Making it through another year '21-'23

[Ljohnsaw]

It's good to know just exactly how your constant work at being retired and trying to make a buck to stay that way are.

I fell into a weird sideline money maker.  I run into various contractors remodeling stores.  They toss out all the old fixture and buy new ones.  Sometimes there is some good metal for my junk pile stockpile.  I ask and they are more than happy for me to take them.  I break the metal down on the spot (to fit flat in my truck/trailer) and toss the wood and plastic in the dumpster.  I get up to 1,000 pounds and make $100-200 for a few hours work taking the metal to the steel recycler.  Mixed steel is fetching $260/ton and cast iron $290/ton.  One time I got around 125 pounds of NEW aluminum poster frames for in-store signs.  That was $100!  Over the last 6 weeks or so, I've made over $1,000.  I also respond to the close ads on CL for free metal.

[Old Greenhorn]

That sounds too much like work to me John. ;D I'd rather scrounge for other income sources, but if it works for you, good on ya!
------------------

 Well, yesterday turned out to be mostly a lost day. I had forgotten it was our monthly food shopping day, which means I lose half the day right off the bat. On top of that I had to, once again, roll out of bed and reconstruct myself in an upright position with some difficulty. I had really finished myself off with Tuesday's work. But in true fashion I told myself it would feel better after I walked it off for a while, so we went shopping and about half way through the store (I push the cart, search CL on my phone for deals, and say 'Yes Dear' a lot, then do all the loading and carrying) I realized I was in rough shape and this could take a couple of weeks to smooth out, plus it would never really smooth out if I didn't get thigs put back in line in the first place. So I texted 'my guy' and shortly he texted back that he could stick me on the end of his day at 5:30 because he would be gone the next 4 days to a conference. After carrying in a couple hundred pounds of food I was nearly back to using a cane again, so the rest of the day I moped around and did very light work, didn't even do much in the shop at all. Well, he worked on me for about 45 minutes and put me in fair condition. I still need to do some healing and he wants me to walk as much as I can "without carrying logs or slabs or tools or anything!". He's got me figured out too well. ;D Apparently my L2,3,4 had each shifted in different directions and were fighting it out for who was right. I am much better this morning just sore and achy and promise to take it easy today. Glad I got all those logs cut Tuesday.
____________________

In other news, the radio show I did last week was released this morning. If my dragging on here hasn't shut your brain down yet, you can go hear the show directly AT THIS LINK. It will be the first show in the listing for the next week. If you look for it after that, just scroll down and look for the one with the title that begins with "Woodsman Forest Products...". It is also available as a podcast now on many of those players (PodBean is their main one) on a podcast called "From the Forest".

 So I got to hear the show for the first time this morning and it didn't sound as bad as I thought it would. I can clearly hear the tones from my cell phone when those text messages came in from Bryan and Bill though. ;D There was a lot I had on my list to talk about, but they did a good job covering the subject for a first pass. I enjoyed doing the show, but I don't see that they will have a need to have me back again, I am not that deep. :D It was fun for a one time deal, time to get back to work. I have a customer coming to pickup logs tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, and I have to go down and fetch up the rest of the logs for Saturday's workshop delivery, which I will stay for. It was mentioned in the radio show and as this one is sponsored by the CFA and run by my client who was on the show the week before me, it just worked out to have us all together to answer any questions the participants may have. After that, I have no idea. I have an order pending at the mill for 1,000BF, but we have to pick logs and get me a machine with forks down there to work with. I've got to get a little smarter, if that's possible.

 Today I hope to take it easy but with all the stuff I need to get done, that might not be as easy as it sounds. One day at a time, right?

[aigheadish]

Excited to listen to the show Tom! I'll probably check it out tonight as I try to finally finish a mantle that I've been sitting on much too long. 

I have some back issues myself but have learned with stuff like your slabs you were speaking of getting a bunch of weight out in front of me often causes big trouble. I'm usually not too bad with weight as long as it's kept close to my body but that's not always an option.

[Old Greenhorn]

Thursday I played lazy guy and kicked around on little things, following the Doc's suggestions, mostly. Sharpened my saw, fixed a few little odds and ends, etc..

