the bottom

:D

Productive weekend. Among other chores, I
-Washed the old car in preparation for selling it, including removing bumper stickers.
-put new wiper blades on the new car. We learned on Saturday that the old ones sucked.
- fixed our dryer

I'm going to document the dryer fix.

The problem was that the lint gasket at the rear of the dryer drum was falling apart. A gap was opening up back there and stuff was falling down in the back of the dryer. Coins and stuff from the pockets, and also socks and underwear. I ordered the parts a month or so ago but had been too busy until now to focus on it. I got a new drum belt too because when I replaced the motor a year ago I noticed the belt was getting old and cracked.

We start by pulling the bottom panel off. A screw driver as a lever probably would have been smart, but I just pried it off with my fingers. Broke a nail. Annoying.
Attachment 52211

Then I know from working on this dryer in the past that the duct is going to get in the way, so I remove it now. Just wiggle it off.
Attachment 52212

Then I pulled out the lint trap.
Attachment 52213

And removed the two little screws that hold the lint trap body in place.
Attachment 52214

Now it's time to lift the top up, so I felt with a putty knife for the two clips that hold the top panel to the front panel. Grabbed a screwdriver and used it as a lever to pop those clips at each side of the machine.
Attachment 52215

Then I lift the top panel up, just like opening the hood of a car. This is where it's good that I got the ductwork out of the way. I used some twine and a clamp to hold the top up and out of the way.
Attachment 52216

Then I need to remove the front panel (which is the frame that holds the door.) I remove the sheet metal screws from the top.
Attachment 52217

And loosen the ones on the bottom. It just rests on these bottom ones, I don't have to take them all the way out.
Attachment 52218

There are wires connecting the front panel to the control board at the back, and I don't want to bother with those, so I just disconnect the clip holding them in place and leave them attached.
Attachment 52219

Then I lift the front panel off and lean it up against the side of the machine.
Attachment 52220

The door opening of the front panel normally supports the drum, and since I removed that front panel, I grab a nearby hiking boot to support the drum while I remove the old drive belt. I have to press against the tension pulley to get enough slack to slip the belt off the drive shaft.
Attachment 52221

And then I pull the drum out.
Attachment 52222

I cut the felt gasket and start to pull it off. Some of it comes off really easily because the glue it brittle and old and just falls off. And some of it is stuck real well and the felt tears apart with a lot of it still adhering to the drum.
Attachment 52223

So I scrape away at any felt that adheres to the drum. I need a pretty clean surface for the new gasket and glue.
Attachment 52224

And then I switch to sand paper because I think it might be easier.
Attachment 52225

Finally I vacuum it clean so the glue will stick.
Attachment 52226

Since I have the vacuum out, I clean the inside of the dryer. I find some coins as I do this, but not much because I had cleaned this not too long ago when I replaced the motor.
Attachment 52228

Then I open the new gasket and read the instructions.
Attachment 52229

The new gasket and glue.
Attachment 52230

It's hard getting the new gasket onto the edge of the drum until I grab some spring clamps to clamp it as I go.
Attachment 52227

You are supposed to apply the gasket first and them jam the tip of the glue tube underneath and start squeezing the glue in there.
Attachment 52231

But it makes a hell of a mess as it drips out. That indentation rides over the rollers, and the last thing I need is big glue bumps in there.
Attachment 52232

So I put some gloves on, and tip the drum on its side. This is much neater. Was that in teh instructions?
Attachment 52233

And I clean up my mess.
Attachment 52234

Done.
Attachment 52235

I put it back together in reverse, except I use the new belt. The new belt seems about a half inch shorter than the old one, and I really have to strong arm the tension pulley to get the belt on.

Very nice job!

There's something about handyman jobs like this--I look at all the steps and say, "Yes, yes, I understand that step, yes, I see how that works, all very straightforward..." but somehow the job as a whole still just makes me shut down and decide, "Nope. I can't do that, hire someone."

I hope your family makes you something extra good for dinner. :)

Right; the scary bit is always what if I get to step 4 and I fuck it up?

Good job replacing the belt while you had it apart. If you hadn't you know it would fail in a month. :haha:

I routinely fuck stuff up, but then I fix my fuck up and learn from it. All that dripping glue was a minor fuck up on this job. A professional wouldn't have done that.

Or would have done his best to talk you into a whole new drum, and failing that not cleaned up the glue, thrown it back together, taken the money and run. Whirrrrr thump Whirrrrr thump Whirrrrr thump ;)

Well done.

