Progress on the great northern estate

 

You might remember the house and barn we bought in northern Maine. After mucking about for a couple years I finally made contact with the builder who worked on our camp and got him to work on the house.

Step one was to put garage doors on the south end of the barn.

The original builder never bothered to put doors into those openings, they were covered with a kind of conveyor belt like matting used for making paper. This spring I spotted a raccoon sneaking in through a gap and knew we needed to do something.

One substantial application of money later and we've got doors. If you look carefully you'll notice that the cap between the garage doors and the hayloft door has increased. The door openings were originally 9'x9'. Nine foot tall garage doors are very expensive, like double the price, so our builder shrank the door opening a foot and put in 8'x9' doors. We don't need the big height here because of the big barn doors on the east and west walls which allow the tractors to pass through.

Looking back at these old pictures I'd forgotten how much stuff was in the house...

The next plan is for the kitchen and bathroom. As a summer house you could get away with bad windows and no insulation in bedrooms but you can't really use a house that has no kitchen or bath.

Of course the first step is demolition.

This is ahead and to the right of the first picture above. I actually did this work, there was a little stub wall where the ladder is, which I removed. The window in the left of the picture has been removed. That's the north wall of the house which is the coldest so a window there is kind of silly. The window in the center of the picture has been replaced with a larger one.

This is facing into the bathroom looking north. The window pictured here has been replaced with one just over half the height. I like having natural light in the bathroom but there is no need for a big window. This door is new, this used to be the "stairway to nowhere" which went up and stopped at a chimney with little steps up to the right and left to get into bedrooms.

Looking into the bathroom facing west, this is where the door used to be. The shower will be just on the other side of this wall. We decided to go with a stand up shower rather than a tub, who takes baths anymore?

I talked to the builder this week, the drywall is all hung and kitchen cabinets are ready to go in. This project has consumed way more money than I expected but this is really the most expensive phase of construction because of needing to buy things like cabinets and the shower and whatnot. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have an update where things are going in, not just getting torn apart.

Well that was weird

 Growing up my family had a gas stove with a wall mount oven. The two were separated but both fired the same way, propane from a tank outside. Since moving out on my own I've only had electric stoves, our apartment had an elderly push button range, our house has a glasstop Whirlpool unit.

Not so long ago I was sitting in my recliner reading while dinner cooked, from the kitchen I heard "BZZZZT" and saw a bright light. Fortunately Angie was sitting by the stove, jumped up and shut it down.

Upon investingation I found:

 I'd never really thought about how an electric stove/oven burner works. Of course I knew that there was a wire that got heated but it had never occurred to me that of course that element has to be insulated or it will arc to the frame of the stove.

So what happened here is a failure of the coating allowing the angry pixies to get out of the element.

Looking online there are lots of options for replacement burners. The official Whirlpool replacement is around $60. Aftermarket get as cheap as $15. 

I went for a $25 unit. These are super easy to replace, two screws and then the two wires above, pull the failed on out and put in a replacement.

The new one is thinner than the original but it's otherwise the same size and hooked up the same.

It works perfectly, there must have been some kind of coating on it but that burned off quickly with just a little smell. As of this writing it's been working fine for 3 months. Chalk another one up for the do it yourselfer, cheap and quick replacement.

I hope I don't lose my membership

 In the Procrastinators Guild.

Over the last couple weeks I sealed up the hydraulic tank on my garden tractor loader project. I got the machine back in 2017, you guys might have forgotten about it. Checking back it looks like I haven't written about the loader since 2017 which is weird, we've come a long way...

Heres a shot from back when I got it:

Last week I reinstalled the tank, it had leaked where I added the hose fittings so I slathered the inside with POR15 gas tank sealer. It didn't leak overnight so yesterday I fired it up. It did NOT want to run but finally got going, smoked a lot but I'll be darned if it didn't work pretty good.

I moved some snow out of the shadows on our yard over to the storm drain which gets more sun.

Everything was going great until:

That's the upper bucket cylinder mount, or rather there should be a mount there. Apparently I'd only tacked it on and the tacks broke. I wanted to move the mount a little higher anyway.

While I was working I finished cutting the bucket down: 

I took 3" off each side of the bucket, bringing it down to 38" which is still about 2" wider than the machine. Took probably 25# off the weight of the bucket making it much more manageable for the machine. There's still some more to come off but it's much improved.