 Friday I headed to the woods to pick up about 13 logs I had queued up to finish off the 'last order of the season' (?) so I have abut 30-35 in the truck. But when I picked one up, something in my back went out and I felt that $60. chrio visit evaporate into the foggy morning air. These logs are only 40-50 pounds each, but I guess that was enough. At any rate, the last load is on the truck.


 

I came back home and started working on a electrical issue on the Mule, all the auxiliary stuff I added was out. Blown fuse, but why? So I pulled the panel and worked on that for a while, doping it out. In the meantime my log pickup client showed up and got his logs. He had to load his own because my back wouldn't have it. After the usual chit-chat, I talked him into picking up some eggs at Bill's eggs stand just across the road and I saw him stop there after he pulled out. ;D
 Then I went back and finished figuring out the electrical issue. A cheap toggle switch that failed and had a leak to ground. Also, that fuse may have been just a little small for a full load on it, which I rarely do.  All good now...I think. I really need that light bar for plowing season.
 Funny thing happened on my way down to collect those logs. It's one of the interesting things about working at Bill's place, you never know what you are going to find. As I pulled in around the house I found this sitting there, he must have brought it in on Thursday.


 

Yeah, an Ice Cream truck that just needs a cab, engine, and drive train. Otherwise, ready to go. :D Why? I have no idea. Maybe he wants the refer unit? I know he already has a refrigerated beer trailer that holds about 8 kegs plus food, so it's not that. I texted him about it when I got home but he hasn't replied yet. My only thought is that is might be converted into a kiln. A rolling kiln would be kind of cool, I think. But we shall see what he has in mind and I am curious to learn how he came how he acquired it, which is usually an interesting part of the story. There's always something a little weird going on around here. ;D :D

 Today I am heading out to make that last delivery in a little while, then I will stick around for the class in case there are any questions about logs. Maybe it will be fun to just hang out for a few hours. If I can work it out I may try to stop in and visit a FF member and catch up on his projects. I have a B'day party to make in late afternoon for one of the Grandson's, so it might get tight. But at least I'll be giving my back some time to catch up.  Standing around in the shady woods on a damp, cloudy, cold day is not my first choice, but there are a lot worse things I could be doing. ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

 I am being good and letting my back recover as it may, which is quite slow, just like me. I delivered the last load yesterday morning and very carefully unloaded, taking my time as I had plenty of it. Then I hung around for the workshop and helped them get things setup, which included walking across the road to the orchard and picking apples for the attendees to eat during the class. I found my client to be an excellent teacher and instructor full of information. Glad I stayed, I learned some new things and feel myself slowly slipping into trying my hand at growing some of these things, perhaps in a mulch bed style. It seems like an interesting way to grow wine caps. He also introduced a method, new to me, of expanding mulch beds by laying oak cookies on top of the bed to be used as foot treads for a year while the mycelium propagates into the cookie, then you transfer that cookie to another fresh mulch bed and the mycelium propagates into that bed. Looks like I will be supplying him with a few cookies for each new workshop he does next year. He demos this technique for each class but had no cookies. I can fix that. ;D

 He also shared his plans with me to improve his outdoor classroom with better fixtures for log inoculation, some more permanent tables and things of that sort. I mentioned it was all stuff I could make and he lit up and said "have at it, I don't really have the time. That would be a huge help." So I guess I have to mill up some materials and find some others.  I think we can do something to fix things up for him.


 

I headed home after the class and answering questions for some of the attendees. Late afternoon we headed over to my son's place for a grandson's birthday party which was as loud as you might guess. I ran into Bill's right hand man there and asked about the ice cream truck. Turns out they got it for Bill's buddy who has a camp/home up in Maine. They will modify it into a trailer before bringing it up there for his game meat refrigerator or something. I later ran into the step father of of my son's ex and he saw my woodmizer suspenders and asked if I knew anything about sawmills because he was thinking about getting one to build a small cabin from his trees. ;D So That was a conversation that sounded a lot like so many FF threads we have all read. :D

 As for today, I will just let it come as it may and follow my nose without making my back worse. I am running out of advil.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   Sorry about the old bad back. When you go visit your family and friends in Norway be sure to take plenty of Advil with you as it is hard or impossible to get there. Our Noggie daughter (Former exchange student) always tells us to bring her several bottles when we come. I had more problems getting medice there in Norway than I ever did in remote villages in Africa or the Amazon jungle or the mideast. All medical care is socialized in Norway so people got to the doctor for everything and OTC meds are in very short supply compared to what we have over here. In the remote areas there are few is any regs on getting even prescription meds.