I agree about the perils of the unknown after step four. But I'm perpetually in some degree of unknown. And some degree of fuckup, sometimes self imposed. I most always have embarked on a journey like this because the degree of fuckup was already a problem, and my post four problem is small by comparison.

Learning from my mistakes, sometimes repeated mistakes, is part of the pleasure I derive from such work.

Good job glatt. :thumbsup:

Nothing wrong with fucking up occasionally. Most of our greatest inventions were fuck-ups.

... as was the best selling blue pill of all time.

More like the last 3 weeks. I started building my new upper kitchen cabinets out in my shop. I started with the one over the stove so it sort of has 3 sections with the area where the vent hood will go.

Next was one cabinet which will mostly hold dishes and other china. Then one that goes above the refrigerator and one near the sink. There was also a tricky one that will go over a work island and eventually have glass doors on both sides so it had no back panel. It will be for wine glasses and some crystal vases.

The wood is all birch. Birch ply is so easy to work with and fairly cheep for the boxes so I decided to just use solid birch for the face frames. The door will be of a Shaker style and will be made later as I have to retool several machines for those. Still have to stain and varnish. The cabinets shown here are upside down for storage until I start staining. So the top rail is 4 inches and the stiles and bottom rails are around 2 inches.

I would have gotten more done but my wife had to go and have that darn stroke in the middle of it!

Nice job. I hope you reprimanded her for holding you up. :haha:

Just an update. I got all the cabinets and adjustable shelves stained and have applied 2-3 coats of gel urathane finish. I like the gel as you brush it on with a foam brush and then just rub it smooth to take away the brush marks but leave a slightly wet look which dries with an increasing satin finish. The stain and finish are really bringing out the textures of the grain in the wood.

FYI, the cabinets shown here are upside down, the header at the top is 4 inches and the other parts of the face frame are around 1 1/2 inches. I'm working on them this way because the tops won't be finished but the bottoms will be.

Hope to be done this weekend and hanging them after that. Only 3 1/2 years in the planning and getting them this far along!

Nice work Chris! Some projects need fermentation time.

Yes, think of all the mistakes you've eliminated during the gestation period. Nice job. :thumb:

Some of my projects get that fermentation time whether they need it or not.

Yesterday I turned 59 and celebrated by installing the upper cabinets in my kitchen. My remodeling project has taken 2 1/2 years so far because daily life just gets in the way! After tearing out all the old site built plywood cabinets installed when the home was built in 1984 I had removed most of the drywall since changes needed to be made to the plumbing, electrical and AC duct work. Eventually all the new drywall went up, recessed LED lighting was installed and the new tile floor went in. All these parts of the project take time when you are doing most of the work on you own although my son helped when I needed a helper.

We painted the walls with a new color except where the cabinets and back splash would go, makes it easier to see where the wall studs are. The design of the cabinets took a while to complete, I do it the old fashioned way with a large sketch pad, pencil and ruler. As I mentioned earlier I had planned to make the boxes for the cabinets from birch ply as it is a good material, fairly cost effective and easy to work with. Then I just decided to do everything in birch, even the face frames and eventually the doors. That meant purchasing solid birch stock, ripping it in the shop, milling edges and a lot of sanding.

I should explain I built temporary lower cabinets from scrap lumber and some old white Formica'd counter top and put them all on wheels so I have a place to cook but can move things when necessary. Also, we have our stove on an island but it eventually be on the wall and the island will be a work/prep area. There is a cabinet above the island that will have glass doors on both sides and be a place for crystal and wine glasses, it is lit inside and underneath.

So here they are installed. First shot is just to show my idea for installation. As the boxes are large and bulky to get level and fitted I mounted small brackets I whipped up in the shop on to the wall, then just set the cabinet in place where I wanted it to go and attached it to the wall. Eventually a tile back splash will go up and hide any holes from these brackets but it made leveling and screwing them to the wall where I wanted them easy.

Looks good, I can't wait to see when you get it done.

Looks sweet Chris. Think I'll work on my perpetual barn project today.

Very nicely done!

You out Ikeaed, Ikea. Flat pack crap? Pshaw, lumber baby. Only thing after that is felling trees and making cabinets from them. Excellent design, first class construction, something to be very proud of. :notworthy

One suggestion though, instead of "my kitchen" use "our kitchen", for extra brownie points. :lol2:

It's been a bit like Christmas as I up pack the boxes of our better dishes and glassware and get them on my new shelves. These have been packed away for almost 3 years now, we got by with just some basic stuff when the kitchen was all torn up. It's been slow at times as I decided to run a lot of the glass ware through the dishwasher. The cabinet for our crystal and other nice glasses will get a glass shelf but I need to have a glass shop make it up.

I also realized I need to make 3 more shelves for the cabinet where plates and other serving dishes go.

Looking good, Chris!

Lookin good

Just got back from a few days at a Boy Scout camp. It was a fun time. Pretty location. No cell signal at all, even on the mountain hike, because we never went over the other side of the ridge. It's been a few years since I've been disconnected from the world for that long. I need to do it more often.
Attachment 52854

Was that for their witch burning merit badges?

Lesson in creating air pollution. :lol2:

It was pretty cool. Every boy likes building a fire but is always taught to build them small and keep them under control. To see a couple massive fires was literally awesome.

The hand crank that lifts the table on my drill press got a crack in it. I thought it was a cast iron hand crank, but on further inspection, it's cheap ass plastic. Craftsman quality.

Attachment 57811

It felt like it was going to break off completely any day now, so I looked for a replacement. The replacement part was $20 or so (with shipping) from Sears. It would be the exact replacement part. In other words, another cheap plastic handle.

So I measured the shaft with my calipers, and then the bore of the existing handle to see how much slop there was in the handle. Turns out I needed a 9/16th bore.

Not a lot of those, but finally I found this, and for the same price as the new plastic one.
Attachment 57813

It fits perfectly.
Attachment 57812
But it wants a keyed shaft. My shaft has a flat spot, not a key. So I think I'll try to drill a hole in the handle and tap it to accept a set screw that can press against that flat spot.

Nice job! It amazes me the crap that they produce now and when they design a part so badly. Lifting the table puts a lot of torque on the handle, your new one should be much better.

My old Delta doesn't have a crank and gear rail like yours, you just loosen the clamp and heft the table up or down. I saw a jig I can make where I would mount a pulley up at the top rear of the column and attach a cable to the back of the table clamp and put a weight on the other end that would just hang down and act as a counterweight.

Hi Chris.

Can you get the proper sized key for the handle and file it down so it fits into the handle and rests on the flat? Then, when you drill and tap your hole, the set screw will press the key against the flat, like a brake, and not scar up the shaft.

a photoblog of what i did today.....
 

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...568e3cd8b3.jpg

Good idea, but the key is in a spot where you can't drill a hole. It's by the handle itself.

It came out well though anyway.

Nice

Actually yesterday. Did a major inspection of all hives and found one that has a mother/daughter queen situation. Not uncommon, the original queen is failing somehow and the bees raised a new queen to replace her. Sometimes, they will co-exist for a while, then the older queen gets killed or pushed out. I hope that the new queen can produce enough brood to build the hive up for the winter.

a photoblog of what i did today.....
 

Who kills the Queen? The daughter or one of the others?

My bees are really going to town on the golden rod. The hives smell amazing.

This is sort of the defacto repair thread. Yesterday I spent about 4 hours replacing the sound deadening insulation in our dishwasher door. It's a tar like material that provides weight to the door to keep it open, and sound deadening.

Over two decades it tends to break down and fall into the wash chamber where bits of it act like a black crayon marking the white insides and dishes up.

So here are before and after pictures. 80% of my time was cleaning an incredible amount of gunk out of nooks and crannies.


https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...9f5bbeab15.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5db06d62fd.jpg

And while I was in there, I replaced the door gasket.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1b8bfd8d24.jpg

I freaking love this dishwasher. You can't buy one this good anymore. They are all high efficiency models today that take 6 hours to clean your dishes with an ounce of water.

I'm going to keep it going for as long as I can.

Nice work... and you remembered the name of the thread. :cool:

http://cellar.org/showthread.php?p=989756#post989756

holy cow, those photos are massive.

Stupid tapatalk. Sorry guys.

Heh. I was looking at them on the Nook last night. It sizes to fit the pics, and I thought that's all there was, I thought you posted pics w/no text. The text got sized so small I didn't even know it was there.

Lots of detail, though.:)

I've posted before about my displeasure with our plumbing situation. Our house seems to get supplied with gritty water by our municipality. In addition to that, our pipes are 70 years old and are galvanized pipe. The zinc galvanized coating wears off over time, and spots where the pipes have been cut and threaded have no galvanization at all. So the steel pipes underneath start to rust and small chunks of rusty iron slough off into our water supply. They flow down stream and cause blockages in fixtures.

