Film Friday – Jeep Paint Prep

October 13, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

…And so begins my plan for interweb domination… This is the 1st in a series of videos detailing my Jeep re-painting project. I am doing the prep work and getting ready for my 1986 CJ-7 to go into the shop for a little cosmetic make-over. It was painted black at the factory in Toledo, has been black ever since, and will stay black until they make something darker. I also give a little bit of an update to what I have been up to of late, some projects that are in the works, and a quick pan view of part of a dirty, disorganized, and cluttered shop.

Forging and Fabricating

October 6, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I can do and make bunches of stuff: Everything from joinery to electronics, from wood turning to machining, from bookbinding to electrical, from carving to heavy machine operation, but there are certain things that I have never really been able to do in the world of hand-craft, mostly due to lack of exposure or instruction. Chiefly among these things are/were forging/blacksmithing and metal shaping. The latter composed of shaping and bending sheet metal into forms and objects.

I decided this year to work on those deficits and have been taking some forging and fabrication classes at The Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. A couple nights a week, I leave work and hammer, shape, weld, grind, and make stuff out of steel. I have been at it for 5 weeks and am really please with both The Pratt and all that I am learning. I have also learned that while I have dipped my toe in these waters, that there is a ocean of knowledge out there. I do not have any want to be a full-time blacksmith or fabricator, but I want to keep learning, so I can add some of the techniques and pieces to stuff that I already build and add to my repertoire of ability and understanding. Below are some of the pieces that I have made, tools I am using, and some stuff that I am working on. I am putting together a little video as well.

Labor Day Weekend – 2017

September 5, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I was at home for Labor Day weekend this year and spend the time working on the house and yard. I dug up a cubic yard+ of dirt where the garage walkway will be and then built concrete forms, added rebar, and welded wire for a 20′ X 4′ sidewalk pour next week.

I also took a couple of hours to rebuild a 10′ section of fence on our south side. A 40′ (12.2m) tree had grown through it from the neighbor’s yard. He let me cut it down a couple of weeks ago and rebuilding the fence was required. Note: Stamps-With-Foot did not see me roped up, hanging in the harness, topping the tree, so I didn’t get in trouble for being a “stupid man” until later 🙂

Da Grind 2017 Outrigger Canoe Race

July 31, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Years ago, while living in Newport Beach, CA, I paddled some with the IMUA Outrigger Canoe Club. I LOVED it and learned so much about stroke technique, timing, Hawaiian paddling culture, and open ocean canoeing. SUPER respect for ancient Polynesian mariners! I made a crossing from Newport Beach Back Bay to Catalina Island (26 miles of open water) and it was crazy scary, really tough, beautiful, smelly, exhausting, and I will love the memory of that day for the rest of mine. I have wanted to join an OCC club in Seattle, but it is only just this year where my work schedule has allowed that and then hip surgery happened. So, this summer I am refinishing my 51″ wooden outrigger paddle (new varnish and adding a little Koa insert) and applying a “F-Bomb” logo to my carbon paddle in preparation for when I am back in fighting shape. I am also living vicariously through the local club and doing a little event filming and one of their big races this year, Da Grind 2017, happened in almost my back yard.

I drug my father-in-law over to Alki Beach early this past Saturday morning to watch the race with me and help out a little if I needed a hand with moving on the beach or hauling my pack – I am still not even 80% with the hip. I did fine though and he was into the race and event as he lived in Hawaiian for a number of years.

I got the drone in the air early and caught the start of the first leg and then the finish. The weather, wind, sky and sea was perfect for the race and for shooting video. I wish I would have brought another battery and that I would have had my big Cannon DSLR instead of my iPhone for still and zoom shots. Lesson learned.

Car Lift and Jeep CJ-7 Saga/Search/Information

July 21, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Before putting 4000 pounds of 31 year old Toledo steel above my head for the first time I really needed the correct locations for a 2-post-lift pad placement points on a CJ-7. I like who I am and I have some plans for the next 30 years or so and really didn’t not want to be that guy who squashed himself in his own garage. It happens.

I have seen two jeeps on their sides at dealerships after falling off lifts, countless other lift fails, and have seen CJs put up in the air at least four different ways. I have had a couple of cars in the air since building the garage, referencing their owner manuals for lift placement, but not the Jeep yet. Again, I didn’t want to be the guy that drops his 4X4 pride off the lift in his own garage. I started doing a little research and asking questions.

After a fairly fruitless internet Search, I called the company that built my lift (it is a Rotary Revolution RPT10) and they referred me to The American Lift Institute (ALI) manual that came with the lift. The 2016 version of the manual only goes back to 1991 for most vehicles and when I called them, there was no answer that they could give me. They referred me to “a local Jeep dealer.”

I dropped in the one nearest the house and there was not an “old-guy consensus” on how to life a CJ: on the frame behind the shackle mounts, on the shackles, on the spring plates, on the axles, etc… My Chilton and Hayes manuals have nothing and I am still trying to source a good 1986 Service Manual (can’t find anything in the downloaded ’82) and would love an original Owners manual. I went by a 4X4 shop a bit ago and the tech there said “lift it on the shackles…” and posed it as sort of a question. I walked away swiftly.

So, relying on Cunningham’s Law, I asked the internet via the JeepForum if anyone had some documentation on where to apply the lift arms/pads on a CJ-7 frame and where the balance point/center of gravity of the vehicle was to put in-line with the lift posts? I got some helpful suggestions and a couple answers that were on the edge of trolling, but the general consensus from CJ owners and mechanics on the forum was to follow the guidelines for the 1991 Jeep Wrangler and their frames, suspension, and balance points are very similar: The lift pads are placed under the frame (centered on the pads), directly adjacent to spring hangers/shackles. Sounded reasonable and plausible, so I decided to go with that. The balance point/CoG is between my dash and the bottom of the steering wheel and that point goes on center between the two posts of my symmetrical lift.

I went ahead a couple weekends ago and decided to put it up and do a little general maintenance. After everything checked out – raising the Jeep 6″ off the ground and giving it a serious shake on all 4 corners, raising it up and down a few times, I spent 30 minute for full oil and filter change. I lubed all the zert points on the drive-line and chassis while I was there. No squashing or falling Jeeps. 🙂

Film Friday – Hatchet Handle Replacement

July 14, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I seem to be keeping with a theme – another Handle replacement. I promises that this is the last one for a while 🙂 My next film will be from an adventure in China or a snowboarding mishap.

This hatchet was given to me by a neighbor a little while ago. It had a hard life: the handle was chipped and split and the heel had been used for driving God only knows what and had mushroomed out a bit. Twenty minutes of my time, $12.00 in total cost, and I have a repaired tool that will outlast me. It is destined for a kindling chopper and glamping chores when my wife and I venture into the wilds “roughing it” with a camper trailer.

Weekend Activities

July 12, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Seattle is in early summer full bloom. The sun is out and the temperature is perfect! These conditions led to a really good weekend:

Slept had friends stay with us Friday night and Saturday morning
Big yummy breakfast
Picked three big bowls of ripe Lapin cherries
Ate a lot of cherries
Went over to my mother’s house
Took care of house projects for her
Had a yummy dinner
Nice bottle of red wine was opened and mostly consumed
Read American Gods aloud with Stamps-With-Foot before bed

Brunch with Friends
Went to the Sunday farmer’s market
Bought cheese and honey!
Went to the garden store
Bought a bunch of flowers for the yard
Walked the puppies
Planted flowers
Scattered weed&feed in the 1/3 of the back yard that is void of Ireland-green grass
scattered and raked grass seed.
Murdered dandelions
Picked up a mountain of puppy-made landmines 🙁
Mowed the yard
Installed new tire cover on Jeep spare
Put Jeep on the car lift – also now refereed to as “The Jeep Sex Swing”
Changed oil and filter
Only 42 more Oil Changes and the lift pays for itself!! 🙂
Lubed the chassis
Checked and topped off all the fluids
Made happy noises
Had a Coke and smile afterward while sitting in the shade
Printed out GAINT ’84-’86 Jeep Maintenance Manual
Let my internal OCD monster out to play
Custom labels and tabbed separators were made…
Added folders with Maintenance Manuals to shelf in the garage
Watered the garden, yard, and newly seeded dirt patch
More reading
Sleep

Film Friday – Hammer fix

July 7, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

We are well on our way to becoming a doomed and disposable society. Example: After trying in vain to buy a handle replacement locally for my broken framing hammer, I had to buy one online and have it shipped to Seattle from the East Coast. I didn’t need the fancy matching OEM handle. Most any would have worked with a little shaping using a rasp and file. Neither Home Depot nor Lowes sells replacement handles for hammers or hatchets anymore – just handles for garden tools. I had four people try to sell me a new hammer while searching though. Apparently, just spending $80+ is easier than fixing a tool with a replaceable part designed into it. Lazy mother f….. Son of a …

The hammer holds no special value or spot in my heart or personal history. It wasn’t smuggled into the US 300 years ago by a ancestor who built and defended his home with it… Nope, just a framing hammer that someone gave me once. It had already been used and abused for years before it fell into my hands. The point was/is the thing is mine. A tool that I use to make stuff with. A tool that is MADE to have the handle replaced and somehow there are not enough people with the skill and drive to do such a simple task to keep them stocked on the shelves of multiple large national chain building supply stores. I stand by my statement that the movie Idiocracy is a documentary filmed by time travelers.

The whole replacement cost me $12 for the handle and shipping + 20 minutes of my time. A lot better deal than $80+ for a new hammer. As an added bonus, I get to rant a little and make a slide show 🙂

Long Holiday Weekend and the Official Start of Summer in Seattle

July 6, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Our 4th of July weekend went really well this year. To kick things off right, I found out on Friday afternoon before the weekend that I could have Monday July 3rd off. A surprise and unplanned FOUR DAY WEEKEND!!

The 40th Annual Seattle Wooden Boat Festival was being put on and I took a Lyft down to south Lake Union and the Center for Wooden Boats on Saturday morning and hung out till about 12:00. I have mixed feelings about the show/fest this year and will expound on those in a follow up post, but while there got to see some boats and talk shop with a kayak builder and sail-maker. Before leaving the house, Stamp-With-Foot made me promise not to buy a boat. I succeeded in that, but I did look at a cute little 16’ sailing skiff that made me feel fuzzy and a 22’ day/weekend sailor…

I also saw Opus again – my favorite weekend boat/trailer sailor in the PNW. She is a Wee Seal MKII, designed by the noted Australian/Scotsman Iain Oughtred. Her owners weren’t there, but I still enjoyed seeing at such a sweet little boat. If Opus were for sale, I don’t think that the promise to my wife would have been kept…

We went to a colleague’s early 4th of July BBQ on Saturday afternoon/evening (the 1st of July). It was down in Enumclaw and had an AMAZING view of Mt. Rainier from the deck and rest of the property. There was beer, laughter, wine, 4-wheelers, BBQ, and fine people. The fireworks started at dark and no one lost any fingers and nothing burned down, so a successful party.

Monday and Tuesday were spent in our yard, my shop, and the house fixing, building, moving stuff around. I hired some labor on Monday the 3rd and spent 8 hours cleaning the yard, moving bricks, pulling weeds, re-finishing the patio table, cleaning the hot tub, moving boulders, and making 2 runs to the dump. I swear the people at the city dump know me so well by now that I will be getting Christmas cards from them.