   I hope that Hersey's cooler works out well for a game cooler. Should  do the trick!

[aigheadish]

Tom, I listened to the show and you did great! It was interesting to hear your gruff voice (ha! You sound like a man's man!), and you had lots of neat stuff to say.  Your episode and John's before you were both fascinating! You did great on the music!

Did you say you were on a cell phone for the show? It sounded very good!

I get the feeling that YOU are the market maker on your mushroom logs. 5 bucks per log, with your stories of how you get them, seems cheap.

[Old Greenhorn]

Howard, when I visited for 3 weeks back in '93 I was once again nursing a bad back injury and I had a bottle of prescription pain killers which I did not take for the whole trip until near the very end. I had been sleeping in a 'too short for me' bed and finally one night I took the painkillers, which knocked me out. As I was normally up by 6am, my Norsk cousins became concerned when 9am came and went I was was still not downstairs. When I finally got up at 10am they told me they thought I might have died in the night and were having a discussion as to who would go up and find out. :D That's the last time I took those dang things. I'll stick with Vitamin "I".
 The cooler will be what it will be. I understand the compressor motor runs, but the unit kicks off after about 2 minutes. They are looking for a refer tech to take a look at it. I ran into the actual owner yesterday, he says it will work really well for slaughtering season. I guess between game and live stock they process a lot of meat in the fall and this will allow them to age it without worrying about bears and flies.

 aigheadish, I was in the studio for the show, my phone was on my belt, but I have a very distinct and fairly loud tone for my text messages so I can hear them while working. SO when Doc and Bill sent me messages during the show, you could hear them fairly clearly, but in the background. I was trying to stay on track for whatever I was talking about, but madly messing to the phone to get it turned down or off. I think you can hear a little hesitation in my thought as I was fumbling around. Anyway, that's done with. I was with the two fellas that hosted the show again on Saturday for the workshop and they said they felt it was a good show and thanked me again for coming on. I don't however, see a need for me to do it again. They have a very deep bench of guests that can be much more interesting than me, and frankly I would rather listen to those folks. Our own Spike60 is one of those folks.

 Yesterday I did very little. I went down to Bill's for Sunday morning coffee with his family and his Dad (who lives across the road from me). I was going to ness around with some machines, but frankly my back was still tweaky and somebody showed up and needed to borrow a log splitter tray to try on his machine, so I headed back home and messed around with light duty shop stuff. I also played around with some ideas for a log drilling sawhorse for those mushroom log classes. I have two different ideas I may try based on the standard lumber sawhorses many of us make. It rained over 1/2" through the night and will be very damp all day. I have some phone and correspondence chores to take care of and still need to clean the shop.
 It's just another day, right?

[doc henderson]

I would enjoy seeing your saw horse design with mods for mushroom drilling. 

[Old Greenhorn]

I would enjoy seeing your saw horse design with mods for mushroom drilling.

So would I.... :D
 I have to run it by the client first and see if he will bite. It includes some small rolling tires and that will add to the expense. Not sure how far he will be willing to go on the cost.

[doc henderson]

maybe can make a traditional set of sawhorses that can stack, with an adaptation that sits on the top to stabalize the log.  I have a log buck I made that folds up, but too big for your smaller logs.  could be modified.  

[Ljohnsaw]

What about a pair of simple tall V's that you can C clamp to the top of saw horses that you line with some thick carpet to protect the bark?  Maybe a bungee over the top of the log?

[aigheadish]

Seems obvious to ask, Tom, but have you tried a weight belt, like the big thick variety that goes from mid butt to the bottom part of your back? I've used them a few times and it's kind of amazing how it forces you to lift things more properly. 

[Old Greenhorn]

That's actually a good idea. I should give that a try. I used to wear one years ago before I met my chiro and haven't needed it since. I used to have 2 of them somewhere. I will have to look around and see if I can still locate one.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom, I listened to the show and you did great! It was interesting to hear your gruff voice (ha! You sound like a man's man!), ...

