houston

Project Pantry : Freedom Cleat

~ joelshaw@sbcglobal.net ~ 1 Comment

I live in an odd house that is slowly becoming less odd. It was originally a small residence, then it was a slightly larger residence, then it was a business, and now it is reverting back towards a residence (or possibly compound). Needless to say it still has some quirks.

One of the areas I’ve been slowly addressing is the pantry / laundry room. It originally had a place for a washing machine, but the dryer was in a shop space about 50 yards away. KIMG0203I have moved some things around for the pantry to include a dryer with the washer, but there has always been a large gap behind the appliances (shown to the right).

I wanted to fill in the gap for quite some time, but I didn’t have a solution I liked. Initially, I planned just to mount a shelf to the wall to at least provide some storage. I planned to build an enclosure under the shelf since there would be a large open space, but I was worried about access to plumbing and electrical connections.

My basic design requirements were:

  • Easily access (to plumbing and electrical connections)
  • Sturdy (able to support a load)
  • Inexpensive

I was going to use hinges and complicated fasteners for access, but I thought about it some more and found a simple solution. I am posting it because someone with a similar issue might find it useful. It involves a French (or preferably Freedom) Cleat.

A French Cleat is basically a mounting system in which a matching pair of 45 degree pieces of molding are used to hang objects on a wall, such as cabinets or televisions. They can easily be made by ripping a 1×4 in its long direction with a table saw set at 45 degrees and mounting one piece to the wall and the other to the item to be hung. They can hold quite a bit of weight and the 45 degree ramp holds the object firmly against the wall. A google search will provide numerous examples. In the past, I have found French (Freedom) Cleats to be an excellent, simple, inexpensive, quick way to mount flat screen televisions.

The gap between the appliances and the wall behind them is shown above. It is hard to tell from this view, but the gap is about a foot wide. The picture also shows the half of the cleat that is attached to the wall behind the washer/dryer.

KIMG0204The picture to the left shows the underside of the shelf/enclosure. The back of the shelf has the portion of the cleat that mates to the cleat on the wall. The lower portion of the front of the shelf/enclosure has foam weather stripping to minimize the gap between to the washer/dryer and reduce wear as the washer/dryer vibrates during operation.

The installed shelf/enclosure is shown to the right.

KIMG0205

There are several features to this solution:

  • There is virtually no gap between the shelf/enclosure and washer/dryer
  • No fasteners are used for attachment, so the shelf/enclosure can be removed and replaced in a matter of seconds
  • The French (Freedom) Cleat can hold a significant amount of weight
  • A nice feature of the Cleat is that adding weight to the shelf has a tendency to suck it towards the wall rather then bending it away from the wall like a typical shelf might.

I hope you find this helpful. Let me know if you have any questions or use a French Cleat for anything interesting.

 

Tuna of the Yard: A Chicken Update

~ joelshaw@sbcglobal.net ~ 2 Comments

It has been quite a while since I’ve posted as I’ve had some career changes and gotten married. Things are getting caught up, so I wanted to post some anxiously awaited updates. I will start with chickens.

I read that once a chicken habit started, it was hard to keep control of the addiction. My initial plan was to “try” only one chicken, but that immediately segued into three:

  • 1 Chicken would be lonely
  • 2 Chickens minimum would be required (one to keep the 1st chicken company)
  • 3 Chickens would be ideal  (an extra chicken as a backup)

My thought process was that 3 chickens would yield about 2 eggs per day, and a “flock” of 3 chickens shouldn’t be too hard to maintain. What I didn’t include in my thought process was:

  • The stupidity of chickens
  • Chickens should be isolated before being introduced to a flock
  • A new isolated chicken by itself would be lonely (hence a need to buy two at a time)

One of my first 3 chickens had to be dispatched due to stupidity (I think she ate several feet of twine), so I needed a new backup chicken. Since I needed to buy new chickens in pairs and keep them isolated.KIMG0004 it lead me to build a new coop (on which I will post more details later).