The yard came together about 9:00pm the night before our scheduled BBQ on the 4th. We had friends, family, co-workers, neighbors come over for charred meat, chips, dip, booze, desert, and laughter. The holiday was also my backyard’s coming out party. She was finally ready to join the world and everyone fawned over the green, luscious grass. It made me so proud! It was also the puppies first time being allowed in the backyard unsupervised. They rolled and sniffed and frolicked like I made the yard just for them. There were no fights (human or puppy), no one got sick, everyone left full, no grass was destroyed, no cuts or scrapes, no fires, nothing blown up, and we had some very tired happy puppies that night – so another successful party.

Going Topless

June 30, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I made a short film showing all the steps in removing the Hard Top from my 1986 CJ7 Jeep for the first time in 1.5 years. I couldn’t round up the help to pull it off, so I put on my thunking’ cap and used the lift. The garage is a MESS, but my excuse is that we are still remodeling the house and it has been a wet winter and spring so there are materials and projects in work everywhere.

Film Friday – Corner Cabinet Up-Cycle/Rebuild

June 22, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Way back in November of 2015, just after our return from living abroad for two years, I bought a set of hard used, little loved corner cabinets from a local salvage place. I have spent an hour and there installing, building trim, sanding, de-gunking, stripping old paint, priming, painting, and more painting. It has only taken 18 months, but they are now installed and look like they have been in our living room since the very first day.

Here is a slideshow/video tale of the steps taken in the project: What it was to what it became.

My Week in Review

June 18, 2017 / Matt Talley / 3 Comments

This past week has been a week of mish-mash happenings:

90-day Post-surgery hip appointment: Could have gone better.
Fruit tree pruning
I built a lid for the compost boxes
A rat didn’t like my lid and chewed through the side to get at the worms in the compost bin
I said dirty words
Mounted 7 up-cycled cabinets in the garage
Finished painting 80 liner feet of 1/4 round trim.
Sweep and cleaned GROP
Organized some stuff into new shelves and cabinets.
Finished painting the corner shelf doors – 5 total coats of fresh paint
Installed the hinges and hung the doors on wrong cabinets
Said dirty words
Re-hung doors on the correct cabinet.
Scratched paint
More dirty words
Touched up paint
Finished corner cabinet install
Did some Physical Therapy for my Old Man hip
Mowed and edged the yard
Read a book
Made a few Instagram and Twitter posts
Amazon sent me a new tool!
Flew drone one afternoon after J-O-B
Planted the boxwood shrubs
Bought garden starts at Nursery: tomatoes, corn, squash, zucchini, peppers,herbs, lettuce, etc…
50+ hours at my J-O-B, hustlin’ to keep us fed and the lights on
Watched about 2 hours of NetFlix
Gave away a bed in our home office
Had to delver it to new owner
Drank some French wine
Worked on cedar log garden table
Bought couch/guest bed for the office/TV room
Braved the gauntlet at IKEA – three hours to pick up a pre-ordered couch 🙁
IKEA gave me a $50 discount for the trouble
Had to source clear glass Victorian-style pull knobs for the corner cabinet doors
Spoke to both of my children for Father’s Day
Heart Happy
Planted summer garden
There was some coffee drinking and puppy snuggling
Took top off of Jeep for the first time in 1.5 years
Started Raining the second I took it out of the Garage
Made grumpy noises
Had coffee and listened to a bluegrass jam session at favorite coffee shop
Watched a movie
Was prolific on Twitter and Instagram
Murdered some dandelions
Rode around neighborhood on errands in topless Jeep when it stopped raining
Made happy noises
Sent some J-O-B e-mails from home
Started reading American Gods out loud with my awesome wife
Went to bed to start it all over again on Monday morning

A Year Later – The Garage is Finally Legal and Inspected

June 7, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Holy crap… I got notice from our former garage contractor that the city permit for the build was about to expire. WhAt tHe FUCK!?!? Apparently, he had never called for the final inspection. It just never ends with this guy and the inattention to detail.

After a flurry of calls and e-mails, the city inspector came out yesterday and looked at the framing, roof, gutters, paint, electrical final. He signed off thew garage as legal and conforming but, said that we should have not moved in and started the insulation and drywall until the final was signed and in hand. He was the guy that did the initial inspection and remembered us and the build, so I didn’t have to tear anything out. While I appreciate the contractor letting me know about the expiration, I would have preferred that the inspections were done a year ago when the structure was done.