Its a good thing it was a radio program and they could not see he was wearing a pink tuutuu and little button down shoes. :D (Sorry, the devil made me say that. :D :D :D)

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, that paints quite a picture. Thankfully it is not true and I apologize on Howards behalf if any children read that and will now have trouble sleeping. ;D

 The truth is that I have a face made for radio, and frankly am a little self-concious about how my voice sounds. The one time I was asked to sing back up on a recording for a friends band was very traumatic for me and hearing my voice over and over and over in the studio as they were doing rough mixes was very difficult. In fact I have have bad dreams about it from time to time. The engineer saw my discomfort and finally suggested I go for a walk in the woods while they worked it out, which helped. So it's never easy for me to listen to ..me. I did however listen to it once and of course thought of all the stuff I meant to say but forgot or the things I should have said different, but I don't think I said anything really dumb, so that was good anyway. It's history now anyway. Moving on...

 Today I did some phone work and finally got a client to decide on the legs they wanted for their table and after a couple of calls I got them on order with the good folks at RiteLeg. I'll be excited to see them. I already have the tracking info, those folks are fast! I did some final sanding on the top as well as the cutoff and tested the finish (oil based poly, semi gloss) on the bottom of the cut off. I am going to do the same finish on the cutoff as give that toi them as a bonus top, it's just the right size for a small side table. They can install whatever legs they want on that one or use it for something else like a shar-tu-ray (tm) board or something. It's about 14 x 18. I also relocated the shop fridge off of the bench and into the back room. Bench space is too valuable. I have to make up an 8' extension cord to plug it in and find a small table to put it on, but it's all set up back there. I might put an electric coffee pot on the bench now, but that takes a lot less room. I have the 12 cup I brought home when I retired that I can put back in service after a good cleaning out with vinegar. That might be a project for tomorrow between coats or other stuff.
 I fired up the woodstove today to dry out the shop for the finishing work and will try to keep that limping over night if I can on junk wood and off-cuts. It was 71° in half the shop when I came in for dinner. The high for the day didn't hit 65 and it should go down to around 50 tonight with rain through most of the night and all through the day tomorrow. Hopefully keeping that stove running should help.
 Tomorrow is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yesterday was a boring routine day, just the way I like it. The shop was almost 70° when I got out there in the morning, so I got to work beginning the finish on that table. The client wants semi-gloss poly and I don't like the way this stuff is going on, but I will make it work. After that was done I brought out the electric coffee pot I had at work before I retired and cleaned that up and ran vinegar through it, then about 4 runs of clean rainwater to flush it out. I had moved the fridge that was on the bench into the back room to open up bench space for the pot and more working room. Maybe today I will make some coffee out there.

 Did I say those Riteleg folks are fast?! Yeah. The legs I ordered on Monday arrived here on Tuesday in great shape. It was raining so hard that I kept and eye out for the UPS guy not wanting them to sit in the rain, but I still missed him. So they sat in the rain for about 15 minutes before I found them and I unboxed them right way. They are HEAVY! This pleases me because a 34" tall table 6' long on two legs could be tippy. Not with these legs. These are extremely well made legs. They difference between these and what you could find elsewhere are night and day and I am extremely pleased. 8) My hat is off to @Tam-i-am with Kevin and the crew for some fine workmanship. I can't wait to see how this comes out.

 Right after the legs arrived I got a call form my son. He is doing a kitchen tile job about 35 miles away and one of his clients called with a tree down across their driveway and they had to get to the airport for an international flight. My son was over an hour out, so he called me and off I went in the downpour. It wasn't a big deal, but these are older city folks and can't help themselves. Less than 10 minutes work and I checked the rest of the driveway. They didn't even come out or wave from the window. I had looked at this place 6 months ago and pointed out over 20 trees that needed to come out before they fell. Well, they didn't want to spend the money at that point, so now it's an 'emergency'. I told my son he should charge accordingly. ;D

 I also played phone tag yesterday trying to find a local outfit that could re-tip and sharpen some strobe blades. Will work on that again this morning. Then more boring sanding and finishing work. I have to begin figuring out how to best put these legs on too, there are some challenges.

