of hazelnut porters so we decided to try our hand at one. We added hazelnut liquer right before bottling to give it the added flavor. A taste from the bottling bucket was positive, with a nice smoky flavor from the smoked malt we added to the recipe. It'll be ready in a week or two, after some carbonation is made in the bottles. I'll write up more when we get a real taste.

Our next set of brews are a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone and a Bellhaven Scottish Ale clone. Both of these are personal favorites and I can't wait to get them both in the fermenter.

One last note...I have to give a Super Bowl shout-out to my hometown Bears! They just beat up on the Saints 39-14 to get back to the SB after 21 years. Go Bears!!!

Windsor Chair Class #1

Well, for those of you of frequently visit the Porch, Beth mentioned the chair class I got for Christmas. It's set up as (2) 3-day weekend blocks with the end result being a completed Sackback Windsor chair that I take home with me. The basic prototype is shown here. It must be stated that the class I chose is in the 1700's - 1800's tradition, which is handmade with all hand tools. The only exception being the turnings, which are provided by the instructors. If I survive the class and still have the patience required to make more of these things, I'll probably tackle some turnings on my own later on too. Now back to the chair...

The class is structured so that the instructors, Ferris & Maureen Rugar, make chairs alongside the student. I'm given a thorough demonstration, then it's my turn to have at it. Day 1 started by learning how to make spindles by hand using a rather large drawknife and a spokeshave. Each one starts out as a 3/4" square blank, and ends up (about 30 minutes later) as a round, tapered spindle. The photo here is a "before & after." I managed to get better as I trudged through making 7 of these puppies, although a few are rather ugly. The other Day 1 activity was BENDING!! Taking normal strips of green oak and turning them into elegant, rounded shapes like the bow (upper arch) and the arm (middle section) on the model chair. Bending is pretty straightforward, but you have to have the right equipment, which means a steam box (pic #1) , a form (pic #2), and tools to keep you from burning the crap out of your hands and face. With a little help from the instructors, I managed to avoid harm and get my bends done right. I'm definitely going to build a steam box for home bending. As you can see from the photo, it's pretty low-tech, but the results are great.

Day 2 was all about shaping the seat. It starts as a flat, rectangular hunk of pine and eventually becomes a very comfortable place for your bottom to hang out. Now it takes a remarkable amount of work and MANY very cool tools to get you there, but it's all worth it. Here's a few shot of me adzing and scorping. I couldn't make up these tool names... By the end of the day, I had the makings of a seat, but my arms and shoulders were pretty sore.

Day 3 was my introduction to drilling holes the old fashioned way, with a bit brace and spoon bits. For a modern woodworker who uses a cordless drill about as often as I use a pen, I wasn't looking forward to this. However, this part held true with the other "traditional woodworking" lessons I'd been taught up to this point. Once you see what's inolved and actually do it, it's not so bad. In fact, it's relaxing not hearing any power tools in a shop. This whole experience has me re-thinking my shop, with more focus on hand tools and hand work. I'm not a purist, and there will always be power tools in my shop. However, there are some things that should be done manually. This class has given me far more confidence to do just that.

That drilling photo isn't a mistake. I was instructed to use either my forehead or chin to apply downward pressure on the brace. It looks (and feels) weird, but it works. The second photo was the end-point for Day 3. I now have a seat with 4 balanced chair legs installed. I have to wait 2 more weeks to finish my chair. Much more on those experiences later.

We're off and running...

Well, after months of prodding from my wife, I finally got off my keister and set up my own blog. This way, SHE can write all she wants about knitting (which will be ALOT), and I can share some of my own stuff. I've got much to catch up on so their will be plenty of posts in the near future. However, since I've still got my bloggin' training wheels on, no point in hurtin' myself right outta the gate...