Update:

The day after the Final Inspection was signed off, I got a notice that a Waste Diversion Report (WDR) needs to be submitted to Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) for all demolition projects as well as any new construction and alteration permits where the project value is $30,000 or greater. Normally this falls to the party that pulled the building permit, but as I did the demo myself it got forwarded to me. Links to the forms are below in case anyone in Seattle needs them.

SPU Waste Diversion Report Manual Form
Seattle WDR Letter 2016

Apparently, if you live in Seattle, our local utility company wants to make triple-extra sure you did not dump any building or demo waste inappropriately. I have the receipts from the equipment company and the hauling company, so there should be no issue.

Film Friday – Recycling Sawdust and Wood Chips

June 2, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I spent last weekend in Portland, Oregon and happened by a custom furniture shop downtown called The Joinery. The workmanship of their wares was terrific and the sales staff was really accommodating. They knew I wasn’t going to buy any of their very nice pieces and yet still explained their ethos and process, details of the builds, and even let me wonder around taking a couple of pictures. If Mid-Century to Japanese Fusion to 21st Century Modern is your thing and you are as allergic to IKEA pressed wood crap furniture as I am, them look them up and see if they have a piece of furniture that you have to have to fill that void in your living-room/soul.

Aside from their furniture, they had a display of pressed hardwood sawdust pucks – making furniture produces some waste and normally this sawdust goes to landfills or in my case, used for mulch and compost roughage. Their display piqued my interest and I started asking questions. The Joinery and like establishments produce exponentially more sawdust than my little shop does, so their way of dealing with it is that they have invested in a sawdust briquette press that makes these hardwood hockey-puck-ish sized briquettes that are burned in pellet stoves, regular wood stoves, or fireplace inserts to provide heat. There is no glue or bonding agent used, just pressure from a hydraulic ram-press keeps the pucks together. The shop goes a little beyond expectation though and GIVES THEM AWAY FOR FREE to the public at their other sales location and workshop (48th and Woodstock in Portland). I can’t even tell you how happy it makes me to see a company do this. The shear fact that this is part of their business model makes me want to buy a small occasional table or some such item just to support what they are doing.

I am so turned on by this that I am looking into a small briquette press for my shop. The ROI time for the model that meets the size/cost requiremnet for me (a UK made press, a couple of Chinese machines, and one Canadian model) would be like 2 years for my limited use, but it would be worth it to me as there is only so much mulch that I and my neighbors can use. I would like to use the briquettes for some house heat and to heat the shop and green house in the winter, giving away what I didn’t use. Stay tuned for updates in my hunt and go by The Joinery’s website of shop and support them if you can.

Making the yard pretty for 2017

May 26, 2017 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Our back yard has been a mess for over a year: Stacked with left over construction debris, seriously over-grown raised garden beds, unturned compost bins, blackberries along both fences, piles of landscaping stones, weeds, etc.… The front yard was presentable, but only just barely. 2016 was the year of house and garage construction and 2017 was meant to be the year that we focused on the yard. Surgery delayed that a bit and the state of the grounds at La Maison du Talley was getting embarrassing.

I had a couple of guys come out and take a look at our mess to see what it would cost to get it back in home-show worthy shape. I didn’t like either answer. Without going into too much detail about the different bids, the low one was $3500 and the high was almost $5000. There was no way in Hell that the frugal DNA coursing through my veins, passed down from both the Talley and Webster lines, would biologically allow me to spend that kind of money on grass, mulch, and a few flowers.

After I was well on the mend and cleared by my physical therapist, I did some planning, logistic estimation, material cost math, and decided to do it myself with a bit of casual day labor. I also decided that the mature ornamental cherry trees I wanted for the parking strip would have to wait, that I didn’t need to bring in topsoil and plant grass seed. I scaled back the dream a little bit, bought 86 rolls of sod, 19 bags of mulch, 8 bags of garden soil, some boxwood shrubs, 15 Spanish lavender plants, and let my sweet wife buy all the pretty flowers that her heart desired.

