Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

they say, "the sun shines on the righteous" .. they'm bad buggers down in the village ... no sun for them 'till lunchtime today .... where as we had a glorious morning .......








even Berrrrt turned up for brekky..





..... not seen him in a week .... too many other pheasants about for his liking, I think .... a good 50+ on the lawns first thing .. everywhere!!!!


anyone know WTF these things are ?





they'm everywhere ...... and spreading !!!!!




managed to get 'in the seat' by 12-ish and hauled the beam out, after I'd deposited a bit of stuff around the edges with the bucket to start with .....





Alex has used this a lot and says he finds it better on backwards, with out the roller, so thought i'd give it a try ....





he's right .... float it so the trailing edge is smoothing it out and the 'front' is just cutting .... great results ....





and still makes a great 'shovel' - face shovel style .... drop a beam-full and pull it through ... can place lines of material really accurately ....

worked me way down,





'til I ran out of black stuff .....





....... more required








Odd few lines to lightly pull out with the back of the rake ..... then it's roller time ...... again ..... well happy with the results ..... a lot happier than the neighbours are gonna be with me and the roller tomorrow

[v8druid]

Rough night, last night , for no apparent reason so was lunchtime 'fore I'd 'sobered up' from the Tramadols .... and in no fit state to go chasing yon roller about the patch.
Alex has been in need of this for a while and now I'd had the base plate for it, thought 'twas an ideal time to finish it off .... now't too strenuous and a lil' job in the sun for an hour or so, whilst I reclaimed my head


set out the plate and holed it, before chucking the gallows on the bench .....





set up the end plate ....





stitched it on and tacked on the braces ...





before welding it all up ..








gave 'the man' a call, as I knew he wanted to get it off to the powder coaters .... soon as .....
on his roof rack an hour later ..... and in the powder coaters' before tea tonight


sorted.


Altered one of the hinges on Pam's gates ... as the damned posts have moved with all the bloody rain last weekend ... hopefully they won't be doing it again, having had a good soaking


Picked up me materials for the infill Friday and was going to get some of it chopped up, but as it'd been dry and sunny all day, with a good breeze, yon grass all needed the chop and it was dry enough to get it done ..... 'least most of it was, so said gates had to wait ..... AGAIN!!
good job I did .... started to rain just as I was putting the ride on away .... they did forecast an hours light rain at 5 tonight and it was bang on schedule
dry for the rest of the week though


Body dependent, it'll either be, gates in the a.m. or a few hours on the roller .... or might even treat meself to a 4t ride on for the day, if the boys in the village's 1200 is sat in their yard .... or gates tomorrow and the 4 tonner on Tuesday even ...... get it whacked down

[v8druid]

round it all three times this morning .... didn't look too bad but needs to be wet to get it down anymore ....











and maybe that 1200 roller


tonight's sky !!!!!


all in 15 minutes














a lot more in photobucket

[v8druid]

great sky again this evening .....





missed most of the orangey/pinky stage, packing up me tools .. was good too




........ been gate building all day ......





not content to just let me get on with it ..... Pam had to see what it looked like so far ..... "but it's only tacked up Pam" !!!!!





she wanted to have a play with the next bit, that she's lined up for me ..... never be out of work with Pam about ... it just ain't the paying kind !!!!!


so.... back on the bench and carry on with it 'signed off on' ....... next bits ......




consolidated .... one side, anyway..





flipped and ready for some sequential nailing together ......





Very firmly clamped down and 'nailed' ....... I left it to cool for the night, as I was running out of light .... I will be very pleased .... and surprised, if it's still flat in the a.m. ........and doesn't need ..... 'the treatment' !!





and then it's start all over again on #2 ............................ and then ........ dig out a sheet of 3mm stainless for producing some swallow profiles for SWMBO's delight !!......................... and then ..........

[AndrewMawson]

Very nice Druid, but a bit easy to climb for a gate!

[v8druid]

Very nice Druid, but a bit easy to climb for a gate!

Cheers Andrew ..... don't think of it so much as a gate, but as a movable screen ...... the rest of the fence line is trellis ... you should see the cats go up it

Said 'gate' needed 'the treatment' when the clamps came off this morning as expected TBH .... can't put that amount of heat into summat and not have it 'go'

Clara day today, so been a bit patchy on time to sort it, but did eventually get it back into the flat shape I started with and as to be expected Pam wanted 'to see what it looked like' ......



..... alright, IMHDO




it will eventually have the same brush screening on the back of it to screen me patch, as the rest of the trellis




when I've figured out just how to secure it ..... I have a few ideas

[Stock]

The first two are sunrises taken on the way to work, the third is across a lake one evening in December just as I was leaving a waste water site................................picasabackground.jpgsunrise in woodford 2 (9).jpgShannon sunset (2).jpg

[v8druid]

stunning pix Stock ..... phone or proper camera ??

[v8druid]

couple of pix of the sign gibbet sent to me today .... looks alright

sign 2 mod.jpg sign jpg mod.jpg

rudely awoken this morning .... at 5.30, by Sparticus puss and his unearthly wailings .... he is loud when he wants to be .... thought is wrong with him ?
came down to find this in the middle of the kitchen floor ..... and him telling us all about it ..... almost certainly Squeak's handy-work .. too big for Sparts ... and Squeak has 'previous' for bunny-napping .....

WP_20181026_10_10_35_Pro.jpg

when the young 'uns are about, he'll have 2 or 3 a week ...... not a mark on it, but broken neck ..... he's lethal, is Squeak

been some bit cold here today ..... proper Nor Nor Westerly and snow blowing in the air several times .... see a lot of folk up country woke to a severely white world this morning .... like several inches of white .... I hope it stays "up country" as long as possible ..... we had it here in '10, thirtieth of October and stayed for many weeks, plus a fortnight at 14 below in the middle of it ..... our first winter here .... not so much a baptism of fire, as ice........ a hell of a lot of it

[Wazza]

I'd hate to sound like a cracked record but ," Where's the flaimin shed " ....

[v8druid]

I'd hate to sound like a cracked record but ," Where's the flaimin shed " ....

Still in the stockholders Wazza ..... in need of creation

[AndrewMawson]

Is it just going to appear one day, or are the local council going to get the opportunity to be awkward?

[v8druid]

Is it just going to appear one day, or are the local council going to get the opportunity to be awkward?

well ........ until Pam let rip into next doors, with some home truths, about what a pair of detestable t**ts they are, after they royally pissed us off ..... I had been considering it ...... but it's going to have to be the latter now, I'm afraid .... still considering the 28 day notice scheme though



so .... sun shining, but bloody cold this morning ..... second gate had to have it





had to have an extra hold down on this one ... TBH could've done with it on the first one, but packed to suit instead ....







I cut all the infill at the weekend and a few other bits needed,





so was just a case of getting it all set out and welded in ...





all the backs stitched in and cooling off, ready to flip it over ......





..... and get it fully consolidated





also managed to get the latch partially made up .....





with some judicious 1mm disc-ing





and the retainer in position ....








then realised ........ after a lot of searching, that I'd not got any 40 x 6 flat to finish it off with ... annoyingly ....... everything but!!


rang me mate Pete, to go get a bit, but his wife is very unwell ATM and I'd guess he hadn't gone in today, as no answer.
I've offered to 'hold the fort' for him on several occasions, but he tends to try to work around the problems, if he can, but I'd be happy to help the guy out.
His wife's been diagnosed with bowel cancer and in for an op. on the 5th, so may have gone for her pre-op. meeting and tests today ... but thought it was tomorrow?


We've known each other a looong time
.... since schooldays in fact and long before we were 'sort of' competitors, although we were far enough apart, not to encroach on each other's turf and often did little jobs for each other.
I have a lot of time for Peter ..... always been good friends


The flat bar'll wait, but would've been nice to have gotten it done, while I had the Caddy out


left it sat clamped firmly to the bench this afternoon ......





chilling !! ... treatment day, so early bath ..... it was cold by the time I'd packed up, but it'll have to wait 'til the morning ...... can guarantee it's going to need 'the treatment' when them clamps come off ..... again !!!

[v8druid]

not been up to a lot yesterday ... didn't feel great to start the day .... get a reaction to me 'Hamster Juice' some weeks ...me spleen was not happy and I have learnt when not to push my luck


sat having me toast and there's this ungodly noise from the utility .... dashed in, to be met by the washing m/c coming at me
... further progress hampered, by the pipes tethering the bugger to the wall
grabbed and wrestled it back into spot, fighting the duvet trying to escape through the side of said washer!! ... on full spin FFS
.... didn't help the bodily state, one bit
....... really put the tin hat on doing a lot Tuesday


.... squeak got cursed ... he's the cause of said duvet being in there, having 'dismantled' a large mouse on the bed, at some point in time in the day, which Pam found at bedtime

Couple more pain killers and resolved that the day was gonna be an easy day/total right off.


Had the little one coming for an early Halloween tea and 'accouterments ', etc. (great grand-parental visit for her, tonight) and had been tasked with finishing off Pam's 'pumpkin creation' for Clara, which wasn't the most strenuous of tasks .

she'd been to an even earlier local kiddy's Halloween party Monday, with her mum and hadn't wanted to get all 'scarified' for it ... she chose to go as Cinderella .... LOL ..... Kids !!





and arrived as Cinders again yesterday evening ..... came last year as 'a cat' !!





complete with a 'tie tail'


last year's 'joint efforts' on the pumpkin front ... Pam had drawn it ... guess who had to hack it out ... without errors!!





and this years ......





I was impressed with the level of detail Pam'd managed to achieve ...... which made it all the harder sculpting/scooping enough of the flesh out to let the light through.
As usual, Clara loved it


Was enough manual labour for yesterday ..... gate was still where I left it ....thought I might go take a look at it later .... whether anything got done with it was another question ... still was not right this morning!!

[v8druid]

summoned up the enthusiasm to give no. 2 some 'treatment' yesterday afternoon





and got it back to where I started with it .... flat !!





had hoped Peter'd be in work yesterday, so's I could go get some flat to finish off the catch mechanism ... but no response..... so hung 'em anyway





cured the funny whining noise .....





for now anyway !!!!

Been a very long day today with a little person's 'arrival' at 08.00 this morning ... 12hr+ shift on 'Clara watch' ... not long been picked up by her dad !!

So sod all achieved today, other than a trip to see Pete, after he rang me first thing to say he'd be in for a couple of hours, before returning to his wife in hospital
.... she unexpectedly had her Op. Monday, having gone in for the pre-op assesments, they kept her in and did it, there and then!! hence no replies to his phone all week.
She's doing well, considering

He's also a lot happier/less stressed, now the problem has been addressed and progress is being made, understandably.
so I came home with some 40 x 6mm flat for me gate latch ... for tomorrow's lil' job ....as said though, today's been a Clara day ... and some !!!