Grangerland RFD
  • Home
    • Govt Contractor Caught Working
    • Testimonial for Chriopractic
    • Finding a name: Parkinson's Disease
    • The Great Winter Storm of 2014
    • it was a very long week
    • The Christmas Lights
    • Improving the Gene Pool 2
    • Mother's Day, on the Farm
    • A working birthday party
  • Family
    • Driving Miss Sally >
      • Texas >
        • Anahuac National Wildlife Preserve 1/3/17
        • Anahuac Birds 8/1/16
        • Birds of East Barnard
        • San Barnard Preserve
        • What is Geocache?
        • Even More Geocache
        • Geocache Log
        • 2/19/14 Geocache Log
        • Geocache , 4 June 2014
        • The Rambling Cardinal
        • Taking a break
      • Canada >
        • From Houston to Points North
        • Travels in Maine
        • Bar Harbor to Halifax
        • Peggys Cove
        • Halifax
        • Halifax to Ingonish Ferry N.S.
        • Cape Breton Eye Candy
        • More Cape Breton Eye Candy
        • Prince Edward Island
        • Sackville Waterfowl Park, New Brunswick
      • With family in Florida >
        • Melborne to Saint Augustine
        • Florida to home
    • Mom's Memories, Ruth Wilcox >
      • Early twentieth century life 1
      • Early twentieth century life 2
      • Early twentieth century life 3
      • Early twentieth century life 4
      • My memories of Mom
      • Carol's memories of Mom
    • Galveston County Rodeo
    • The Playground
    • Amie's Love Story
    • The medical blizzard
    • Trebuchets for fun and games
    • Alex's trip
    • Birthday Dilemma
  • Our farm and animals
    • New Arrivals
    • Links for donkey pages
    • Donkeys and other critters >
      • Eeyore >
        • Blue - The Herd Matriarch
        • Eeyore and the sheep
        • Eeyore and the girls
        • Why we became Llama Ranchers
        • More Llama Tales
        • A donkey named Houdini
        • The Farrier Visits
        • The Homecoming
        • More cute baby pictures
        • Glad that's over
        • Where the girls are
        • How the herd does grow.
    • Crape Myrtles and other stuff
    • All about our goats >
      • Making a Goat Shelter
      • Bodacious
      • Setting the table
      • Funeral, on the farm
      • Never too old
      • Remodeling the Nursery
    • Tail of Two Dogs >
      • The Odd Couple
      • Bob gets a haircut
      • Security goes rogue.
      • Bob slows down a little
    • Birds >
      • Adoption, Parrot Style >
        • Living with kiwi and skittles
        • When your parrots get bored.
        • Parrots at Play
        • The Weaning
        • Who owns who?
        • Baby (Bird) Sitting
      • The turkey looking b
      • Alfalfa
      • Our 2 Knotheads
      • A New Deputy
      • Changing of the Guard
      • Egg Hunts
      • Weathervanes
      • New Landscape Crew
      • Motherhood, or something like it
      • The Muscovy Chronicles >
        • Displaced Ducklings
        • Tall Dark Stranger
        • Tall Dark Stranger starts a family (sortakinda)
        • The Extra Duckling
        • It takes a village
        • Don't mess with Mama Duck
        • Gang of Eight
        • The Natural Method
        • Determination
        • Mission Barely Possible
        • They aren't Muscoveys
      • Our (chicken) melting pot
  • Flotsam and Jetsam
    • Join the Navy, he said
    • Submarines, Targets, and other Navy Stuff >
      • Nuke Down
      • Subs: My first boat (SS343)
      • My second boat
      • Shipwreck and survival
      • Tragedy averted, the Seawolf
      • Dizzying Change 1945-1965
      • Submarine Life or Living in a sewer pipe.
      • Navy Unit, Fort Detrick
      • My favorite shore station
      • A voice from the past
      • 2017 New Orleans
    • Special Education Classes Can't do that! >
      • Almost Free, our classroom Hybrid EV
  • The Eclectic Gearhead
    • Redneck Engineering >
      • My Swan Song
      • Redneck Engineering, The Porch Bench
      • Redneck Engineering, the next step >
        • Making it Livable
      • More concrete
      • Very Messy Muscovies
      • Improving the Gene Pool
      • The art of hanging a gate
      • Free Lumber
    • Vehicles >
      • Hard working Wheels
      • My love affair with Nissan
      • Class Project, Art Car
      • 59 Chevy Viking School Bus
      • My first new car
      • The do whatever project
      • Hillbilly Art Car
      • Handicapped?
      • Convoys to Mexico
      • The Perfect Getaway Car
      • Warm weather cars
      • Unidentified old car
      • Just use what you have
      • RV Man Cave
      • Goodbye Old Paint
      • A girl and her truck
      • Old dog learns new tricks
      • Smorgasbord
      • Unrequitted Love, 2002 Saturn Vue
      • Going Cheap
      • Never too many trailers
      • Hillbilly Hilton, Revisited
      • Off Road Anybody? >
        • Jeep Gladiator
        • Jeep Comanche
        • Very Rare, 1951 W.O. Jeepster
        • Off Road Lincoln
        • Stasi Van spotted in Conroe
    • Chimneys 101
    • AC and Heating 101 >
      • A few basic concepts
      • Air Conditioning Systems
      • Free Passive Cooling
      • More Basic Stuff
  • Confessions of a Faux Farmer
    • Donkey or Goat Fencing Guide
    • Doing Barbed Wire Cheaply
    • The Great Escape
    • Establishing Boundaries
    • Scraping the Ditch
    • Making a Fancy Fence >
      • Finally, done with fencing >
        • Faux Farmer Fabricates Feckless Feeders
    • Rain, rain, go away >
      • If a tree falls
      • Starting all over (gardening)
    • Texas welcomes new lake >
      • A day at the bank (of the pond)
      • Farm ponds do not require upkeep, right?
  • Feeding the Family
  • Going to the Circus
  • Connections
  • For I was hungry
  • Handling Hay
  • The Rambling Cardinal II
  • Your Government at Work
  • Evolution of a Little House of Care
  • Directory of Homeless Posts
  • The Beginning
  • Invisiible
  • Conroe Texas 2018
  • Peep Peep