In two days, the front and back yards were transformed! I hauled away 1600 pounds of yard waste, made one dump run for trash, one run full of recyclables, and we spent less than $1000. We will spend the next few weeks watering and fussing over little details, but by July 4th, we should have Ireland-green grass, pretty flowers, healthy fruit trees and the BBQ grill roaring. Money and time well spent.

Film Friday – The Garage Build Film Part 2

May 12, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Below is Part 2 of a 3-Part series documenting our garage/shop build. Like Part 1, this film is made from pictures taken during the build with a voice over commentary. Part-3 will be a mix of videos, stills, and some drone shots.

There is a “hidden track” at the end…

Film Friday – The Garage Build Film Part 1

May 5, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I’ve had a number of people on various web forums, 6 sets of neighbors, a few friends, and a ton of folks in our area ask me some detailed questions about our garage build: size, foundation, demo, siding, wiring, roof, the car lift, etc… As I have been making some videos while rehabbing the hip, I thought that I would turn my garage build into a three part YouTube series to answer most of the questions and have all of the information documented in one spot. The first one is done and up now and the second should be done in a few weeks.

This one and the next are from pictures taken during the build, with a voice over. The third will be a mix of videos, stills and some drone shots. I learn something every single time I put a video or slide show together, so my hope is they get more and more watchable.

I didn’t have the time or facilities to do it in this video, but I would like to use my own guitar, banjo, ukulele, fiddle, and mandolin picking for the soundtrack on future videos. My son, brother-in-law, and any friends I can con into it will also be future soundtrack contributors.

Spring has Sprung!!

May 4, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Holy Crap, it has been sunny and over 70F for two solid days here in Seattle for the first time in 6 months! Flowers and trees are blooming. Mason, bumble, and honey bees are flying about. My grass is green. This all makes me sooo happy. In a couple of weeks, we are taking a little referral bonus from my J-O-B and doing a front and back yard makeover to include a little fruit tree planting, grass for the back yard, and veggie garden.

Footnote: I cursed us all. 12 hours after I posted this, there was a huge thunderstorm in Seattle. Lightning, buckets of rain, power outages… Probably all my fault.

Flying the Drone

April 17, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have had a remote controlled camera mounted drone for about a year. I got it specifically for an airborne camera platform for taking stills and video of cool scenery and of me doing awesome stuff on my bikes, boards, boats, and jeep. The house remodel and garage build have gotten in the way of life and I haven’t filmed as much as I have wanted to. I have 7.5 total flight hours on the drone and am using it and thinking of novel ways to employ it a little more now that I am limited in my mobility with the hip rehab. I took it out last weekend, filming at the beach and this weekend, I got it in the air over my neighborhood on the first REALLY nice spring day.

I am a good little pilot and have my required FAA license, my aircraft is marked with my license number, I only fly where I am supposed to, stay under the 500’ ceiling, don’t go near airports, no flying over peoples’ homes, etc. I have had a few “concerned citizens” and tiger moms at the park get cranky about a drone over their heads, but I point to my prominently FAA license displayed on my case inner lid – printed at 300% larger than the original, cite the FAA and WA state statues calmly in an almost blasé manner without taking my eye off the drone. I have a bright yellow round “H” landing target, an airport flight-line safety-yellow parka, and a couple of small orange cones. I look legit, so I am left alone except for kids who linger hoping to see me crash it into the ground.

I plan to do a more and more filming with it this year, including a stint as the Team Zero FTG videographer for the 2017 Sea to Ski Race. I was originally going to compete in the kayak leg, but the hip said “NO!, not this year…” I also really want to get it out on a few hiking trails around Rainier, make an aerial film about West Seattle, use it to work on a mockumentary film I am piecing together about our dogs lives and how we are the ones that have been trained.

