So What Have I Been Doing? Not many Blogs but active none the less.

   I'll first confess that I haven't been knocking myself out in the shop lately.  The weather has been great for riding both my eBike and my motorcycle and that has taken me out into the sunshine.

  Secondly I have been doing maintenance things for the last three weeks.  We have a large deck behind the house and it needed to be sealed against the weather.  Usually I seriously soak the deck every other year with sealer. (currently Thompson's ), I skipped last year. The deck soaked up lots of sealer and I think I will have to give it another coat next spring too.  Leaving out a year won't save me any work in the long run. Wood will withstand wind and wet for a long time, if...it is provided with proper treatment. (regularly)

   I repainted the wooden stairs going into the basement as you saw previously.  Since I had a stair them going I varnished the oak stairs inside too.

  The first things I had to do was really get the stairs clean and so I used our floor steamer to lift any and all dirt and crayon marks. Once I got the stairs really clean I did two small test spots to see which of my varnishes would stick and dry well. I had two half filled cans of varnish left from previous projects. I went with the Minwax Oil Modified Poly.  It went on without bubbles drying hard and clear.  Our house is eleven years old and nothing has been done to the stairs until now.  Actually the finish on the stairs was in good shape and I want it to stay that way so a little preventative varnish is a good idea I think.  Once oak gets exposed to the air it can turn grey and that is very difficult to cover.

  Years ago I made a shelf unit.  Before I started this blog in fact.  I made it from pine and painted it white. After some years the unsealed wood began to bleed pitch through the white paint. 

  Last week I took all the treasures from the box and repainted it.  This is one of those little jobs that most people wouldn't notice or didn't know needed to be done. Every time I looked at it I knew it needed attention so this is a personal satisfaction job.

  Another project like the shelf unit  painting was our black flamingo art piece. 

  This is a wind driven mobile art piece that is in our back yard. A black smith made this for me a few years ago and the wind and weather had rusted it in a few spots. Probably I was the only one who was bothered by the rust as it didn't effect the cool way the piece moves with the wind.  Since I was working on the deck I thought I should touch up the Black Flamingo too.  To remove the loose paint and rust I used my 4 1/2 grinder with a 60 grit flap wheel. 

  I have used this type of abrasive for end grain on ash rounds,

in the past too.  The abrasive works well but makes a huge mess, so it best used outside in a stiff breeze.

   I have done a couple of other fussy pants repairs about the place but now I think those jobs are done, the weather is getting windy and wet so the shop is looking more inviting all the time.

cheers, 

 ianw

enjoy the fresh fall fruit.