Redneck Engineering, the next step.

7/3/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
You have two choices when things go to pot. You can do some improvements or you can tear them down. I stopped halfway on the porch. I had a significant fracture and that (plus getting older) slowed me down. I have been back working on this as time allows and posting from time to time.


Picture



In my humble opinion anyway, this shows that there was an effort in the past. This is before the first redneck engineering story and it no longer looks the same. One reason for writing about this is that I think there are other people who feel the need to work alone. I certainly do. For a long time I have made an effort to figure out how to do things by myself. This is no different and I hope you get some tip that you can use.


Picture
Pretty much the same view. My first tip is to do the roof very early and save some labor. I feel the porch would have lasted twice as long if the roof had been up. It actually wasn't gone. Just headed that direction. 

I found that the green fiberglass is more durable than the galvanized metal and the price reflects that. If I had just replaced the deck boards and they lasted another dozen years I would be in my eighties when replacement time came and I’m not sure that I’m interested.

I confess that the flowers were not my idea but I do water them every morning.


Picture
I made a living sweeping and repairing chimneys while teaching myself to be a civilian. My first civilian certification of any type was as a Chimney Sweep. This from the national Chimney Sweep Guild. This equipment and a 32 ft. extension ladder was almost all it took to repair a chimney crown. They make a plastic bin for mixing cement but I think the circular motion allowed by the galvanized tub makes it an easier job. I think I’ll write an article soon telling you what you don’t know about your chimney and how it can, indeed, hurt you. Figuring out how to do this type of work on the top of a two story chimney can require some deep thought.


Picture
The prior step was the second one I made and it was the last small one in the batch. Here you see all the forms in place and everything poured. It is so small that I didn’t install any rebar.

 A sidewalk needs to be 3” thick and a driveway 4”. If you are interested all my chimney crown were 2-3" and I was never called back. These steps are over 2” thick and over 3” in some places.

 The wood underneath is treated and supported. When I reach the larger steps above I will need to see that close to 3” is observed and I will increase the support. I'm looking out for the 80 year old I will be some day and trying to make them to last.




Picture
You can see the forms here. You can also observe another use for duct tape. When I poured chimney crowns the inside of the form was always lined with duct tape. It made much smoother concrete. The face on the concrete step here is typical. I will reface with morter mix or vinyl. The right corner of the form also has another use for cardboard. A little stuffed between two boards is a barrier to concrete flow.

The back wall is primarily sealed by the old step and it’s support. As you can see, the new step is considerably wider than the old.

Picture
Concrete can pack a bunch of weight if it is being compressed. However, you can break it like chalk if you subject it to twisting. The steel in the crete lets you apply that unsupported downward force without a fracture. There will also be support provided by the porch stanchion (an upright landscape timber).

When I am pouring something like this and not using traditional forms I always make the concrete just a little bit dryer at the edges and give it a few minutes to set. Then I make normal concrete and fill the cavity.

This picture shows the landscape timber porch stanchion. When these forms go away the next concrete pour is going to encapsulate the bottom of the stanchion in concrete. I have two new stanchions for the roof to cover the steps and I do not want to put a ladder against anything until they are very solid. That is another tip. Bad things happen when you try to fly.


Picture



Here we are pouring normal concrete and smoothing the top. No I did not run short of concrete. I just took this picture before I was finished. There were really no unanticipated problems this time during the job. I kept my dog inside for a couple hours. I was taught that you needed two hours before it could rain lightly. Four before a freeze or heavy rain. Somewhere in that second two hours a dog could run on it. If I brought him inside and put up a barricade what could go wrong. Nothing, right?


Picture






Well, not completely right. It’s possible that you could be the object of curiosity of a certain tall dark stranger. He and his lady love were probably on their honeymoon and just had to see and experience all the strange sights. I also found that when one repairs the red eye on a Tall Dark Stranger his caruncle will turn black. You can see the a normal muscovy caruncle on the face of his lady love. Well the lone ranger mask on him is really his red caruncle. I actually thought that was funny and in honor of the Lone Ranger movie that just came out, I just left it that way.

2 Comments

    Author

    Some more from Foxworthy's world..

    Archives

    July 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly