But there’s home improvement to be done, and I need to do some framing. So I bought a little Craftsman miter saw. I’d always thought they were expensive; but $130 for a saw that is more than I need, has a laser guide, and came with legs is a lot less than I thought it would be. Much better than using a hand saw!
And I got a Black & Decker Workmate. I bought one for my dad back in the '80s, but I don’t know what happened to it when he died. Probably my BIL has it. In the one day that I’ve owned it, it’s been very handy on its own and in combination with the miter saw.
I’m working up to draining the water heater and moving it out of the way. Better to do the measuring and measuring and measuring and cutting first…
Ah, now you’ve been bitten by the Home Improvement bug. Before long, you’ll find yourself drooling over a nice 12" double-bevel sliding compound miter saw so you can do all that lovely crown moulding. Which you will have to complement with your own thickness planer, so you can stop buying prefab lumber at Home Depot. And of course none of this will be any good without a cordless 18v nailer and a cordless 24v hammer drill for those heavy-duty tasks.
It’s a 10" saw, but it is adjustable for tilt as well as azimuth.
I don’t need a nailer (yet), but of course I had to get a laser levelling device and a stud finder. And then there was that extra set of punches and chisels, just in case I happen to have misplaced one of my older set and didn’t notice it. Oh, and the lettering dies so that I could (and did) mark the keys to the new interior and exterior bedroom doors. And the extra fine-tooth circular saw blade so that I could make nice cuts on the wood flooring. And the extra utility blade for the miter saw, the new level, and a nice Stanley wood saw. And another Craftsman nail hammer (I was raised with Craftsman tools) because I lost my old one and it has a nice composite handle instead of the wooden one my Stanley has.
I used an electric nail gun once. We were building a set for a video project. I don’t need one around the house (yet), but it was incredibly handy building flats in a limited amount of time.
Almost done with the framing. Three more boards to cut. Amazingly, it’s coming out level.
Well, the framing is up ,the wood flooring is inside, the water heater is back in its place, full of water and heating it up, the drywall around what will eventually be a door is up. I just have to put drywall up on one side and the top, which will be a TV shelf. And I have to ‘mud’ it. I’ve never done drywall before, but I get the concept of taping the seams and covering them with ‘mud’ and sanding and painting. I’ll do that mañana. Putting in the new floor will be next weekend.
You call it a “miter saw” now, but soon you’ll be calling it a “chop saw,” and that’s when you’ll know you have the sickness. Miter saw is what we old addicts call a “gateway tool.” You don’t be able to stop. Pretty soon you’ll have to have a Rigid 10" TS3650 table saw with micro-measure 36" rip capacity, and before you know it you’ll be hunkered in your garage drooling over a Delta 33-981 radial arm saw 14-inch crosscut capacity and 360 degree rotation. Then will come the Bosch router and table, the Delta band saw, the planer joiner, the mortiser; and then one day you’ll get the yen for something exotic, and you’ll start collecting fine hand tools – chisels and mauls from Sheffield, England; half-kerf saws from Japan; planes and scrapers from New Hampshire. And one Christmas day, as the rest of the family is gathered for dinner, and they’ll find you curled up in a corner, your eyes glued to the pages of a Garret Wade catalog, muttering “I love you, odd job layout tool, I love you so very, very much!”
Heh, heh, heh, heh … welcome to the dark side, junior!
You know, the thing about a 73-year-old house is that it can be funky. I started on the floor only to find that there’s an inch gap on on one end. :smack: So I went to the corner I started in and put up the square. Yup. It’s off about a sixteenth of an inch. Rats. That means I’ll have to rip the flooring next to the wall lengthwise.
I new I should have gotten a table saw as well! Oh, well. The arm gets a workout today.
You know the old adage about measuring twice? I got out the square and measured another place. Then I got out some more flooring and temporarily laid it out square to the opposite wall. Floating the floor a little, I saw that it squares.
Hell, our house that was built in the mid-1980’s is funky! We decided to redo the floors (get rid of cheap tile, fill in a sunken living room, refloor with wood) only to discover that there was hardly a square angle in the whole place! :eek:
Oh, and I think EJ only agreed to do it himself because of all the cool tools he scored- table saw, reciprocating saw (or are those the same thing?), nail gun, miter saw, and a bunch of other cool stuff…
A reciprocating saw has a blade that goes up and down, like a jigsaw or a Sawzall. A table saw has a circular rotating blade that protrudes from the surface of a table. (Hm… If someone would take away that old washing machine, I’d have space for a table saw.)
So…
The framing is done, the floor is down, and the tools are put away. I’ll do the drywall next week. After I’ve done the sanding I’ll reassemble the bed I brought up from L.A., put the old TV and DVD player up on the shelf, put a table together, and move the iMac.
I’ve never seen a smiter cow
I never hope to see one
But if you ask me anyhow
I’d rather disguise myself as an ordinary cow and it would be ambuscade for the unsuspecting humans! Moooooowahahahahahahahaha!!!
I’ve got the miter saw from my dad that he got from his grampa, a carpenter.
It’s always in my way and I’ve cut myself shifting it around more than I’ve used it, which is every other year. But when you want it, it’s quicker than anything else. So I keep it and keep buying bandaids.
