erick
10-05-2010, 12:02 PM
Well, in my case, you leave it packed away and spend the weekend fixing hail damage to the house :sadeyes:
Even my wife pointed out how beautiful the sky was looking as we drove back late Sunday night :mad2:
Saturday:- Do the Post Office/Pharmacy/Dry cleaner rounds, then drive over to our house (that we abandoned to the children nearly 2 years ago). Rip off all the damaged polycarbonate sheeting (very "holey"). Measure, cut and fit new laserlite. Cutting with an abrasive disk in the circular saw - sticky white powder everywhere, just as it was when I first put the roof up ages ago! All done, close to sunset - looks good. Take a break in the middle to work out why the ground is settling near the back door (and near the sewage drain!! Yikes!) Some excavation later, find an old unused septic system clay pipe that is no longer in use and is collapsing (and a nice old tree root right through it!) Break up and start repacking the hole. Brick pavers to be relaid in the future - drat! Clean up and spend the evening with family and play with some electronics. Test out new series resistance heating for better performance on my filter slide - looks good in prototype "on the bench". I'll work that up properly. Next, make up a little 12V powered cluster of red LEDs to faintly illuminate the inside of my heated eyepiece box. I want to fit them all, with series resistor, on an RCA plug, to provide some faint backlight to the eyepieces! Again, looking good. A cluster of four series LEDs should work. Put that aside to also work up further. Last task - search my bits box and find the right capacitor and a pot that is close to what I want to upgrade my Kendrick Dew Heater Controller for faster pulse rate and greater range of duty cycle. Works well (but only under load - without load, the waveform on the oscilloscope is a bit odd.). OK, need to buy a compact 1MOhm linear pot. Then I can finish that job. Probably add an on/off switch as well since I will lose the existing with a change of pot. Clean and pack up.
Oh, what's that on TV - "The Red Dragon" - haven't seen it yet and I enjoyed the book. Stay up until whenever - yes that was worth seeing.
Sunday:- Up early - Yawn! Up onto that roof. No threat of rain so off come a big area of tiles so I can access the ceiling that has sagged terribly under the water influx. Vacuum up the years of leaves and dust on top of the insulation. Peel back layers of insulation - laid between rafters, then criss-cross on top. Great thickness but annoying to deal with now. Get the usual collection of fibreglass fibres stuck in my skin and in my clothes. Get down to the plasterboard. Vacuum off the dust again. Want to avoid dropping dust and muck into the lounge room! Chop out the damaged plasterboard. No dust but a cloud of gypsum particles everywhere. Try to preserve the cornices - give up eventually and rip them off as well. Add noggins between the rafters to deal with the join between old and new that is going to eventuate mid room. Old is naturally sagging between rafters and needs to be nailed flat. Measure up and off to Bunnings. Have to buy about twice as much plaster board and cornices as I really want due the lengths and widths :sadeyes: A few hours of cutting, trimming again and again, nailing (and missing the rafters several times!) and adhesive later - all upside down (wish I could rotate the house to do the job) - at least the possums now cannot drop into the lounge! Just needs the magic Spakfiller and no-one will ever know - maybe :rolleyes:. I should have used pine for the noggins. I went with left-over rafters I had from the extension - well seasoned hardwood. Finally had to drill to get the plasterboard nails in!
Do the dump run. Now up to $45 for a level trailer load! :eyepop: Managed to slice into my finger with some broken glass. Ouch! A few bandaids later and the blood flow has stopped.
Back to go over my daughter's new (used) car with her. Showed her the owners manual and suggested that she read it! Under bonnet - OK - windscreen washer water in this one and oil in this one - don't mix them up! Bounce one corner and check you can see fluid move in the brake, coolant and power steering reservoirs. Then time to learn how to change a tyre. She got there, but I gave her a proper wheel brace instead of the mickey mouse lever provided. At least it is a full-sized spare. We loosened and retightened every wheel nut. Her muscles were enough. Grumble @GM - five per wheel on an Astra? Three was good enough on a Renault 12! Four on any small Japanese car. Checked the tyre pressures as supplied by the dealer - 40psi in the front and 11psi in the rear - a bit worse than I normally see after a tyre service! :screwy: OK, get them all to 32psi and spare to 36psi. Gee it drives differently now, she says.
Kentucky fried on the way home. A longing look at Sirius, Canopus and Crux, then unpack everything.
