Category Archives: Making and Fixing

Basement Remodel 02

So here are a few more pics from the basement job:

If u zoom in you can see the awesome, real barn wood from the family barn, over 100 yrs old.

The barn is due to be removed (sold) so this is a remnant of the family history.

 

Peek a Boo!  Mr Culligan Man likes this access to the water treatment filters, so he doesn’t have to crawl behind the wall from the W/D opening.

 

 

And speaking of the family, I send out a huge thanks to this family for allowing me to work for you.  Your understanding, appreciation, friendship mean the world to me.  THANK YOU!

A huge privilege to serve folks like y’all.   What a blessing to use my abilities and have your appreciation for the work done.  Enjoy the space!

 

Basement Remodel 01

OK so here r some pics of a basement remodel job i did this summer.  The basement was partially done b4, with boiler / storage area separated and office added.

The goal was to make the rest of the basement into completely finished space.

It involved moving W/D hookup/drain, gas line modification, framing in new back wall with W/D enclosure, sheet rock , cover center beam and exposed drain with frame/ sheet rock.  Suspended ceilings, Barn wood accent wall and wrap support columns with Barn wood.  The wood came from the customer’s barn, which is to be sold and moved.  Trimming done after customer installed the vinyl floor.  They also did all the painting.

If you compare the shot with the doors open to the picture farther away, you can see the joists b4 the suspended ceiling went in.  The smaller door leads to the boiler / storage area.  Also see how the enclosure of the center beam is wide on the empty side?  Drain pipe covered with the center beam.  The other door on the right leads to a Bilco outside entrance.  That side gets a Ping Pong table.

More later.

Corning Barge 05

So here’s the (exciting?) conclusion.  After he attaches and shapes the handle, there is a sharp point where the semi molten glass was cut, or stretched, whatever.  Strategically applied torch melts the point and it smooths out.

Way too hot for hands

You got it ok??

Separated, its free!

Now we need sloooow coooling!

Safely inside

So the glass needs like a day to gradually cool down, they put it into this kiln that is, if i remember correctly, around 1000 degrees.  If it was left out to cool, that would be way to quick and the thermal stress would destroy it.  Anybody ever bust a glass or ceramic item by putting boiling water into something that was too cold?  Ya like that but i guess u could say, in reverse.

So they also make lots of colored glass at Corning, here’s a shot of some

Anyway, working with glass is kind of amazing.

You can buy stuff like you see here from the Corning web site

I don’t know which of the glass you see there is made at Corning, I think some is.  But they sell all kinds of glass stuff from all over the world.  There is a 4th of July sale on now, with free shipping.

Corning – its all about glass!!!!!!

Corning Barge 04

OK so now we need to add once more to our project, here is the master getting more glass for it

Get Ready!

Touchdown!!

Snipped off the right amount:

Forming it

Gravity Assist –

Both ends on

More forming

Voila!  Handle!

Though i have given lots of pics, to see this done in person is really something special.  Remember this guy is an apprentice, with 4 years experience.  Just getting started in his skill-set.  In fact just the show b4, these two dropped the project in a failed transfer – Shattered into a hundred pieces.  I spoke to the learner after and he said this was his first successful pitcher.  Awesome.

June 30, July 1 Little Falls. GO SEE IT

July 3, Ilion Hurry!!

 

Corning Barge 03

This is where it really starts to get cool.  Ya i know it already been pretty cool (well actually its HOT!)

Anyway look as the master gets more glass ready

Now he joins onto the ‘bulb’ with his piece, our apprentice lines it up

Hey look here!  now we detach from the original blowpipe, we have the piece by the other end!

Now reheat the piece, got more magic to perform

Now it time to pierce it!

Then he makes it wider

WIDER

Wider still –

The pear shape is gone!  This will not be a big light bulb.

So did you go see the barge??  HURRY its traveling away!

The 27th – Amsterdam. 28th Canajoharie.

June 30, July 1 Little Falls. GO SEE IT

Corning Barge 02

If you didn’t see the first Corning Barge post, check it first:  Here!

OK so after starting the glass project, our young glass worker starts to add some tool work to the job:

Then more heat, its back to the furnace for a minute

Next its some shaping and more blowing

What will it be??  Decorative Pear?  Light bulb?

Stay tuned for more!

Don’t forget to visit the Barge TODAY in WATERFORD

The 27th it will be in Amsterdam. 28th Canajoharie.

June 30, July 1 Little Falls.  GO SEE IT

Corning Barge 01

So i was going to come up with some catchy cool name for this series of posts.  But as i went through and selected pics to put into this, i realized there is really only one possible name i could use.

The Corning Glass Barge is in Waterford NY Today and Tomorrow, June 23, 24 2018.

Tickets are free, or you can just show up and hope it’s not too full.  Even if that was the case you can watch and see pretty good from the shore.

Clicking on the line above will take you to the website for the barge.  It is just one page of Corning’s awesome website.  Everything Corning is there.  You may already know, there is an AWESOME museum out in Corning NY that is a real treat.  I went many years ago and seeing the program today made me want to go back and see it again.  btw – all the pictures in this series were taken with my personal communication and photo device, that has Corning glass as an integral part of it.  Yours too.

