Housebuilding in Finland

[His Divine Shadow]

It actually looked pretty new or at least unworn, black pad with brass rods holding it in place, I am not sure if the dust on the machine or not was asbestos or just sawdust but I wiped with down with a wet a rag, mostly around the motor and the wheel itself. I got the whole lever holding the pad off and packed in a plastic bag days ago, so I figured I could just take it whole to someone. I tried being careful but who knows.

[His Divine Shadow]

I also remembered I hosed down the machine with compressed air before I knew of the asbestos thing. I was doing a cleaning of the garage and had all doors open with fans going, then blasting everything with compressed air to get the dust out (this is why I am going to build a proper dust collection system).

I was wearing my 3M full face respirator mask, but the filters are some kind of all purpose filters, not asbestos proofed. Still the dust I found near the brake pad on the machine hadn't moved despite that and had to be wiped away with a rag.

[Sea Skimmer]

If it was new then the asbestos concentration would be much lower at least, if it was present at all. If you had a mask on I wouldn't worry about it too much. Most good masks have at least one layer for particulates, it wont be ideal but its not useless either the way some of the cheap paper ones kinda are against that stuff. The dust is so bad for you because the body can never remove it, and thus one good exposure is a persistent exposure for life, but the thing to have been concerned about was basically, you open this thing up and get a whole cloud in your face. If that didn't happen, well, life goes on.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah it was one of these, the filters are separate and you can replace them with all kinds of filters depending on needs, one of my better finds, NIB sans filters for 25 euros:
http://www.gemplers.com/images/items/6700-lrg.jpg

I also asked the guy I bought it from, he couldn't say for sure since the guy who last serviced it no longer worked there, but he thought it should have been replaced one time or another given it's age. The motor is clearly not original so maybe along with that, this might also be a factor in the vibration the saw now has.

I thought the wobble of the wheels was the cause but apparently cast iron wheels are like this. Bearings in the upper housing, or possibly a bent shaft are likely rason. One of the bearings in the top is going since it's making noise so I am gonna take it apart later and replace the bearings. Need to check the shaft before disassembly too.

The reason the motor can be a cause for vibration is that it's not made to be a drive for a bandsaw, motors for direct drive bandsaw duty tended to be better made, better balanced, bigger bearings. So putting an ordinary motor in here puts it under more stress than usual when you consider blade tightening stresses. Though I suppose replacing motor bearings more often (every 10 years given hobby use perhaps) is enough to compensate. Not sure if I need todo that here though, pretty sure the upper wheel housing is the cause.

1. There was no guard to it that I recall. I do recall that the blade faced towards us, and she was pushing a block of wood into the blade when it snapped. It may have caught on a knot in the wood. Either way when it snapped, it hit her face. Maybe she was standing off to the side, maybe the blade was trapped by the wood and went in the only way it could. I just know she was bleeding and the teacher rushed her to the school nurse, leaving no one in the shop to watch the rest of us students.

It's hard to predict what will happen when these things happen, but enclosing the wheel and base should make it less likely for that to happen.

2. EEEEEEEE! BABIES!!!!
They even took turns without fussing? That's so adorable!

Well I guess they did then at first, now Daniel seems to think David should be the one pushing, he gets in the "wagon" and stands there waiting, if noone comes and pushes him he gets angry. They're really both learning this walking thing extremely fast though, noticeable improvements every day for both of them. Probably walking for real by christmas eve.

My parents took a video too:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152904995504507

[His Divine Shadow]

Some christmas pics:

[LaCroix]

Ah, the good old tradition of only decorating the tree down to the level the toddlers can't reach, yet

But looking really nice and comfy...

[Borgholio]

What time of day did you take the living room pic? Please tell me it was at least after 4pm.

[His Divine Shadow]

It was pretty late actually, 7-8 PM I think. But the sun sets around 3PM now anyway so it had been dark for a while.

[Borgholio]

Huh...your twilight lasts for awhile up there doesn't it?

[His Divine Shadow]

It was actually quite dark outside, it's a strange effect with high ISO settings, I've seen it before, it makes the outside look much bluer and brighter than it is. The average amount of sun hours in december is around 6 hours so this time of year is dark.

[His Divine Shadow]

I finally bothered to take a picture of the house with the terrace, stairs to come, it's an old pic and the gf just threw out the tree:


And I got my new bandsaw shaft, the saw is much improved though still not vibration free, I will change the motor bearings sometime in the future and see what that does, it's usable for now.


Then I made a workbench, still under construction, will put more drawers in yet, it's gonna be all drawers and on the floor I will have more drawers that sit on wheels.


I made a better fence for my jointer/planer:


I made this SUPERB find (in my opinion) in a 2nd hand store, a Festool RTS-400 sander, fully working, for 25 euros. They got for 10x that new. I am so pleased with this.


I'm gonna make some moulding so I am building a router table with a tilting router lift so I can make some funky stuff, some parts seen here, it's almost complete:

[LadyTevar]

That belt sander is a great find

[His Divine Shadow]

Well orbital sander to be exact, but yeah. Here's the kids too btw.

Cut Daniels hair a bit
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7534/160 ... d893_b.jpg

David had a spell a few weeks ago where he had a bunch of accidents and fell face first into things, he looked pretty awful for a week or so
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7528/160 ... 9f23_c.jpg

But now they're both back to normal:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7422/163 ... eded_b.jpg

And I have to say now that some real winter's kicked in I am glad we have the fireplace. It only needs two fires a day and stays nice and cozy all day long and it allows us to not have to up the heat pump settings. It's what a lot of people here say, a house without a fireplace is not a home, just a building. Still we've used like 750 kilowatt-hours in december and probably 800+ in january.

[LadyTevar]

Oh good heavens, David did a good job on himself! I'm glad he's gotten better.

That picture of Daniel just makes me want to pinch those cuddly little cheeks.

Once again, you have adorable little boys, and I love seeing them. Thanks for letting us see them grow.
As for the fireplace? I am jealous. I'm having to keep my gas heat down to 21C due to cost. Since the apartment has a big, poorly insulated bay window, this means I wind up wearing sweaters or quilts to keep the drafts off me.

[fnord]

As usual, the boys are indeed adorable. I winced a bit when I saw what David had managed to do to himself.

Are those energy-use figures for whole-of-house - ie, not just heating, but lighting, computers, idiot boxen, washing clothes, workshop, etc?

[His Divine Shadow]

It's everything, including heating the garage (6 degrees C only, its enough for me) and running machines and lighting out there too.


Noticed I forgot to inline the pictures for some reason just now...

[His Divine Shadow]

Kids are like cats in this way, doesn't matter if they got their own toys to play with, ordinary household items are just way more fun, like this laundry basket.





Also the workshop, added loads more shelves so I've freed up lots of floor space:


Got the router lift done:

[LadyTevar]

"Look Dad! Issa SPACESHIP!"

I can almost hear them saying that. Nice router lift, I love the hardwood gears. The wire, however, looks like it needs help.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah it's a work in progress, want to build in a switch on the table instead, but at least the joint is soldered and then heat shrink tubing over it. Gonna enclose the whole table and build in drawers so it'll be like a classic norm abrams router table.

Oh and it's actually plywood and softwood, plywood is the most optimal material, softwood not at all, but it's what I had.

[Elheru Aran]

You might be interested in this thread we started over here...

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=162600

[His Divine Shadow]

Yardwork for 2015 starting. I've begun building the support walls, here's the start of the one that will go in front of the house:


It needs to be filled in from behind still, waiting for the earthmover guy. He'll also position out some of the really big rocks that weigh as much as cars and that I just cant move myself. The area between the boards on the ground and the rocks will be a patch of grass when it's done, and stairs made from rocks somewhere in the middle I think.

And in front of the garage I am working on the other, bigger support wall, same thing here:


There's a big pile of dirt that needs to be put elsewhere too, this area is gonna be left to it's own devces, no grass. Same on the area infront of the house, a few meters will be natural.

Here's a shot from further out, you can see the small amount of rocks next to the driveway, those will be the start of the same support wall that will go infront of the garage, it's going to start small and grow taller the whole way:

[Eleas]

Wow. That looks seriously cool. I'm not quite sure what you're aiming for though -- terraces? Hill with a sloped path?

[His Divine Shadow]

The swedish term for it is called "stödmur", we're dividing the yard into different heights using these stone walls, sorta like terraces I suppose. It's all a bit early to easily imagine the finished result I think unless you're the one who thought it up.

[Sea Skimmer]

Cool. Make sure drainage wont be a problem behind your walls though, that's the doom of a lot of small retaining walls. Small gravel drain can avoid this.

[His Divine Shadow]

Been filling behind the walls with rocks and gravel and other stuff that drains real easily. Went to Tampere last night and expected to be gone for a week, boys where supposed to get their hand surgeries but it got postponed because they had colds, all the way to autumn it seems. At least got a taxi this time.

Boys got some shut-eye in on the way home too:




I suppose we have to start cutting their hair soon, several people have asked if they're boys or girls, and one thought they where girls.