Lights and Stands and Hooks. Oh My!

Hey there! It’s Friday once again, and once again I find myself wondering where the week went. Actually, I know where some of it went, but not all of it. It rained rather a lot and I think that distorted my perception of time.

Thankfully the past seven days were far less exciting in terms of American politics then those from the week before, so that’s good. I keep reading alarming headlines about things that could go sideways in the US during the inauguration, but all I can do from here is hope that doesn’t happen.

Anyway, let’s get on to the things I actually know something about.

The first is an unexpected problem. You might recall earlier stories about the exterior light over the garage door. Months ago I dropped the glass insert and had to deal with that. In the process I discovered the light was glued to the house, not screwed down. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the light actually fell off the house. I found it hanging by the electrical wires, and had to make an emergency repair.

Well, the emergency repair failed. Two weeks after it was done, we had a heavy rain, and it washed out all the caulk I had used to seal the light down. Apparently it was too cold and too damp for normal caulk to cure, and the rain was heavy and just at the right angle to run down the wall taking the caulk with it, all over the wall, garage door, and driveway below.

As you might expect, I found myself cleaning up that awful mess. Thankfully the caulk could be scrubbed off easily. I took the light down — I had screwed it in place, thankfully, and had not counted on just the caulk to hold it up — and cleaned it all up, again.

We had a dry day or two, so I kept the light down to give the site a chance dry out in what sun we had. That was probably a good thing, but who knows. While that was going on I researched alternative caulking products. The one I really wanted to buy was not available locally. I could have mail ordered it, but that would take too long. Remember, it’s winter and it rains a lot here, so getting the light back up and covering up the hole in the wall is important.

I found a paintable DAP product at the local home centre that claimed it would be “rain ready” in 15 minutes and skinned over in 30. It also said it could be used in temperatures as low as 5° C. A look at the forecast indicated I had two days of temperatures that should be at or above that, so I set to work.

Some of you might recall my frustrations with various weather apps, and here I encountered another one. The app I use now provides a 12 day forecast, and that showed no rain on the days I needed. None. But when I switched to the hourly forecast (in order to get a better handle on when temperatures would be high enough to use the new caulk) I discovered there was rain predicted in the evening of the day I was planning to mount the light back on the wall. That’s right… the 12 day forecast — which shows both predicted high and low temperatures for each full 24 hour period — does not indicate precipitation during the entire period, but rather only for the “day time” portion thereof.

So now I was faced with getting this thing back on the wall in rather a hurry and figuring out how to keep it dry as well. Yes, the caulk claims it will be ready for rain quickly, but I am doing this at the very low end of the acceptable temperature range, in very high humidity, and then it is going to rain again. The chance of failure — and a repeat of the caulk mess —was high. I needed to avoid that.

Here’s how I attempted to keep the caulk protected from the weather:

That’s a garbage bag stapled to some wood supports which are nailed to the wall of the house with thin brad nails. The top board is ripped at a 45° angle to shed the rain onto the plastic instead of down the wall.

In the second photo you can see the caulk around the base of the light fixture. You might also note that in both pictures you can see water on the plastic. It rained last night — pretty hard at around midnight, in fact — and the entire contraption was put up earlier in the day. I had to wait for the temperature to be at least 5° C, so the caulk was applied at around 11am, and everything else was installed before 4pm. Rain didn’t start until about 8pm, and was only heavy for a brief while as far as I know.

I haven’t pulled the ladder out to check it, but I can tell the rain didn’t get under the plastic. So far, so good.

Whether the caulk is curing or not is anyone’s guess. It didn’t get that cold last night — I think we stayed above 5° C all night, in fact — so perhaps it is ready for worse weather even now. But I think that plastic cover will stay there for quite some time, perhaps until spring. I see no need to risk it again.

In other news, quite a bit of the past week was put into working on a stand for the new mitre saw:

On the left is the basic stand ready for the saw. On the right (or below, if you’re on a phone, I think) the saw is mounted on the stand.

It’s not done yet, though. There will be “wings” on either side that fold up to support longer stock when I am cutting it. Over the course of the week the various parts I wanted for those arrived and I hope to finish the wings up this weekend. They’re going to be somewhat fancy wings, with tracks embedded in them to let me put stop blocks into place where needed. Photos when those are done.

Thus far the only thing I am not happy about are the castors. They are supposed to lock, but don’t really do so. The cart must not move while I am using the saw, so I may have to make a set of wheel chocks for it as well.

Also, each evening when I finish up with the day’s work on the mitre saw stand, I’ve been sealing the cracks in the garage floor. It’s ancient (like the rest of the house) and there are some large cracks out there. Mostly they irritate me by catching sawdust and shedding small chips of concrete, but they can also grab a castor at a funny angles, and that’s not good, so:

The bottle of goo I am using to do this is visible in the first photo of the mitre saw stand. It needs to be applied in relatively thin layers (1/4" thick or less, I think) so a deep hole takes several coats to fill, but it seems to cure well even in the relatively cool temperatures out there. (The garage is inadvertently heated by the water heater and the boiler, though, so we’re not talking seriously cold.) I simply squeeze it out over the cracks and use a putty knife to flatten it out and make sure it goes only where I want it to. Easy.

Thus far the patched areas are holding up well. They definitely stay clean and no longer shed concrete chips, so I am happy. It will take another week or two before I get all the cracks filled to my satisfaction, and nothing is going to level this floor out again, ever. Well, I suppose it could be done with enough self levelling epoxy, but I am unwilling to spend that much money on a house this old. I’ll live with it.

In overdue news, I am done playing with the CNC. I have video of it from the last time I used it, and I will attempt to stitch something together for you one of these days. I need to get it returned to its owner, but that requires Covid safety, so I am being patient there. I really want the top of my toolbox back, though, so I need to figure out when and how to make that happen.

And finally I give you the current situation with the hooks by the front door:

Anne didn’t make any choices from all your various suggestions, and she’s been swamped with real work (which pays the bills I keep racking up) so I went ahead and chose these. Anne can replace them when she wants to.

I borrowed from several of you, and attempted to keep them light and humorous. From left to right they read:

• Fish
• Captain
• …er
• Shot
• Left

Yes, we like puns and wordplay. Many thanks to everyone who contributed ideas!

I think that winds up this week’s post. Please keep safe out there!