And that is the story of a clear sky weekend. :(
Even my wife pointed out how beautiful the sky was looking as we drove back late Sunday night :mad2:
Saturday:- Do the Post Office/Pharmacy/Dry cleaner rounds, then drive over to our house (that we abandoned to the children nearly 2 years ago). Rip off all the damaged polycarbonate sheeting (very "holey"). Measure, cut and fit new laserlite. Cutting with an abrasive disk in the circular saw - sticky white powder everywhere, just as it was when I first put the roof up ages ago! All done, close to sunset - looks good. Take a break in the middle to work out why the ground is settling near the back door (and near the sewage drain!! Yikes!) Some excavation later, find an old unused septic system clay pipe that is no longer in use and is collapsing (and a nice old tree root right through it!) Break up and start repacking the hole. Brick pavers to be relaid in the future - drat! Clean up and spend the evening with family and play with some electronics. Test out new series resistance heating for better performance on my filter slide - looks good in prototype "on the bench". I'll work that up properly. Next, make up a little 12V powered cluster of red LEDs to faintly illuminate the inside of my heated eyepiece box. I want to fit them all, with series resistor, on an RCA plug, to provide some faint backlight to the eyepieces! Again, looking good. A cluster of four series LEDs should work. Put that aside to also work up further. Last task - search my bits box and find the right capacitor and a pot that is close to what I want to upgrade my Kendrick Dew Heater Controller for faster pulse rate and greater range of duty cycle. Works well (but only under load - without load, the waveform on the oscilloscope is a bit odd.). OK, need to buy a compact 1MOhm linear pot. Then I can finish that job. Probably add an on/off switch as well since I will lose the existing with a change of pot. Clean and pack up.
Oh, what's that on TV - "The Red Dragon" - haven't seen it yet and I enjoyed the book. Stay up until whenever - yes that was worth seeing.
Sunday:- Up early - Yawn! Up onto that roof. No threat of rain so off come a big area of tiles so I can access the ceiling that has sagged terribly under the water influx. Vacuum up the years of leaves and dust on top of the insulation. Peel back layers of insulation - laid between rafters, then criss-cross on top. Great thickness but annoying to deal with now. Get the usual collection of fibreglass fibres stuck in my skin and in my clothes. Get down to the plasterboard. Vacuum off the dust again. Want to avoid dropping dust and muck into the lounge room! Chop out the damaged plasterboard. No dust but a cloud of gypsum particles everywhere. Try to preserve the cornices - give up eventually and rip them off as well. Add noggins between the rafters to deal with the join between old and new that is going to eventuate mid room. Old is naturally sagging between rafters and needs to be nailed flat. Measure up and off to Bunnings. Have to buy about twice as much plaster board and cornices as I really want due the lengths and widths :sadeyes: A few hours of cutting, trimming again and again, nailing (and missing the rafters several times!) and adhesive later - all upside down (wish I could rotate the house to do the job) - at least the possums now cannot drop into the lounge! Just needs the magic Spakfiller and no-one will ever know - maybe :rolleyes:. I should have used pine for the noggins. I went with left-over rafters I had from the extension - well seasoned hardwood. Finally had to drill to get the plasterboard nails in!
Do the dump run. Now up to $45 for a level trailer load! :eyepop: Managed to slice into my finger with some broken glass. Ouch! A few bandaids later and the blood flow has stopped.
Back to go over my daughter's new (used) car with her. Showed her the owners manual and suggested that she read it! Under bonnet - OK - windscreen washer water in this one and oil in this one - don't mix them up! Bounce one corner and check you can see fluid move in the brake, coolant and power steering reservoirs. Then time to learn how to change a tyre. She got there, but I gave her a proper wheel brace instead of the mickey mouse lever provided. At least it is a full-sized spare. We loosened and retightened every wheel nut. Her muscles were enough. Grumble @GM - five per wheel on an Astra? Three was good enough on a Renault 12! Four on any small Japanese car. Checked the tyre pressures as supplied by the dealer - 40psi in the front and 11psi in the rear - a bit worse than I normally see after a tyre service! :screwy: OK, get them all to 32psi and spare to 36psi. Gee it drives differently now, she says.
Kentucky fried on the way home. A longing look at Sirius, Canopus and Crux, then unpack everything.
And that is the story of a clear sky weekend. :(