I'm going to take it over to buddy Ben's house for final welding, he's got a big stick welder so I can really burn in the mounts, my MIG works okay but doesn't really have enough heat for the job...

That which bears me

 About this time last year Angie and I took a trip to Pennsylvania. During the return trip my 2015 VW Jetta TDI started to make a weird humming noise at about 65mph. Interestingly if you went a little faster or slower the noise went away.

I ignored it up until about a month ago when the humming turned into a grinding noise at all speeds. Sounded like a wheel bearing to me. I jacked up the car and, yup, definitely a wheel bearing gone bad in the rear passenger side. I ordered parts and then had to order tools. The wheel bearing is held in by an 18mm triple square bolt. I had a 14mm triple square socket to remove the caliper bolts but not one any larger. I was unable to find one locally so Amazon sent me a set of Capri brand. Hopefully the set will have all the bits I need..

The bearing itself is really easy to replace, jack the car up, remove the wheel, remove the brake caliper with that 14mm triple square socket, remove the torx (t30? I forget) screw that holds the brake rotor on and remove the rotor. Then pound a screwdriver into the gap that holds the cap on. Mine was really stuck, took a lot of pounding.

Then use the 18mm triple square socket to remove the axle bolt. This was REALLY tight. It just laughed at my Makita 1/2" cordless impact. I put the 30 inch breaker bar on it and added a 24" piece of jack handle. Took a lot of body weight even then.

As you can see the old one was really grungy. There are two bearings there, the inner one was okay, the outer was pretty terrible.

Installation is reverse of removal, no tricks here. I torqued the bolt to 130ft-lb and then 90 degrees. Along with the locktite on the bolt explains why they were so hard to remove. These are torque to yield fasteners, single use only. I ordered a new bolt but the bearing came with one so I've got a spare for what it's worth.

A test drive shows that the noise is gone but now I'm thinking there might be another failed bearing in the front. I didn't check those since I only had the rear of the car jacked up, I did check the passenger side, it was silent.

Oh well, in a day or two I'll jack it up again and have a look see...

Black powder cartridge gun

Interestingly one of the topics I find that a lot of hunters and shooters aren't aware of are black powder cartridge guns. People seem to think that smokeless powder created the need/desire for cartridge guns instead of the other way around.

Last year dad gave me an old Damascus barrel side by side shotgun. For those not in the know Damascus steel is made by folding layers of different quality steel and iron together to make a solid where the layers are attached but still different materials. This would be instead of mixing the metals to make a homogenous whole. Damascus steel is easier to make with primitive tools than modern "fluid steel". The problem is that it's nowhere near as strong and isn't tolerant of smokeless powder shotgun shells.

Well that's no problem, I've got black powder (well, for cartridge guns I use Pyrodex) and for $80 Lee will send a simple shotgun shell loader.

My initial experiments weren't terrific. It's difficult to get the height of the load correct to ensure that the crimp is nice. To negate that issue I picked up a roll crimper.

The roll crimper does exactly what the name suggests, it rolls the lip of the shell to secure a card wad in place holding your load inside the shell.

There is definitely a trick to getting the crimp just right but after a little practice I could produce a pretty nice product.

The over shot wad gives a handy place to label the load, these are all 1 1/8oz of #6 shot. The two cases with the B are bismuth shot, the other two are lead. The powder charge is the same volume as the shot or about 3 drams.

This is a half loaded shell, looking at the case itself you might notice that it's been cut off, the shotgun has a 2 1/2" chamber. For best results I started with a 3" shell and cut 1/2" off. This cuts off the old star crimp and makes it easier to get a nice roll.

These are all bismuth loads. Back when I first got my 16ga muzzleloader I picked up 2 pounds each of #4 and #2 shot. Last year there was a sale so I bought 10 pounds of #6. #6 bismuth is good for ducks, #4s for geese.

During bear season I found a beaver pond with a ton of duck activity so one day during duck season I snuck in before dawn. The pond was completely deserted until right at sunrise when the wood ducks started piling in. 

I had a pretty good hide and enjoyed myself just sitting there watching the birds come in, completely unaware of my presence.

My shooting wasn't great but I did manage to score two.

