What did you do today not on your truck...

[Boog]

You want to check for splitting down in the grooves with steel showing. I was getting ready to use our 5th wheel two years ago, bumped the tires, checked the lug nuts and caught a glimpse of shiney down in the grooves. Upon closer inspection all 4 were 10 years old and all were splitting. Lots of tread left. Glad I caught it at home and not on the highway.
Using your tongue jack to break the tires down reminded me of dad and I using the weight of the wrecker's front wheel to break ours down.

[72c20customcamper]

Now I get to buy tires for the dump trailer . They are larger E rated and on 6 lug rims . Going to be expensive so I’m not looking forward to it.

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by 72c20customcamper

Going to be expensive so I’m not looking forward to it.

Tell me about it. Today I gave the green light to paint my house in Weldon. $6,200 (ouch) But it's an all wood 2,200 sq. ft. house and it needs a lot of prep work. (a lot!) The wood and paint are looking their age in the desert sun and I'm using Dunn Edwards paint which is the best but it's not cheap.

The roof is probably next. It doesn't leak but it's looking a little long in the tooth. Only a matter of time. Gotta keep up on these things.

[special-K]

Originally Posted by Boog

You want to check for splitting down in the grooves with steel showing. I was getting ready to use our 5th wheel two years ago, bumped the tires, checked the lug nuts and caught a glimpse of shiney down in the grooves. Upon closer inspection all 4 were 10 years old and all were splitting. Lots of tread left. Glad I caught it at home and not on the highway.

All these tires with plenty of tread but there are cracks in the grooves. I think I'm going to put bald 40 year old tires on my trailer to get around that problem

Originally Posted by FleetsidePaul

Tell me about it. Today I gave the green light to paint my house in Weldon. $6,200 (ouch) But it's an all wood 2,200 sq. ft. house and it needs a lot of prep work. (a lot!) The wood and paint are looking their age in the desert sun and I'm using Dunn Edwards paint which is the best but it's not cheap.

Dunn Edwards, huh? Never heard of it. But what do I know?

I'm working on repairing/saving this summer kitchen at this old farm that a huge tree fell on. The contractor fixing the house looked at the summer kitchen and said "That has to come down". Mark, the homeowner, is a neighbor and friend of my friend I do Carlisle with and he told Mark to call me.

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by special-K

Dunn Edwards, huh? Never heard of it. But what do I know?

I'm working on repairing/saving this summer kitchen at this old farm that a huge tree fell on. The contractor fixing the house looked at the summer kitchen and said "That has to come down". Mark, the homeowner, is a neighbor and friend of my friend I do Carlisle with and he told Mark to call me.

Dunn Edwards is only available in the southwest. Kind of like In N Out Burger.
I was surprised to find that the little mom and pop hardware store up here had it.

That summer kitchen looks like a LOT of work. But it's so cool I'd want to try and save it too. You could have one heck of a cookout in that place. And with your skill I'm sure those smokers will be filling the air soon. If that was my place I'd do the interior with retro cooking/BBQ stuff and really trick it out. A vintage Coke machine on the front porch would look cool. That could be a fun place.

So far all I've done today is go to the post office. They are refusing to deliver my packages because they're afraid of Duke. FedEx, UPS, and Sparkletts will all deliver but USPS won't. So I have to keep going to the post office. Now I'm going to start making my famous Taco Burgers. I bought enough food because my buddy was coming over but he hooked up with the neighbor lady and I haven't seen him since. Wonder what's going on there.

[special-K]

This place will be getting a brick pizza oven along with a full kitchen. I'm just bringing the structure back. His neighbor had a plumbing supply house years ago. He gave a N.O.S. porcelain "real" farm sink. Not what you see today, a cast iron with rounded edges basin with dish drain on one side you'd see in old farm houses in America. Chrome faucet, too. This is an old store display yet to have water run through it. I'll be back for the party!

Even the end walls were racked a few inches out of plumb. I got the wall repaired and everything standing up straight now. The half into the hill needs the 4" x 6" bottom sills replaced on all three sides, rotted. Only a couple miles from there is a saw mill and they are making up the sills from oak. I hope those are done tomorrow. I'll work on jacking it up and getting those rotted sills out tomorrow. The hardest part is we are keeping the unfinished look and finding materials to match up. Fortunately a friend had some stuff he was hoarding. Hopefully enough of what I need.

