'COVID-19' Projects

Outside projects have been abandoned for the day, because we had snow this morning. So, here is some of what I did during 14 days of self quarantine after going home from vacation early.

I've built deck chairs out of wood about every 10 years since we bought our house. This year I tried something different.
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That is a bunch of recycled plastic formed into 5/8" x 6" 'boards (you can also get it 1x8). The dye is infused prior to the plastic being formed into usable pieces, so you can cut into it and always have colour.
Add a bunch of wood screws and a few bolts and you get someplace to have a lunch break.
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Then get back to work. I debated colour for quite a while. You can get wood coloured, sort of. I decided if I was going to go plastic, I would be blatant about it. We have yellow and blue in the kitchen, which this deck is connected to, so...
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This project is a bit more complex, and not finished yet.

About 35 years ago, I thought Gary Fisher had a really good idea and bought one of his mountain bikes. It visited quite a bit of Canada and the US over the years and has proven to be pretty much indestructible, but it doesn't get used much any more. I thought I would give it a refresh and in doing so try out some paint schemes I was thinking of.

Starting with this. Everything but the saddle and tires are original. A six speed cassette was top dog at the time.
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The closer I looked, the more scratches I saw. In the early days I had patched them, but that wore out after about 10 years. The worst:
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So...clean...cover up important connection points...and then use the forks as a playground.
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Throw on some tape, spray green, throw on some tape, spray orange.
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I had put different patterns on each side of the fork to see what I liked best. It was a small area so I could sand it down and do something different....well if I wasn't lazy.

The left side is something I had talked to Sergio about doing on a guitar. The right side was a lazier approach. I didn't have any tape the right width, so I was cutting bits and placing them, which got a bit tedious. And, it turned out my tape was the same colour as the green paint, so it was tricky to see what was tape and what was paint when it came time to come clean.
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I had used a bunch of paint on the forks, so tried to conserve a bit when doing the frame...and lazy.
But it was the perfect opportunity to practice a fade.
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Let those colours dry, then respray the yellow to cover the original more evenly. More tape, spray orange. Let it all dry and then check how it came out.
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It needs another layer of clear before I can start putting it back together again.
 
And a happy little cloud goes right up here...just blend it ever so gently with the azure blue and white...take your time, you needn't rush...then bring in your pencil brush and pull in some van dyke brown...there...and draw a line and fill it in...now you've got a tree that you can add branches to...etcetera...

(I just remember to use a brush, folks, the rest is intuitive...)
 
I WILL make those butterscotch cookies tonight.

Which begs the Age-Old Question...How do you all like your Cookies...Soft or Crunchy???
Me: CRUNCHY all the way. (I'm a pan-o-brownies "gimme all 4 corners" kinda guy!!)


The cookies actually turned out OK. A mix of soft and crunchy. One baking tray had to keep revisiting the oven because the centers were still underdone...after several retakes...gave up and accepted that a couple cookies wouldn't be too crunchy.

And, just to extend the cookie count, some golden raisins were added to the dough...for a slightly more complex crunchy-chewy mouth feel...

Soft cookies, crunch brownies
 
This was my big project of the week:

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One of my BIL’s got my son a duplicate of this orange Bronco, and rather than exchange it, I took it apart and painted it.

My 3 year old son, and 30 something year old wife couldn’t keep their hands off of it while it dried, so.... it is what it is. :rolleyes::D
 
This was my big project of the week:

CIUaZkr.jpg


One of my BIL’s got my son a duplicate of this orange Bronco, and rather than exchange it, I took it apart and painted it.

My 3 year old son, and 30 something year old wife couldn’t keep their hands off of it while it dried, so.... it is what it is. :rolleyes::D

i had a 74 bronco in the 90s — worst car i ever owned.
 
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