Its pretty sweet taking ducks with a 120+ year old gun using shells you made yourself. That duck hole is a great spot that appears not to be hunted by anybody else. While I was there I heard, but never saw, some geese. I'll definitely be back next season.

Savannah

 We went to 3 weddings in 2022, the first was back in June. Angie's cousin got married at a big estate in Savannah. Like the trip to Italy in 2019 we decided to make a vacation out of it.

Savannah is a great little city and we stayed in three different hotels, the contrast between the three was really interesting. The first was Avid. This is and IHG (think Holiday Inn) hotel and is marketed as "midscale" but I would consider to be somewhat downmarket from Holiday Inn express. We stayed because it was the closest to the wedding venue and I could get it free on points. Thank you to Avid, my employer, for years of having me stay at IHG properties.

Our second hotel was the McMillan Inn. It's a fairly large B&B on the edge of the historic district of Savannah. Nice place, good food, nice people, fun little pool.

Finally we stayed in the Marshall House. The most expensive of the 3 it's a grand old hotel near the river. The room was small but this one is all about location, it's a short walk from all the touristy stuff in Savannah. The breakfast was fantastic as was the wine hour in the afternoon. One day we played trivia, the next they had live music. The wine flowed freely and Wayne, the host, made us feel very welcome.

Yup, those are Segways. This was our third Segway tour, the others were Chicago and Nashville. If a city is walkable at all then a Segway is a great way to see a bunch of the city. Our guide was very knowledgable and we had a great time.

Savannah the city sits on the Savannah river. There is a bricked in walking path along the river ("River Walk", imaginative name) and it's pretty nice to just sit and watch a working river do it's thing. We saw a number of giant container ships going up and down river and even got to see dolphins.

Johnny Mercer was a Savannah native who wrote a bunch of songs you've probably heard, even if you didn't know who wrote them. He's buried in the Bonaventure cemetery which is worth the short drive. There are guided tours and, when you first get into the cemetery it's easy to see why people take them but aided by the Google machine we found a bunch of the touristy graves and even a bunch of interesting graves that aren't typical tourist spots.

Of course being in the south I wanted a low country boil. This was from a place just across the street from the Marshall house. It was very good and not expensive.

Angie got a po-boy. I can't remember what the protein was, probably shrimp. She was jealous of my meal...

One of my favorites from the trip was the Savannah history museum. This is the bench from the movie Forest Gump and while it looks like a real bench in pictures (and in the movie) in real life it's obviously fiberglass.

While wandering around the museum this young fellow approached us and asked if we'd be interested in hearing a talk about the siege of Savannah. We followed along and he talked for 30+ minutes with no notes and covered all aspects of the siege. The detail he provided was amazing including names and dates. Places, guns, famous people, the whole bit. We then followed him outside where he fired his musket 3 times.

As a black powder shooter I knew he was the real deal when I saw the black smudges on his hands. It was hot and muggy (normal for Savannah) and he managed to get the gun to go off 3 times with zero misfires.

I'll confess I travel largely for my stomach. On our last night in Savannah I convinced Angie to go to a British pub for a meat pie. We'd had a big lunch and ended up having just one pie between us but it was a good un.

The drinks were also fun, on the left was a rubarb drink I can't remember the name of, on the right was "Gandalf the Grey" which featured gin steeped with Earl Grey tea.

I don't have pictures but our last stop before leaving Savannah was "Mrs Wilkes Dining Room" which is a MUST if you're going to the city. We'd seen it after our Segway tour on Wednesday, but there were maybe 10 or 15 people in line and we'd decided to wait. BIG mistake. Doors open at 11am and by 10 there were probably 50 people in line, so many in fact that we missed the first seating. I knew we were cutting it close but persisted and I'm so glad we did.

Food is served family style, big plates of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, buttered corn, rolls, turnips, squash and I can't remember what else. We ate until our buttons were bursting and then they brought out desert! What a place, a meal I'll remember forever.

Anyway we really enjoyed Savannah, oh wait, one last spot:

Leopold's ice cream, a real old time ice cream shop. Another MUST if you're in Savannah. Get the waffle cone, you'll thank yourself.

Plumbing and electrical

 So here we are again, 2023 is upon us and I've forgotten to update the blog for 6 months...