Here's the (dirty) sink, How it stands now, the broken wall, and the wall fixed.

[Willowrun]

Originally Posted by special-K

Here's the (dirty) sink, How it stands now, the broken wall, and the wall fixed.

Wow, that's a lot of measuring, pushing, pulling, and supporting to get that building straight. Nice work!

[Getter-Done]

Great work.

[72c20customcamper]

Fantastic work Tim . I know from experience it’s harder to save something than to tear down and rebuild . But the end results will be worth it . Would love to have that sink .

[Steeveedee]

You don't appear to be slowing down all that much, Tim! I too know how much that kind of work is. You're kicking it out nicely!

[special-K]

Thanks everybody. A couple come-alongs, short chains, bolted down d-rings, and good things can happen. I think I've probably slowed down some, but I'm not stopping. Probably slow down some more, too

Originally Posted by 72c20customcamper

Fantastic work Tim . I know from experience it’s harder to save something than to tear down and rebuild . But the end results will be worth it . Would love to have that sink .

I'm just lazy. This way I only had to tear it half way down and will only build half . No, you got that right. Top of the walls all busted and bottoms rotted. The 6x6 post in the one corner is also rotted on the bottom. Even if I could cut that post out of the corner without scarring things up, then what would be left holding things together? I'm going to double up on the plate in the corners (other post bottom is soft) and cut 4" off the bottoms. Of all the types of work we carpenters get into I think saving an old building is my favorite

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by Willowrun

Wow, that's a lot of measuring, pushing, pulling, and supporting to get that building straight. Nice work!

X2. Hard believe it's the same place. You're making quick work on that place. If I was the owner I'd be a happy camper.

[special-K]

He told me yesterday he is having a party the first weekend in Oct and asked if I'd have it done. He waited on his insurance company a couple months! I guess TV shows have made people feel there has to be a deadline that will be a challenge. I thought he wanted a carefully executed quality job, not a done yesterday job. That's what you get from the guys who wouldn't take this on.

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by special-K

He told me yesterday he is having a party the first weekend in Oct and asked if I'd have it done. He waited on his insurance company a couple months! I guess TV shows have made people feel there has to be a deadline that will be a challenge. I thought he wanted a carefully executed quality job, not a done yesterday job. That's what you get from the guys who wouldn't take this on.

I always tell guys that do a job for me to just do it. I'm not the expert, you are.

I have these guys call me an ask me how I want this or that. I just tell them to do it as if it was their place. No deadline BS. Just do a good job.

I did have one guy. He took 3 months to drywall my garage. He did a good job but he would go MIA. It was just one excuse after another. It's too hot to work, it's too cold to work, it's raining. Raining? It's an inside job dude. WTF?

And I know he wasn't busy because his girlfriend works with my wife and she was always complaining how they were broke and she paid all the bills.

I'll bet she did. Because this guy won't get off the couch. She would tell my wife that she would get on him to go to work and he'd come over and work for 20 minutes to shut her up and take off. And then you wouldn't see him for a week.

It's a shame because he really did do good work. He could really make some money if he got off his rear end.

[Sheepdip]

Yep. I know one of them dudes, super talented, excellent work. He just don't do enough of it, takes him weeks to do a 1 week job, then b*tches about not making enough money.

[special-K]

Originally Posted by FleetsidePaul

I did have one guy. He took 3 months to drywall my garage. He did a good job but he would go MIA. It was just one excuse after another. It's too hot to work, it's too cold to work, it's raining...

Sounds a lot like excuses to drink you always hear from alkies

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by special-K

Sounds a lot like excuses to drink you always hear from alkies

Could be. But I've known some contractors that could pound some beers and still showed up for work right on time. I think that this guy was just mooching off his girlfriend. She had a good job.

I know his father gave him a relatively new F150 to help him get his "business' going. But all that amounted to was that he had a free truck and free rent. Courtesy of the people trying to get him to do something. I guess his motto was. Why work when you can freeload off the people that love you.

[72c20customcamper]

Replaced the motor mounts on my 64 Hawk . At least I was able to work in an upright position. Really feel I’m neglecting these cars amazing how dusty they get inside guess I need to get some good car covers .

