What did you make today?

[Griff]

Thanks!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Looks like a good place to curl up in the winter, too.

[lumberjim]

Nicely done

[orthodoc]

Your summer classroom? I'm sadly ignorant here, but willing to learn.

[Griff]

I have an integrated pre-k classroom in the Summer for guys who are documented as having lost skills due to long breaks. The children tend toward more severe disabilities. We integrate with head start and community children. It ends up being a lot of work because I'm in a different building and don't have a regular ed co-teacher in my pm class.

The castle is a safe place, part of the conscious discipline stuff we use. https://consciousdiscipline.com/

[monster]

I didn't actually do any of the painting, but I did the design, made the templates for the dark blue bits (boards were first painted in the light blue), positioned and drew around them then taped the boards ready for painting, orchestrated the whole production process..... I did get paint on me if that counts

....and I'm pretty damned pleased with the result

(there are 21 boards in total, so far -after two meets- 8 swimmers have state cuts)

now all we have to do is stencil the words and the Skyline Eagle in white...... easy peasy

[monster]

(There were about 6 of us on the project today)

[Clodfobble]

These go in swimmers' yards?

[glatt]

very professional looking!

[monster]

yup in the front yard or on the porch for the world to see

thanks

[Griff]

Look good!

[busterb]

Not today. I made a cap rack. Didn't offset the pegs enough. So I thought I would use some L-screws. That didn't work out. The pegs were Birtch and split.
So I stuck a small nail in hole with Silicone glue. You can see in shadow the nails. Anyway today I cut all the pegs off and use L-screws.
New photo later.

[glatt]

A cap rack is a good idea. I have a tie rack that I haven't used much since my employer went casual dress, and I put my caps on that, but the pegs are way too close together and the caps hang over about 5-6 pegs. It only holds 3 caps.

On the back of our basement door, I strung some of that green wreath making wire between two nails driven close to each edge of the door. And we have a dozen clothes pins on that wire. Actually, I think we have two wires like that. Anyway, it's great in the winter time for gloves, mittens, hats, etc.

[glatt]

Our front steps are concrete and exposed to the elements. Even worse than being exposed to the elements, the front porch roof gets ice dams in the gutters and for several days after a snow, we get melting water dripping down directly onto the steps, where it freezes at night. So we throw down salt to melt it. That salt water works its way into the concrete and I guess refreezes or something. This takes a toll on the concrete, and it gets all cracked up and crumbling


So about a month ago, I got a sack of fast setting concrete patching material and started with the bottom step, hitting the concrete with a regular hammer to break up anything that was loose. I'd smack it with a hammer and then brush it with a steel brush to get anything loose to come out. Then suck it all up with a shop vac. It's tricky to decide when to stop. You could demolish the entire set of stairs with the hammer if you wanted to. With this bottom step, thee were actually tree roots working their way up into the concrete from below and helping to break it all apart.

It took the entire sack of concrete to repair this one step. So I stopped there for the day.

Next day, I got two bags of concrete for the upper steps and started beating the crap out of them with the hammer. They just crumbled in spots.
In this picture you can see a plastic trash bag on the lower step. That's to keep the water from evaporating from the concrete as it cures. It will be stronger if the water stays in there as it cures.


I used these chisels to try to undercut the edge of the concrete as much as possible so the patch would want to stay securely in place. It's tricky because sometimes as I was undercutting the edge, a big chunk would just pop off, and I'd need to form a new edge.

I didn't get any pictures of me mixing the wet concrete and applying it, because it was fast setting and I had to work quickly.

In this picture you can see I took the plastic off the bottom step and the top steps have now been patched and have plastic on them.

The stairs are solid here, but look like hell. They need some paint.

[glatt]

You're apparently supposed to let concrete weather for a while before you paint it, so we left it looking ugly for a month, and then I finally got around to painting the steps and porch on Saturday.

Looks a lot better.