Mizzle

With H birthday a memory I could get back to sorting the dining room. This weekend I needed to move the radiator and sort out the wall. The radiator move was straight forward enough except:

A. The garage had to be emptied to get at the pipework
B. One joint insisted on leaking repeatedly. I sorted it on the second attempt. Luckily it was in an accessible place.
C. It started to mizzle.

My born and bred South Derbyshire neighbour came over to see if H and I wanted to join him and some other neighbours for a meal to celebrate the royal wedding. H and I have plans that weekend so had to decline the offer. Whilst chatting the weather was mentioned. In Manchester it would be drizzling. In South Derbyshire it was mizzling. I was in leak solving mode, with half the contents of my garage outside in the mizzle but he did not see my urgency. I was polite you will be glad to know. I dismantle the joint again, this time I daubed the joint with flux and tinned it then resembled the joint and ran in some more solder. That got it. I filled up the heating system again, no leaks so I was able to replace the lagging. Only then could I get all the garage goods back inside. There was not enough of the day to start the other big jobs so tidied out the garage instead, chucking rubbish into Degsy, and went off to the tip. From he tip I went over to the next town to get fuses and insulating tape for the bike.

I had a leisurely breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. I figured I would give my neighbours a chance to get moving before I started knocking the plaster of the wall. There was a dividing wall in the dining room. When I took it out I found that the original plasterers had plastered to different depths on either side of the wall. If I left it as it was it would show as a hump under the paper. I had to knock off only the plaster that was too high. Precision stuff with a lump hammer and bolster chisel. When I was happy there was no high spots I mixed up some plaster and make good the holes. I left it dry. There was a patch of wallpaper that could not be removed until to shifted the radiator. I got the trusty steamer out and in no time the wall was clear of paper. The another tidy up session.

With some trepidation I set out my stall to tackle the Oak plank. One of the many things I learnt as an apprentice plumber was to prepare your work space. Get all your tools to hand and set up where your power tools as needed. It is easier to do a good job when you are comfortable. I have been contemplating the plank this week. I figured it is not square. I pinged a chalk line one inch in the from the edge. Guess what? It was not square. I ran the circular saw down the chalk line. The strip of waste cut off was thicker at each end than in the middle. I now had a straight edge. I ran the plane down the new edge to remove the circular saw marks. H liked the chalk line. It as ancient tool. My chalk liner is just a modern application that re-chalks the line when it is retrieved. The Romans used chalked lines. My chalk liner is a metal case which contains a spool of string, just like a fishing reel, except the container is full of chalk, red in my case. As you can imagine the line gets covered in chalk. The end of the line, poking out from the case, is the end of the string with a tag so you hook the line at one end of the work. You just pay out the string to the other end of the work, place the string on your mark and pull the string tight. Then you pinch the string and lift it up whilst maintaining the tension then let in snap back on to the work. The slap of the string on the work transfers chalk to the work marking a straight line. You can mark very long, perfectly marked straight lines with a chalk string. Having cut down the plank I was able to make the wall capping. The last thing to do was to was drill the pilot holes for the screws. That done I gave the capping a good coating of Danish oil. It is in the greenhouse drying out. Then just a case of cleaning up.

H and I took Degsy up the the lottie. We dropped off the home waste for the compo bin. I filled the bird feeders. H had a sit on the seat at the far end of the lottie to watch the birds. I dug out the old big compo bin and tipped eight wheelbarrows worth of compost onto the Asparagus bed. with the Asparagus bed top dressed I tried up and had a walk round to see what wants doing. There is plenty to go at. Whilst I tidied up up the birds came in to feed. The stars for me were the Yellowhammer and Bullfinches.