[Old Greenhorn]

 Well just catching up here a little. I am working full bore on that table job to get it sanded and finished. I took a more thoughtful look at the legs and noted they have provided holes for a stringer across the bottom. These are not clearly indicated in the sales info either in their brochure/catalog or on the web, but I was glad to see them. However I was not prepared for that and didn't have wood ready for it. I looked around and could not find anything handy that was suitable so I called Bill and he had some stuff 5 years dried in his garage, he calls it 'river birch', looks like yellow birch to me. Anyway I got a piece of that on Wednesday night and thursday I set up the planer and jointer and planed it out and jointed the one edge, the other I left live to match the table. I tried to buy some brass carriage bolts to attached it to the legs using those holes, but forget that. Best I could find was about 12 bucks a bolt for 1-1/2" long. The flattened round heads, I think will look nice, I sure didn't want stainless and the board is only an inch thick, so screwing from below is not a good option. But I sat down by the woodstove and thunk on it for a bit and I recalled in the back of my head, that I just might have some (very) old stock on those. So after a short search out in the shed I found them then some brass nuts, then some brass washers. All 5/16, all NOS. I will have to open the holes on the legs just a tiny bit, but these will work and look good. I brought them back into the shop, polished the heads, and hit them with some spray on urethane to keep them from tarnishing again. They will look slick, I think. After that I started again doing the third try at a first coat on the finish after a full sanding to start over. You can read all about that debacle in the other thread in General woodworking, no sense repeating that here. When I 

 In the meantime, while I was doing all that I was trying to find a local place to retip the carbide on those trashed strobe blades we have on the edger. I had called a company I did a lot of work with off and on for the past 35 years at two different jobs. They are an hour up the line, but have a sales guy in our area for drop off and pick up every week. I finally made contact on Wednesday morning, packed up one blade so we could keep running and UPS'd it to them Wednesday. We weren't sure what the turn-around time would be, so we held one blade back. My contact sent me an email Thursday with the quote of $48.00 plus tax and shipping to retip and sharpen the blade. Turned out they had an arbor on the shelf to fit just that blade, which was my concern with cost and time. So I gave him the verbal go-ahead and told him I would get the credit card info from Bill and call him back. He said he wasn't worried about getting paid, he trusted me from my previous history with them and he knew I was sending the second blade right along anyway. We also talked about setting up a pickup exchange with his sales guy, so he gave me that number and I called the guy to get a feel for his schedule. He comes through town every Thursday. Maybe next time. They shipped the re-worked blade out on Friday morning, so a 24 hour turn-around.  I had hoped to get Bill connected with these guys so he had a semi-local source for big blades and it looks to be working out. When the wood shop gets set up this will be handy for him.
 I was still working in the shop when Bill and his wife stopped by on their way to dinner that evening to drop off the CC info, and he brought a beer for me and himself, and she had a glass of wine in hand. We hung out in the shop talking and soon my daughter dropped in on a whim. She knows them since junior High and they all grew up together. She calls Bill the 'older brother' she never had. Not long after that, my wife came home and wondered what all these cars were dong here. :D So we had a little party going on in the shop for a while. I don't get much company, so that was a very nice change. We had dinner late that night. ;D

 Yesterday I called in the billing info and was told the blade was done and being packed up to ship.  I sanded in the morning and started all the tables pieces over from scratch. Ran to HD and got a new can of finish and some better brushes, came back and did some (successful) first coats. So moving forward finally on that.

 While I was at HD i checked to see if they had any 120 grit sanding discs. They have been out every time I looked in the last 6 months, and this time they had them. The pack also contained about 10 of these mesh 120 grit discs with an interim pad to hold them as a 'bonus pack'. So I tried those out and by golly they work good! I did all 3 pieces removing the finish without changing a disc. I would just bang the junk out of it and put it back on. I am very pleased, so I am passing that tip on, if you can find them.


 

In the photo above, the interim pad is on the left, a new disc is in the middle, and a used disk is on the right. I will have to look into these some more for other grits. They also cut a lot faster than the regular discs and as I hate sanding, this is a real timesaver.