A couple of short snips of video that I have done recently:

Film Friday – Baidarka (Skin on frame Aleut kayak) build movie

March 31, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

With the hip related bed rest, I have had some time to catch up on some film-making and finally finished this little slideshow film documenting the entire process of a 9-day father/son traditional kayak build that I blogged about this past summer. The next build will be either a small motorboat or a wood-strip cedar canoe.

Let me know if you have any questions about the video.

Boat Lust

March 19, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

So, you may or may not know this about me, but even though I currently own a couple of small boats, I have MAD Boat Lust. I am a member of the Center for Wooden Boats, I get Wooden Boat Magazine & Small Craft Adviser Magazine every month, go to the Lake Union, Seattle, Portland, and Port Townsend boat shows every year… I follow four sets of Blue Water sailors on YouTube, am trying to con my wife into taking a sailing vacation (I am getting a hard NO! on that one currently), and almost bought a used 22′ lead keel sailboat last summer for “my son.” I tried to sell it as his “learner Boat” and play up the father/son bonding time angle with it and my wife saw right through it. To date, however, I have not come home to tell my with that “We” just purchased an Amel 55 blue water sailboat, a 47′ diesel powered Cabin Cruiser, a Chris-Craft in need of some “light repair”, or a Hans Christian 33 kept in Bristol Fashion that “I” am planning to live on since said purchase would leave me homeless, devoid of my puppies, and divorced.

If my son, The Ruminator, lived in Seattle I wouldn’t mind a swing keel Columbia 22 or a Catalina 22 to gunk hole around the Sound in with him. A Catalina 270 LE would make my heart go pitter-patter as well, but I am a realist (-ish) and very aware of my current budget and available storage space. A sailboat that I would only use a few times a year and have to pay moorage on, would make me very unpopular at home. But, if someone has a 19′ WW Potter taking up space in their life that needs a new home, I would be game…

While what I WANT is a sweet little sailboat, what I NEED is a small outboard that that sits on a trailer in or beside the garage, that I can pop over to Blake or Vashion Island on, run up the Duwamish River a little piece, do a little salmon fishing on with my son or friends, haul a crab pot or three in season, find a secluded weekend beach for summer camping, etc… It needs to have a cuddy cabin to get out of the shifty weather here in Puget Sound, some storage space to keep gear dry, needs to be light enough to be pulled behind the jeep when fully loaded, and fast enough to handle the tidal flow in the PNW.

Buying a finished boat, even used, like a Ranger Tug 21, a C-Dory 19, or a Boston Whaler 21′ Cuddy are WAY out of my price range, I have been perusing Craigslist for a 16′ -21′ hardtops, but the ones I have found are either gold plated & upholstered in unicorn foreskin or needs to be sunk. So, in due course, I have been thinking about building the boat of need mentioned above. I know, I know… I have a shit ton of projects already with the shop and house, but I won’t start the boat until Stamps-With-Foot agrees that the house is good and all the little projects at home are squared away. Happy wife, happy life.

To digress a bit, my current home-built boat want is a Devlin Boats Dunlin 22 Cruiser with all the bells and whistles, but that too would be spendy, require me to quit my J-O-B to obsess over the details properly, I would have to rent out boathouse space for the duration of the build, have the time to build it, and would probably cause my sweet bride to up my life insurance just before “accidentally” pushing me into a wood chipper.

Back in reality, I am looking hard at building a couple of boats, including a Devlin Noddy 18. It is something realistic to build over the fall and winter, in the space I have available in the F-Bomb Garage, and within my current budget. Powered by a 4 stroke 50HP Honda or Yamaha, with homey little extras like: a sardine wood stove in the cabin, a crab pot winch arm on the stern, and lots of LED lights. Devlin Boat Works in just south of us in Olympia and in addition to being a design house, they are a boat works and build all manner of craft there at any given time. I sent a couple of e-mails and made some calls about the possibility of going down this summer if they have a Noddy or similar hull under construction. We will see if it can be arranged.