Now I had a secondary coop. I bought 2 new chickens, got them acclimated with the old chickens, and things were going well with 4 hens… for a while. I eventually realized that I had extra capacity that was not being utilized, mentioned it to a friend, and we agreed that I would take 2 of his chickens. He brought 4.

Things get kind of squirrelly after that. One of the hens turned out to be a rooster and was given away, a friend gave us a couple “prettier” hens, another hen died of stupidity, a hen was potentially hawked, one decided to provide her services elsewhere, we acquired some chickens wandered to our flock from a neighbor…

Chicken Summary to date:

  • The flock peaked at 9 chickens
  • It currently consists of 6 hens and 1 rooster
  • We’ve acquired a total of 14 chickens
  • 7 chickens have left the flock

Summary of lost chickens:

  • Stupidity – potentially ate a bunch of twine, pendulous crop
  • Stupidity – went through cat door, couldn’t find way back out of shop
  • Maleness – turned out to be a rooster and was given away
  • Possum – potentially attacked by a possum
  • Hawk – was found injured in the middle of the day, there was a hawk lurking about
  • Sickness – the hen was never quite right and was attacked by the other hens
  • Stupidity– naively set out to make it on her own somewhere else

I KIMG0207have included an example of chicken stupidity just to prove my point. It was one of the coldest days of the year, so I heated their coops and provided in-coop food and water. This bird brain decided she’d rather spend the afternoon standing in cold water. It should also be noted that 3 of the chickens opt to stay in a tree during subfreezing temperatures rather than their heated coop.

Lessons Learnt:

  • It is impossible to have just one chicken
  • Like gasses, chicken populations grow to match their contained volume
  • Chickens are stupid
  • Eggs taste great

 

TURNING the Interior Decorating World Upside Down

~ joelshaw@sbcglobal.net ~ 1 Comment

IMG_0030A metal working lathe is a machine which spins (“turns” in machining parlance) a work piece and allows the operator to cut that work piece with extreme precision. It is an incredibly versatile machine with gearing and attachments to allow for cutting threads, tapers, radii, and just about any profile that a mechanical part might require. I have a fairly modern lathe in the shop for years, and I probably found it to be one of the most exciting acquisitions I’ve ever made.

What does this have to do with interior decorating? If you haven’t guessed by the title and the brief background, this post is about a metal working lathe and how it relates to my version of interior decorating.

I’ve always been fascinated by gears, wheels, motors, machinery, and just about anything requiring electricity or gasoline. Several months ago, a good friend who knew about my interests mentioned that his neighbor had an antique lathe and needed some money. I really didn’t need another lathe and had just been laid off, but I really like machines. I like them even more when the are antiques.

This presented two hurdles:

  • How to mentally justify my need for another lathe
  • How to get it working

KIMG0101My first hurdle didn’t take that much to get over. Firstly, I have more house than furnishings. Secondly, I’ve seen classy looking households that highlighted antique Singer sewing machines as sculptures. Why not a lathe?  Sewing machines and lathes are both industrial machines with belts and gears. In fact, a lathe is a much better machine as it has more gears, more belts, more power, more speed, and can even be used to make a sewing machine!

Bringing the lathe back to functionality wasn’t that much of a hurdle either. Disassembly wasn’t bad, and the motor worked fine after a bit of rewiring and repairing some shorts.IMG_0042

After getting everything working, an unforeseen hurdle popped up: how to display it so people wouldn’t find it offensive.

The first step required hours with rags, tooth brushes, and solvents. It still isn’t perfect, but it no longer slings grease. It can even be handled without leaving one’s hands and clothing dirty.

The next step was presentation. I thought a metal cabinet like most lathes rest on would be harsh, so I decided to go with wood.  I just happened to find a guy on Craigslist who makes benches from scrap pine, and he had a smaller one that nobody seemed to want.  I bought it, stained it, added a directional switch with a linkage to a forward/reverse handle, and voila.

KIMG0103The lathe can be seen on the edge of this picture of my dining room.

I’d like to finish by mentioning my reason for this post. I’ve mentioned putting a lathe in my dining room from time to time, and some people have responded with confusion or even downright anger. I hope this post will act as a tool to explain my reasoning so that we can all just get along.