[Steeveedee]

Visited a carving buddy for a wood exchange. He was offering up a 6" X 6" X 26" long teak blank. I joked and said I could make a teak tiki, but I'll probably resaw it into pieces for a box. Got a real nice little chunk of sycamore, too. I took up pieces of butternut, myrtle and basswood, because I'm not good with just being a taker. He did accept a piece of basswood. Went to a nearby wood supply store for some other wood, but got skunked for the type of wood I wanted- quarter sawn white oak.

[special-K]

Originally Posted by FleetsidePaul

Could be. But I've known some contractors that could pound some beers and still showed up for work right on time. I think that this guy was just mooching off his girlfriend. She had a good job.

It's hard to pull your hand back while it's being filled.

I was talking about the excuses to pop a beer, not excuses not to work. "It's starting to rain, pop a beer" or "The sun's out, time to pop a beer". I knew guys who would drink beer all day and get the job done right, when they were young. Living like that can't last.

I remember when drinking on the job was fairly commonplace. We had a townhouse project to run siding on. This builder had laborers and they were supplied with a 1t box truck with dump hoist to haul trash to the dump. Never seen another truck set up that way. One day people from their insurance company came and did some snooping and found beer cans in the trash loaded in the truck and gave some sort of warning to the builder about it. After that, the builder asked everyone to take their cans with them

Originally Posted by 72c20customcamper

Replaced the motor mounts on my 64 Hawk . At least I was able to work in an upright position. Really feel I’m neglecting these cars amazing how dusty they get inside guess I need to get some good car covers .

Be kinder to yourself. You treat those cars just fine. Guys are dusting off their cars out in the show field. Dust covers would be nice. they'd make you feel better

Originally Posted by Steeveedee

Visited a carving buddy for a wood exchange. He was offering up a 6" X 6" X 26" long teak blank. I joked and said I could make a teak tiki, but I'll probably resaw it into pieces for a box. Got a real nice little chunk of sycamore, too. I took up pieces of butternut, myrtle and basswood, because I'm not good with just being a taker. He did accept a piece of basswood. Went to a nearby wood supply store for some other wood, but got skunked for the type of wood I wanted- quarter sawn white oak.

That quarter sawn white oak is a popular wood. I know a guy who specializes in milling quarter sawn oak. We've got the oak back east!

[72c20customcamper]

More wood in

[special-K]

You're preparing for Jack Frost while I went playing looking at antique trucks (Saturday)

[72c20customcamper]

Originally Posted by special-K

You're preparing for Jack Frost while I went playing looking at antique trucks (Saturday)

My uncle had a 47 like this but it was a tow truck with a Holmes wrecker .

[special-K]

That would be very cool to have. I really liked the first one, 100% original (looked to be). What a great one to have for property chores (with care).

So this summer kitchen I'm repairing that they were so glad to find someone to save that the insurance company dragged their feet on since July is apparently not moving along fast enough for the homeowners. I started two weeks ago tomorrow. I ordered the sills to replace the rotted ones that existed before the claim that they now get replaced for free. They were supposed to be ready last week but weren't now it's supposed to be today. I have all the walls tired together, repaired, braced, jacked up, rotted sills removed, cleaned up, and waiting for those sills. I

We found a place to buy the roof planking ready to go. So the guy comes home last evening with a plan to take off work on Wed & Thurs to help me get the rafters up and planks on. If I needed help I'd have a helper! I am not the reason this job won't be done in a hurry. Those guys wouldn't take on a job like this. That's how I got the job. The party is on the 8th, so I guess it's real important to have it closed in a week in advance. The whole thing I find insulting and disrespectful. People who don't know sh!t about what is going or why things take as long as they "have to" jumping in thinking they are going to make a difference. I just need the materials and my experience tells me no matter what that sawmill told us, I won't get those plates till they are done. Him helping me frame the roof will hinder me more than help. I'll have it done in a day working alone.

[FleetsidePaul]

Sorry Tim. It sounds like you are doing everything you can and this guy is just being a deeek. Somebody forgot to tell these people that there is no instant gratification.

On the other hand my painter seems to have disappeared after I paid him for the paint to do the job. I wonder if he's okay? Poor guy can't even answer the phone. He is still able to text excuses. So there is hope that he's okay. Here I go again with another flake.