Here's a picture of the inlet valve of our dishwasher that I replaced over a year ago. It's got mostly flakes of mineral buildup that has probably come from a combination of the county water and my hot water heater, and there are also dark specks that come from my rusting pipes. It blocked the dishwasher water supply enough that it wasn't cleaning the dishes.
Attachment 61345

And this is a small section of pipe that lead to our boiler. To be fair, this was a side branch that seldom called for water, so it was a location where sediment was just asking to build up. I replaced this and a clogged pressure relief valve last spring.
Attachment 61346

I knew eventually I would have to replumb the house. And install a whole house water filter to keep the county's sand out of my water. So last week I planned it all out and ordered the parts from a supply house online. Got a special pex tool off Ebay too for $170.

Our basement is unfinished, which will help tremendously. A decade ago, I tiled the tub surround on the first floor bath, and I ran pex tubing up inside that wall while it was open. So there is tubing in place for the 2nd floor toilet and the 2nd floor shower. There is no tubing in place for the 2nd floor sink. So on Sunday, I decided it was time to tackle this most difficult part of the replumb project.

The 2nd floor bathroom sink shares a wall with the staircase. I decided the best path was to cut a hole in the plaster wall of the stairs that lead down into the unfinished basement. It's out of public view and a good spot for a hole. I stuck a mirror up in there to see what I could see.
Attachment 61347

You can see the exisisting pipe that leads to the 2nd floor sink. I plan to snake some pex tubing along side of those pipes.

So then we had to go upstairs to the bathroom 1.5 floors away and cut a hole under that sink. The cabinet has drawers, so we took the drawers out and had to reach through to get to the wall. Pain in the ass, but less work than pulling the sink.
Attachment 61348

My son was doing most of the work at this point. I want him to do as much as he can, and I'll pay him. He needs to keep busy this summer.

So he cut a hole out under the sink inside this cabinet. Tried to keep it neat so patching it would be easier later. He found it to be tiring working with a dull drywall saw reaching through the cabinet drawer openings. He did a good job though.
Attachment 61349

Then I got my cordless drill out and put a new spade bit in and started drilling down into the bottom plate. I though I just needed to drill through the bottom plate. I wasn't thinking at first that there would be the thickness of the joists and then the top plate of the ceiling below. When I got through the bottom plate of the second floor, the cordless drill battery started hitting the edge of the drywall hole and I couldn't get any deeper.

So I switched to my electric corded drill. It was smaller and could drill deeper and broke through. But I wasn't through the top plate yet. I needed to run off and buy a 16" spade bit.

So I did, and a fair bit of sweating and pushing in an awkward position later on the drill, I broke through the top plate of the floor below. There was actually a third framing member in there that I also had to drill through. No idea what that was. Maybe some diagonal bracing at the stairs.

Anyway, once I was fianlly through, we fished some wire through there, hooked it unto the red hot water side pex, and pulled it through.
Attachment 61350

And then down at the basement stairs hole, I drilled down into the first floor bottom plate and into the joist area and snaked the red tube into the basement.
Attachment 61351

So that went pretty well. Now for the blue tube.

I didn't take pictures of this, but I had a hell of a time getting a hole drilled for the blue tube. The spade bit would break through the bottom plate and then get steered off in the wrong direction and kept hitting the same nail. I tried 3 different holes to avoid that nail, but the lower framing members kept steering the bit to the nail.

Finally, I drilled a fourth hole and could drill it straight and miss the nail.

So we fed the blue tube down.
Attachment 61352

So here is where we stopped for now up in the bathroom. I'll make the connections later. It will be a big rushed job because I have to shut the water off to the house and need to make about 100 connections before we can turn the water back on again. Basically a day without plumbing.

Attachment 61353

And this is what it looks like inside the upstairs bathroom wall. See all the drilling I did without ever breaking through in any of those holes? This was while all contorted inside a freaking cabinet.
Attachment 61354


More as this project progresses. Maybe this weekend.

Bravo!

I am taking notes on the plumbing. I will go to school on you on this one. THANK YOU! we also have low water pressure... Probably not same cause, copper pipes here.

This is down the list though. .

I should replace the hot water heater now too, but am going to hold off on it for now. It's old and full of sediment that won't drain completely out when I try to flush it. And when I inspect it from below with a flashlight and mirror, there is more rust than I would like to see. It might have another 2-3 years left in it or it might go tomorrow. But replacing it as part of this job is just too much to bite off at once. So I am going to install a filter after the hot water heater too. Keep the sediment in the tank from spreading to all the fixtures.

I'm replacing the kitchen faucet too, because it's beyond all hope of repair/cleaning. I don't want the new kitchen faucet to be clogged by the old hot water heater's sediment.

