cleaning up and rearranging

First, thank you all for all the lovely comments on my work. I'm through showing off for now.

Friday, another day with no progress though I did go over to the shop and started cleaning up my cold work station. That shop is so old and has so many problems like active termites. There was a door in between the big bay and the little bay which fell off its hinges due to so much having been eaten by termites. Dragged that out and some auxiliary wood teeming with larva. Die you little bastards I said as I tossed the remains either on the burn pile or on the gravel in the hot sun. I do need to get some spray and treat the area. Fortunately 90% of the shop is metal and we didn't run into any active termites when building in the studio room. So I cleaned up debris and finally found the wand part of the shop vac that goes on the end of the hose that you actually vac with which has been missing since the shop flooded during Harvey which is four years ago! Apparently it floated out of the small bay and into the corner of the big bay where it was completely hidden by a piece of plywood and Gene's sandblasting cabinet and other items of his. I'm surprised we didn't find it when he came and got all his stuff. I've searched that shop at least three times over the years looking for it. So I did that, put things away, shoveled up a pile of silicon carbide (sandblasting medium that had been in a paper bag that disintegrated after the flood) into a big bucket, used the shop vac, and by the time I had done all that my panties were soaked, my thin t-shirt was soaked, my shorts at the crotch were soaked, my hair was soaked, all with sweat. I still need to come up with a way to hang the Foredom. I'll have to get up early to work for a couple of hours before it gets too hot when I start the finish work. I think when I get the last indoor room built out, I'll move all my cold work equipment in there.

More rain Friday, just as I was about to take Minnie for her walk. We missed the brunt of the rain we got a few days ago, while we only got 1 1/2” - 2” the communities around us got 4” or more. My neighbor tells me we've already exceeded our annual rainfall for the year.

Saturday I ventured out in the barn looking for something I could use to hang the Foredom on and spied one of my 6' garden stakes and a light bulb went off. My little work desk has holes running down the side, the stake has holes so I grabbed up the stake, the roll of copper wire I have on hand, the wire snips, a wire clothes hanger, and a 6' quick release tie down (from my river guide days) and went over to the shop and voila! I'm all set.

cold/finish work area

left to right: upright grinder, ring saw, dead flat lap

manual grinding station (plate glass, silicon carbide, water to make a slurry and round and round we go)

work desk with Foredom

motor and handpiece

Then I started cleaning up and rearranging the old mold making area, hopefully making it easier and more convenient to store and measure out the materials. It's neater and cleaner at any rate. And of course, no before pictures because...me but believe me, it was nasty. While that was happening, high wind and rain started happening so I had to close the roll up bay doors. Fortunately, it had stopped by the time I was done.

I thought I would work on the drawing some this afternoon but I may try and finish my book instead.

Finally, we just found out another one of Marc's brothers has covid, unvaccinated because he 'heard stuff' so instead of paying attention to what the doctors, epidemiologists, scientists, and virologists were saying, you know those highly educated people who have  dedicated their lives to the study, research, and mitigation of viruses, he listened to...idiots. He's pretty sick but not hospitalized so far and the hospital systems in the city are at capacity or nearly so. Hopefully he won't get worse. So, anyone out there reading this and not vaccinated, get your dumb asses vaxxed. This delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox, the standard everything else is measured by. And yes, healthy children and young adults are getting it and dying. Don't let your last words be...I shoulda got the vaccine.