Mar 29th - Misty Rain

Yesterday’s weather was reasonably nice. We occasionally had a little sunshine. Today it was supposed to be partly cloudy in the afternoon but we got solid clouds and mist instead.

The Intervarsity teenagers left after lunch (hamburgers and hot dogs). Since there were no “guests” last night we were on our own for supper. I got out our little propane grill and grilled steaks. Kathy baked potatoes and made a salad. Life is good.

A new group of people is supposed to come in tomorrow (Friday) afternoon.

Work around the camp the past two days has been pretty much the same. Still working on the door trim (it is a good thing they aren’t paying me by the hour <grin>). I removed one of the old shims that trimmed the door and made a new variable thickness shim so that the new redwood trim would fit the door frame and existing gypsum board. I now have two coats of polyurethane on the redwood and it is going to take a third coat.

Today I grouted the big (1/2”-1”) gaps between the stone work and trim in the Prayer Chapel. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I grout the smaller gaps. The stonework was recently (within the past year) installed for a small propane stove. The stove looks like a wood stove. I think the guys who did the stone work had some type of edge boards installed to help them define the borders but when those boards were replaced with finished wood trim the finish trim could not be installed to exactly match the edges of the stone work, thus there are gaps.

Frank and I drove around today looking at the different things on which I had been working. Everything looked fine to him. He asked if Kathy and I, especially Kathy was working to hard. He wanted to make sure that we took as much time off as we wanted. I told him that nobody was pushing us, except our desire to be reasonably productive.

I am running out of things to do in the short term. Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, I volunteered to split some wood as a “fill-in” job. Once I get tired of that, again depending on the weather, I make try my hand at taking the furnace out of the motorhome and cleaning it. The exhaust is REALLY STINKY and the consensus is that it is because the burner is dirty. The furnace is only about the size of a desktop computer. The only way to clean the burner is to remove the furnace from the motorhome. One of the Tuesday/Thursday volunteers offered to help me if I have any problems.

Below are some photos of some of the tools in the wood shop. This is the good table saw. You are supposed to be able to stick you finger in the blade and it will shut down before hurting you. You can't cut treated wood on it, to much moisture, or damp wood. It thinks the moisture is a finger. Every time it stops it costs over $100 to replace the blown circuitry.

 

 The benches along the wall are awesome. Far down you can see a sliding chop saw. From the chop saw to the far wall is slightly over 8'.

 I don't mess with the good table saw. This Bosch is the "worst" one they have, they have one other one between the Bosch and the good one. I use it. It is the best table saw I've ever used.

 This is the remnant of the board I cut 12' off of to use for door trim. It is black and wet from laying outside for years.

 The boards below are what I ended up with after planing the rough sawn board and ripping it width. The one on the right is bare. The one on the left has one coat of polyurethane on it. The board with the coat of polyurethane on it is much redder than what it appears in the photo.

I wrote part of this message before leaving for supper. Once again we had a mediocre restaurant meal in California. Other than the fish and chips we had the day we drove down the coast south of San Francisco, we have not had one really good restaurant meal since we have been in California.

I'm now at the Staff Room, where we have access to WiFi to send it. If I've gotten off track please forgive me.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.