Construction Journal Entry Week of 2/6/05

2/8-10/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

There was some new snow in the mountains and it looked beautiful against a clear blue sky. Unfortunately it wasn't very deep so I'm afraid we're going to be in for a water shortage this summer. I arrived at 12:15. It was 35 degrees out. Even though there had been some new snow, there was less on the ground than the week before. I got a good run at it and drove the pickup almost all the way to the trailer.

After moving in and having lunch, I unloaded a water heater that I got from Chuck and hauled it up to the building. Then I went to work and sanded all the logs that were due for another coat of varnish and I planed one more log in the northeast bedroom wall.

On Wednesday, I planed, scraped, and gouged the last 4 logs at the bottom of the northeast bedroom wall between the corner and the window, and I did the top two logs all the way to the bathroom wall. I also got a start on the small window but it is very awkward working on it because I can't get my tools in there very well. I was hoping to get it ready for varnish but I didn't. I swept up the chips and vacuumed to be ready for varnish.

On Thursday morning I wasn't feeling too well. I took some aspirin and it sort of took care of it. I started by cleaning up the little beads of glue that had oozed out from under the molding on the tall dining room window. I have been trying to figure out the best way to remove the glue and this time I let it cure before trying to remove it. When I tried removing it while it was still wet, it smeared and got worse. By letting it cure first, it stayed in a bead and didn't make much contact with the wood. I tried cutting it with my pocket knife which worked pretty well. But then I tried a sharp chisel and that worked even better. What I really want to figure out, though, is how to apply the glue in the right amount and in the right place so it doesn't ooze out at all.

I started getting the big window between Grid B3 and C3 ready to trim. The shim on the bottom was sticking out too far so I had to cut it away. I used Jack the Rip Saw to remove most of it. Then I used a chisel to clean up the rest of it. Since I wasn't feeling too well, I decided to postpone the trim and get right to the varnishing. I varnished all the logs that were ready, had lunch, and left for home at 1:20.



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