 Doing other chores during the day I ran into one of Bill's guy's who said they would be working in the yard that afternoon if I was bored(?) and wanted to drop in and hang out. So around 4pm I drove on down but after touring the complex found nobody was there. I drove down to the mill and didn't see any logs on the deck, but I did see he has been culling out the next logs and bucking off flares and bad ends bring them to the needed lengths. Then I drove up in the back where I had dropped some apples last week. I wanted to see if there was any deer activity, because aside from one big scrape, I have seen nothing but the rare pile of old droppings, mostly very old. Nearly all the apples were gone, so there is that. I also found this:


 

That was not there last week, it just 'showed up'? It does need a little work. Broken bunks need some major welding work and reconstruction but the running gear looks pretty sound.


 

 No idea on the hydraulics,I am guessing there are some issues based on the way he left the grapple, but a neat forwarder for sure. You never know what you are going to find at Bill's place. ;D I sent him a text "Where did the forwarder come from? It looks pristine! :D ;D" I didn't get a reply... yet.

 Ah well, back to work. Gotta flip and put another coat on the table parts. This afternoon we will head all the way across the road for some kind of halloween party. I am somewhat looking forward to the arrival of somebody in a dog costume. ;D It's just another day.

[doc henderson]

looking forward to seeing pics as you complete the table.  

[aigheadish]

Have you ever tried using one of those sandpaper erasers? I'd never heard of them until it was suggested to me, likely on Cramazon, and it works really well on every type of paper I've tried it on (orbital and belt sanders mostly). I think they are pretty inexpensive and upon my use I get much more sanding done, per piece, than I did previously.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yes, I have a couple of those in the shop, but hand sanding is worse than the worst (have I mentioned, I HATE sanding?) and at the very least I need the ROS to keep things moving along after the belt sander which is for large sins. These mesh things work like crazy and I am calling that a winner. I checked the other day and HD has these down to 400 grit, so I will pursue this further as time goes on.
------------------
 Just a short(for me) update. Been working on the table parts mostly and with mixed (poor) results (more on that in a bit) but in between I was trying to get other things done. I am way behind in fall prep, I am still 2-3 cords short on firewood, which keeps me in a foul mood under my gruff exterior, the yard is still in summer mode and I have implements and such to move and re-arrange for the winter white junk, Water tanks to drain, and the shop is a mess. Work at the mill is backing up too.
 I got the fist strobe blade back from re-sharp on Saturday, a very nice surprise, but didn't get it installed until Monday when I swapped it for the other one. We have yet to test it out. I called to meet the sales guy for a pick up, which happened Thursday during his regular route. I met him at a large wood products shop he does a weekly stop at just off the Thruway. It's a 12 minute drive for me and saves about 15 bucks UPS each way. He will have the blade back to us next Thursday. Re-tipped and sharpened.
 Tuesday I voted for a new bunch of high minded self-serving idiots. Wednesday I got down to the mill and just milled one log and got the next ready to cut and my back was complaining, so I cut it off at that. I can't afford to lose another week because I went and messed my back up again. I have to force myself to stop and this time, for once, I did. Also on Thursday I did some minor re-arranging and cleanup in the shop to get this dang stainless veterinary lift table positioned up near the bay door. My son has it up and marketplace or something and we finally have a buyer coming to look at it someday soon. It's a very nice table, but I have no room in the shop for it. It's worth a grand or more with the scale built into it, but hard to find a buyer at 200 bucks. Seems like everything I look at in the shop is a source of frustration these days. At the center of all this is that table job.

 Yeah, so between all those other fun things the table work fills the day. I continue to have finish problems big time and I have sanded and re-finished it so many times that I have used a half gallon of finish (so far). Yes, I am learning a lot, and yes, that other thread where I will add more details as time allows has helped me think this through and make headway, but getting a really nice finish on the final top surface eludes me. Yesterday evening got me the worst results yet. I tried going heavy and hoping it would 'float out' but it dried into a blotched mess. As I said, no details here, we can beat it around in the other thread, but man, this thing is making it hard to sleep at night and I was back in the shop sanding  well before first light this morning. Waiting for it to heat up now.
 I did manage to make progress on the other pieces where I am not quite as picky. I am calling that cut off piece of the top "done" as I managed to get an acceptable finish through all the different things I tried. The stringer is also "done'. Yesterday I laid out the holes on the stringer and drilled open the holes in the legs. The bottom holes in the legs appear to be drilled to take 5/16" bolts. The bolts I have are 3/8". The legs also have a bigger clearance hole through the bent section to allow a nut to fit through. It's a nice design, but not made for 3/8" bolts. I left those lower holes as is because they are in a curved section and opening them up would be a mess on a finished product. I will deal with that in some other way.
 I carried the legs upstairs and put them together with the stringer. It doesn't look too bad.