Good job documenting the work(er), better job doing the work.
I have two hot water heaters in my basement. The one I installed last year and the one I replaced is STILL down there. I should have never listened to the guy that told me to let it sit awhile and dry out so no rusty water leaks onto the carpets while removing it from the house.

I did the hot water heater last year, I'll post it and write it up here. Not too difficult. A 3 on a scale of 10.

Good on ya getting Glattboy involved. Good training.

So I replumbed the house yesterday. I had gradually installed the majority of the pex tubing adjacent to the old galvanized pipes but needed to make all the connections at the the service entrance, each fixture, the water heater, and the boiler. I thought it would take some time, but had no idea that it would take so long. I got started at 8am and finished at 9pm, turned the water back on to check for leaks and then cleaned up and was done at 10pm.

The pex connections were the easy part. It was trying to take out the old galvanized fittings to make room for the pex connections that was hard. Some of those joints hadn't been touched in 70 years and were completely fused together. I wasn't even trying to remove all the old pipes yesterday. Just enough to get them out of the way for the pex connections.

So I learned a few things.

- There are times (although not too many) where you just wish you owned a sawzall. Yesterday was one of those times.
- A good pipe wrench is indispensable and nice to have, but it would have been even nicer to have one with a really long handle. 12 or 14 inches just isn't long enough for the leverage you need.
- Propane torches, one in each hand, will loosen many stubborn fittings enough that you can get them loose with the wrench. Wear leather gloves.
-When you don't need to be saving the integrity of a pipe and its threads, a hacksaw will just barely fit in between joists in some situations, but you'll get a real workout.
-A power saber saw with a metal cutting blade can do the trick sometimes, but is mostly not worth the effort, vibrations, and noise through the entire house.
- Home Depot pretty much sucks and doesn't have the fittings you need in the size you need. You will have to cobble something together and it won't be pretty.
-Don't assume anything about the old pipes and what you will be able to save and connect to.

Oh, and the main shutoff valve isn't going to work when you want it to. We had even had it replaced about 20 years ago when the original shutoff valve wasn't working. It seeped enough water to make sweating a new copper male threaded fitting virtually impossible. I was finally able to get it done by having my son hold two propane torches on the fitting while I held a shop vac nozzle just above the fitting to suck the seeping water out of it so it would heat up, and I used my other hand to hold the solder against the joint. I had tried the bread jammed in the pipe trick, but this was about an inch from the shutoff valve, and there was no room for a bread ball to be jammed in there. The good news is that the pex has a new ball valve to act as a main shutoff just 6 more inches downstream, so this shouldn't be a problem in the future.

I didn't take any pictures yesterday. Too busy and too hard to hold camera while straining against stubborn pipes.

But, here is a series of photos getting the upstairs bathroom sink plumbed. I did this on the rainy Saturday. Because these valves are hidden inside the cabinet, I just left the old ones in place and added the new ones next to them.

I pulled the red hot water pipe out into the area where I could reach it with the expander tool. The other end of this tube two floors below wasn't connect yet, so I could move it back and forth as needed to work on it. You place a white expander ring on the end of the tube and use the tool to stretch the tubing wide open. Is slowly shrinks back to its original size, but you have a couple seconds to get it inserted on the fitting.

Attachment 61712

No effort needed at all to put it on the fitting. You just slide it in place. But you do need to hold it in place for maybe 30 seconds while the tubing shrinks back down onto the fitting and clamps down hard. You see that black fitting has little prong like wings sticking out on the sides. That's the depth guage. You push the tubing on until it hits those prongs and then you just hold it in place for a bit.

Attachment 61713

So then I drilled a hole in the drywall for the new valve to go.

Attachment 61714

And I pushed the tubing back down into the wall toward the basement and poked the black elbow fitting out the hole I just drilled. You can see I also did the blue cold water side as well.

Attachment 61715

I pre-made these valve assemblies so I could poke them through the wall hole onto those elbows. There was no way for my expander tool to get into the cabinet to build these things up from the wall, so I did them out in the open. The escutcheon plate is a deep one that fits onto the valve, and then you expand the tubing and push it on inside that plate. I cut the tubing a little long so I could cut it to fit later.

Here, I am holding the tubing up against the drywall so I can measure where to cut it.

Attachment 61716

These special tubing cutters work extremely well.

Attachment 61717

I put a white expander ring onto the tubing. These rings help apply extra force against the fittings to keep the joint water tight.

Attachment 61718

And then I used the expander tool to stretch that tubing so it will fit on the elbow.

Attachment 61719