It feels like just yesterday since I updated but clearly not.

This week I'll be working on few posts to bring us back up to date. For today lets dial back to July.

You might remember our house in Maine:

In 2021 we repainted the house and rebuilt the enclosed porch. The idea is to stop the house from disintegrating before starting any upgrades. In 2022 I decided to continue down the same path when I discovered that the water pipe to the toilet was leaking.

Thus embarked a weekend long odyssey of pluming. Here we've got the pump and pressure tank. Those have been left alone but notice the blue pipe heading up, that's 3/4" PEX. I did have to sweat in a copper to PEX adapter which was surprisingly easy but from there on almost all of the the plumbing is plastic.

I've been a plumbing traditionalist in the past, not wanting to use "those new fangled things" but honestly PEX is the way to go. I installed the entire cold water system in one day and could have done it in less with better planning. With copper I'd have been at it for several days.

My original plan only involved replacing the cold water system, as shown here. Everything in blue is new PEX, the hot water side is still copper. I did that because I still haven't installed the hot water heater, so there really wasn't any point in doing the hot water side. Then I decided I'd link the hot water side to the cold water side. This would result in both faucets running cold water but it would at least let the hot water faucet do something. In the picture you can just spot a little red pipe from the cold to the hot.

This turned out to be a terrible idea, all the hot water pipes (unused for many years) leaked. So I took another day and replaced those as well.

This is 3/4" PEX running along the outside wall of the house. Since all the fixtures in the house are in line with each other what I should have done was run one 3/4" trunk line and then spur off with 1/2" lines to each fixture. I'd have used less pipe and it'd be a better looking install. Probably in 2023 I'll redo all of it, I'm planning to relocate the kitchen sink anyway so I'll do both at the same time.

This is the new bathroom vanity. It replaced a very ugly, early '80s unit that was installed with galvanized pipe that had very nearly corroded away...

Anyway, with the PEX installed we were no longer one plumbing leak away from a flooded basement. Even with my ugly install things are way better than they were. So I turned my efforts to electrical.

On the electrics side the first thing I did was wire in basement lights. There were a few lights down there but not enough and not done in a safe way. Now we have 4 foot LED lights wired to a common switch and a good, grounded, outlet. This makes working in the basement much more pleasant and safer.

The next step was to address the well pump wiring. I've been told the pump itself is probably from the 1920s.

This is the old setup, we're looking directly above the pump, the pump you can see in the picture is the old "soft water" pump that was used to move rain water from a cistern. That system has been disconnected from the plumbing for years but the pump was still connected to the electrics via the left side switch at the top of the picture. The right side switch that you can barely see in the picture powers the well pump. What you can't see is the copper pipe that used to run between them. This was not what you'd call a safe install. Also notice the top of the ladder in the left of the picture. Those switches are eight feet off the ground, very difficult to access.

This is after, I've added the piece of plywood to protect the switch in case the pump blows up, I've located it lower so it's much more convenient and I've used 12ga ROMEX wire directly from a 20a circuit breaker.  

I still need to repair/replace the pressure switch on the pump. It'll work if you tap it but it gets stuck between uses and we run out of water pressure until the switch gets tapped again. I think this is just because it doesn't get used enough. I have another pump with pressure switch I could put in it's place which would undoubtably be quieter than this one but part of me thinks that this thing has been working for 100 years I should probably keep it.

So what's on tap for 2023? This *should* be the year for upgrades. We spent some time in November working on the kitchen and have the old plaster and lathe mostly removed. I need to shore up ceiling a little and remove a little stub of wall and then wire in electrics. I want to be able to run the microwave and toaster oven at the same time so I'll be running at least three circuits, plus one for an electric stove. Eventually I think we'll go to a propane stove but short term a used electric stove is cheap.

Once the wiring is done I want to replace the two kitchen windows. The one facing east is too small, it'll be over the sink so I want something fairly large. The other one is a reasonable size but I want them to match...

After windows I'll get the kitchen spray foamed. Foam insulation offers the highest R-value for thickness and seals the room against drafts. There is a chance I'll get the bathroom done at the same time, that's contingent on removing the tub, removing one window and replacing the other. That window replacement is kind of a big deal because we'll be going with a much smaller unit that is up higher in the wall. We'll see...