Projects

 Hung the bell yesterday.

Works a treat, as someone delivered a package yesterday while we were way up the garden and rang the bell to alert us. As I said, I'm going to try and find some brass D shackles to replace the steel ones - although obtaining brass ones that size seems to be a challenge. The TV antenna clamp stays for now, but will be changed at some point.

The stainless steel base for the kono grill arrived on Saturday, along with the American made air damper.

Snipped the stainless steel with my pneumatic metal cutter so it fitted snugly into the base, but the damper is far too large, as can be seen below.

I'd done my usual mistake of not fully reading the advert and assumed the headline size was the size of the whole contraption, whereas it's the size of just the slider - the whole thing is about 4 times too big. I could cut it down a bit in length, but the height it still too large. I have an acquaintance who made our bespoke cooker hood and will get him to adapt it by cutting off the slider rails from the main body, creating two Z shaped channels, and slicing the slider itself horizontally. I can then position the rails where I want. I may even get him to make one the right size - it's not a complex shape, just fiddly if you haven't got the right equipment.

Actually, while I'm at it, I'll get him to make me a cradle for half an oil drum that I intend to turn into a huge BBQ for a large garden party. When I was at sea, the engineers would knock up one of these for a ship's BBQ of 30 odd people. A bit of engine room grating over the top was the cooking griddle. 

I'm dropping heavy hints to Hay about a sliding, double bevel mitre saw for my birthday in a couple of weeks. 

The next large project is creating a new workshop out of a defunct greenhouse frame, using OSB. That's one for the summer though. My current workshop is at the end of a shed that's used for all those things that litter the place, but you think may be needed at some time. Hay's the worst offender - we have boxes full of rusty, old tools that belonged to her long dead relatives. Utterly useless, but she likes restoring them and using them as ornaments in the house. The area I'm left with is no larger than a small toilet and is totally inadequate. Any time I want to do something, I have to collect the tools from the shed and do the work outside.

Hay's willow wand arbour is coming on well. It was planted two years ago, using bare willow wands she bought on eBay. Every single one of them has rooted and been interwoven to form an impenetrable egg shape. It'll look brilliant once the leaves come out.