 

 

 

 

 

Can you tell what this is?

~ joelshaw@sbcglobal.net ~ 2 Comments

1439408558718It looks like its on its way to being a fire pit, right? Well the cats seem to have a different idea. I assume you can tell what is pictured on the left. They obviously think I like them SOOOOO much that I would buy 600 pounds of concrete and mortar, 1000 pounds river rocks, work mortar until my fingers and hands were cracked and dry, and brave some of the hottest recorded days in Houston to build them a stone litter box. I bet they are bragging to the strays and gloating to the chickens about it right now.

Regardless, I finally have a fire pit. I decided I wanted one about 2.5 years ago, and I’ve been overthinking it ever since (refractory clay? foundation? rebar? will the rocks crack? how big? vents?). Since I am never going to be more jobless than I am now, I went ahead and pulled the trigger.1439062273636

I decided to use regular mortar rather than fire clay because mortar is free relative to fire clay. If it doesn’t stand up to the heat, I will just patch it back together. I did decide to build a foundation, but I did not use rebar. The foundation is a ring and is about 5″ deep (though it looks much shallower in the picture to the right). It took 240 pounds of cement just for that.  Do you think the cats are already plotting?

After letting the concrete set for a day, I began piling on the rocks and mortar. I am not sure I got the consistency exactly right, but it seems to be holding. I was using a trowel religiously until I discovered that I am not gifted with a trowel. I started using my bare hands after the first layer. BAD IDEA! I thought my hands were getting pruney due to the wetness of the concrete. Instead, there was some kind of chemical reaction.  My skin started cracking after about a day. I did some research, and the pH level of cement is 12-13 whereas human skin is 5.5. Then I read the label. God Bless Texas, because it said that I could have gotten cancer if I was in California.

KIMG0058Here is the finished product, although some of the mortar is still drying. The pit itself has an ID of about 4 ft. and a height of a couple feet. I included some vent holes by mortaring in 1″ PVC pipe and pulling it out after the mortar set.  In addition to ventilation, I may use one of the holes to plumb black pipe if I decide to build a propane burner for easily starting fires and/or cooking.

I want the fire to be above ground level, so I have also built a grate. This was intended to serve two purposes. It raises the fire above ground level and lets air get to the embers. I was about to finish by welding legs and a truss for supportKIMG0062, but I started getting nervous that the grate might not be a great idea. My concerns relate to the fire getting too much air, burning through wood too fast, not having the insulation of the ground, and losing that campfire feel. Rather than welding on legs, I am going to place it on blocks for a test run. It will become a cooking surface if I don’t like how it acts.

I’d like to close by offering my advise and ridicule if you ever want to build something like this. Notice I did not offer my help. It was much, much more of a pain than I ever imagined.

Life on a Farm

~ joelshaw@sbcglobal.net ~ 5 Comments

I KIMG0034haven’t posted in several days because my parents were in town. We ate a lot, laughed a lot, and picked up chickens. From top to bottom, I call them Red, Red, and Red.  The gentleman at Quality Feed selected these chickens specifically for me! From observations thus far, I think he was picking out the dumb ones that more refined clientele might refuse. They did impress me by being nestled in the coop when I arrived home from dinner. They get points for that. My real disappointment is that the ETA for eggs is several months from now.

KIMG0041The other “farmy” issues this weekend related to tree branches and cats.

Most of the branches shown on the left came crashing down this morning. I’m surprised because they look completely healthy. Could it be due to the weight of the pecans growing on them? I find that kind of hard to believe, but it is currently my only explanation.

The cat issues had to do with the youngest two. They’ve developed new affinity for climbing UP, but theyKIMG0033 lack any interest in climbing DOWN. This has become a daily occurrence. You have to look closely, but you can see them to the right.

I also finally started building a fire pit from river rocks. I will report back on that once I finish and know if it is a success or failure. It has been one of my worst guesstimates so far. I am 400 lbs into concrete and mortar, and it is still tiny. I don’t think I am halfway there.