Yes, that’s right you almost certainly use Corning glass daily.  in your hand.  with your finger.

Your smartphone screen is almost certainly clad in “Gorilla Glass”  a corning product.  Your welcome.

SO enough from me, let’s see some Corning magic!!

OK this is a glass furnace, aka the “Glory Hole”

The first bubble blown into the glass.  This guy is just starting his career, he has been doing this for 4 years!  Ya you don’t just pick this skill up in a month or so.

So now he adds more glass to his project.

The semi solid glass is real hot (you knew that!) but its constantly wanting to flow downhill.  To counteract this the glass maker keeps the pipe rolling.  As it droops, he rolls.

Now he has blown it bigger with the added glass.

And bigger still.

 

So stay tuned for more awesome stuff as we watch this raw glass get turned into something useful.

And b SURE to GO SEE for YOURSELF!   The barge is in Waterford Today, Tomorrow.

The 27th it will be in Amsterdam.    28th  Canajoharie.

June 30, July 1  Little Falls.

HURRY UP.  the barge is moving west, just like the glass company from NYC did long ago, on barges, on the Erie canal, to Corning NY.

IF YOU CAN CATCH THE BARGE WHILE IT’S AROUND YOU WONT B SORRY!!!!!

ok enough shouting.

Tank Tale 04

So the “new” (used) oil tank went into the basement pretty much the same as the old one came out.  In the garage i switched the wheels to the ‘new’ tank.  Sounds quick except, though the old and new tanks r both 275 gal nominal, same size physically, but, well, the leg mounts were different distances wide.  So had to remount the pipe flanges to new spacing on the 2×4 wheel sets.  Then make sure i brought the replacement in correct end first.  So the end with the connection for the filter / oil line to burner is at the same end as the original.

First i mortared in some patio blocks into the gutter around the basement floor, again becuz the leg mount different width.  Then roll in the tank, hoist and remove wheel sets, skid into place, pipe up fill and vent lines.

Tank in place, lines complete.                                With support straps

So that’s enough about oil tanks.

We got some oil and are now heating the water with oil, not pellets.      😎

Tank Tale 03

Ok so it’s been too long since i added info on the sad tale of the tank.  After i removed the shelf section that was blocking the turning of the tank, i got some wheels.  These were a set i saved (see how good it is to save things!) from a dolly i had made when i installed my pellet boiler.  Ya i have multiple heating plants.  That’s good because the hot water system makes my domestic hot water for showers etc.  So i was running on pellets while my oil tank replacement was replacing.

Anyway i took the wheels off the dolly and made them into 2 sets mounted on 2×4 chunks.  this shot shows my first idea of putting the tank wheels into boxes.  I raised the tank with a come along and then strapped the wheel assembly to the tank.

It seemed ok and i moved the tank like 12 feet.  then i tried to back it up to adjust trajectory.  One wheel set tipped and box broke.  So then plan B.  i found that the 1.25″ pipe legs on the tank fit nicely over 1″ pipe.  I got 1″ nipples and pipe flanges and mounted them to the 2×4 chunks.

  

So the rusty pipes hide the new 1″ nipples that the flanges are screwed into.  A nice solid situation, no wobble.  Then the tank got moved all the way out of the basement.

This is the Ramp i made for the pellet boiler (and Saved!!)

   

Here’s the tank outside.                                          and in the garage:

 

So the tale is almost done.

Tank Tale 02

I inherited some things from my dad.  He was born in 1916, so he spent his mid teens to twenties scratching for necessities of life during the Great Depression.  You may know people who lived that nightmare from 1929 through most or all of the 1930’s, or even into the 1940’s.

They were scarred, their brains turned into amazing machines of how to get by.  How to never, ever waste anything.  Never ever, ever waste.

So among the things i got from my dad was the “Saver Mentality”.  Stuff can be used even when old.  Re-used or made into other useful things, or parts of new things.  See, you thought the 3 R’s were new hip stuff that came maybe from the hippie movement of the 1970’s.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

These are all good things.  We do need to hold true to the 3 R’s, or we will use up and destroy our beautiful earth.  But the original 3 R peeps were not the hippies of the 70’s.  It was those who lived the nightmare of 1929 and the decade after.  Save it, we can use again.  If you reuse things you don’t have to buy them again.  Even the broken things that no longer work can be taken apart and scrapped (recycled!).  My dad made alot of coin by tearing old electric motors (and other broken, or outdated things) apart and separating the copper from the steel to get better prices for the scrap metal.    Save, Save, Save.

Now i don’t like disorganization.  I have many shelves, especially in the basement.  Shelves allow you to save more.  It’s just that i have more to save than i have shelves.  Just so happens that some of the shelves in the basement are in the section where the oil tank is.  One of the sons asked me, “you think the oil tank will fit past the self i front of it?”  I told him – “Ya i think so”.  OK guess again:

Notice how i have hacked the shelf in front of the tank to try and get room to “make the corner”.  N.G.  the tank is lodged against the shelf unit on right, the one in front of it, and the wall behind.  I have already emptied the right side shelf as it needs to be removed.  Such fun!!