 

 I am also happy with how the bolts that I selected appear on that Birch.



 

 Did I mention that I am REALY happy with these Riteleg legs?
 Oh, and here is the top as it sat last night, still mostly wet:


 

 It's a nice piece of Maple, but a little boring to me, but it's not for me anyway.

 I'm gonna make some breakfast and get back at it. During the night I resolved to try yet another approach I have never done before today. If it doesn't work I can add that to the 'knowledge base' of things that don't work. If it does work, I will finally have this figured out. This issue of 'getting a good finish' has plagued me for decades and I need to figure it out and get past it. Why is it that  the last 10% of the job takes me 90% of the time to accomplish? I could really use @tule peak timber to be around now, but I think he is very busy opening up other parts of his life these days. I just keep telling myself I will get through this if I keep trying 'stuff'.


In other news I found out they have a pre-release copy of the video (Mushroom log project) put together that I could review. I watched it a couple of times and sent them a couple of comments. They spelled my name wrong and did not include my company name in the credits, bit of which miffed me a little bit considering the hundreds of hours I spent getting them the logs for this thing. But what ever. The stuff that made me cringe was my own fault, not theirs. I had an issue with my main saw that day and threw a chain which messed up the drive links and the bar. I couldn't use it without shop work, so I used the backup homeowner battery saw I keep in the mule in case I get pinched, then switched to the 372 clone saw on my next loop back to the truck. So the video shows 3 saws in use and two of them are ones I would prefer not to be seen using. (I do harbor some vanity afterall.) The editing in a couple of shots makes it appear that I am tentatively approaching cuts (like I don't know how to swing a saw) while the real issue was avoiding bark slip, which was pretty bad at that point in the season. I did try to advertise some friends 'stuff', so I wore my buddy's radio show hat for the interview section and had on. I also wore the shirt that @trimguy  gave me, but with the suspenders and editing it barely shows up. Sorry Arnold. Anyway, all those things only matter to a tiny % of the population (like 3 people), so it doesn't really matter. I can't share the video yet, but as soon as they release it I will pass it along.
 Maybe today will be a good day, maybe not, but at least it's better than the job I used to have, on all fronts (except money). ;D :D

[WDH]

These pan head lag screws are made to attach the stretcher/shelf board to the legs from below as well as the bench top to the legs.   I have not found bolting the stretcher shelf on from the top to be necessary.  I prefer not to see the bolt/screw heads.  

https://ritelegco.com/Category/Hardware

You can also plug the holes with 5/16" black plastic plugs if you are not going to add a stretcher shelf.  This finishes off the legs well without visible holes that make you think that something is missing.  

In this bench the holes have been plugged with the black plastic plugs, but it is hard to see them in this pick.  Some people like the stretcher shelf, some don't. 



 

[WDH]

This bench has the legs plugged where the stretcher shelf attaches.  If you blow up the pic and look at the left leg, you can see the plugs.  



 

[aigheadish]

Your progress looks great from here OGH.

I'll have to look into those mesh sanding disks, sounds interesting and I like the 400 grit aspect as 220 never seems like enough, though it seems to be industry standard.

It's amazing how quickly the cold weather is rolling in and I imagine it's happening a bit faster up there. Thanks again for the tip on From The Forest, as it's helping me learn to pay attention to the trees and land I have. I'm probably not taking great notes on how my yard progresses but I am paying more attention. 

WDH- those benches are beautiful! I really need to start sawing more slabs to mess around with. 

[WDH]

Tom,

I have not used the half legs yet.  Yours in turning out very fine.  I really like both your live edge slabs.