I will have to wait just lust a little while longer to satiate my boat lust…

Update: May 2017

Nope. Devlin is off the list. I can’t find anyone on the boat forums that has built the Noddy AND I have not had a single phone call or e-mail replied to. I don’t need to do business with someone who I have to beg to take my money.

The New Kitchen Floor is Now Installed

February 20, 2017 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

It has been a while since I laid a floor tile – like 18 years. Things haven’t changed though and while time consuming and very detailed – lots of steps – I still remember how it is done. There was no way that I was going to pay someone to do a job that I can/could do, so I took on the task of installing a new kitchen floor in our house. the last of the major projects that I took on during our home remodel.

The job is now done and looks great. Most importantly though, my wife is happy. She has a new kitchen floor and it is exactly what she has wanted for years: a black and white checker board kitchen floor that is laid on the diagonal. I am glad she is happy, because I REALLY don’t want to redo it for the next 90 years or so.

After ripping off 7 layers of old flooring, filling holes, patching a couple sections, removing 40+ screws and 100+ staples, and scrubbing the sub-floor clean, we were ready to start. Starting about 9:00 one Saturday morning, I cut and laid ¼ inch water resistant underlayment – stapling in the field every 4” and along the seams every 2” with narrow gauge crown staples. Starting about 10:00 the next morning, I vacuumed the whole space 3 times to clear any and all debris and locked the puppies out of the kitchen.

Because there is not ONE SINGLE square or plumb wall in my entire 90 year old house, I snapped a grid in the middle of the floor, squared from the doorway leading from the living-room, so that it would look square as viewed from the main room of the house. I applied glue on ½ of the floor and started in the middle of the room and worked toward the south wall/breakfast nook. Stamps-With-Foot cleaned tile as she pulled it from the cardboard boxes (success is in the details) and handed me them as I laid the field and she cut most of the edge pieces as I marked them. Her help was GREATLY appreciated. We laid the other half of the floor, starting about 6:00pm Sunday evening and finished the last piece about 11:30pm. Not too shabby for one weekend’s worth of labor.

I let the glue cure for five days before sealing and then applying 5 coats of satin floor wax. Pre-painted (by me) ¼ round trim was applied around the edges of the walls and cabinets before I very carefully brought the appliances back in and reinstalled. The VC tile I used should outlast my grandchildren and just needs to be scrubbed every other week, then stripped and re-waxed once a year if so.

My Wife’s Prized Chandelier Almost Made Me Poop Myself

January 30, 2017 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

We are in the house remodel home stretch. Just small trim details left on the main floor. One of them being my wife’s chandelier installation. I had planned to install the kitchen floor this past weekend, but Stamps-With-Foot had other plans. She sat me down over coffee Saturday morning and made it clear that my plan was out and that her sparkly lamp was in. Always a fan of choosing my battles wisely – into the dining room I went.

I needed to caulk the new dining room crown molding and prep it for paint before I could install the ceiling medallion/escutcheon for the light. It took two passes and some light sanding, but all the cracks and gaps are filled and we were ready to hang the crystal and steel behemoth around 4:00pm on Saturday. I had my wife sitting in the attic holding the chandelier by its safety cable while I wired it to the ceiling junction box. Like in a really bad sit-com, there was a “ping” noise, the safety wire popped, and the stupid-expensive hunk of cut glass and metal headed to the floor. It happened like it was all in slow motion. Now this thing is not small. It is not light. It did not come with handles. From the top of a six-foot ladder, I instinctively reached way out and grabbed her prized chandelier as it fell. I teetered for a second on the top of the ladder, having flashes of crashing to earth and how many stitches I would be getting, before the ladder stopped moving and I was able to slowly walked the beast down to the floor. I did have to check my britches as it was a rough couple of seconds, anything could have happened. Thankfully, just one single tiny glass bit cracked in half from the jolt – super glue will be the answer. The ceiling medallion also popped loose and I had to pull it down, remove the adhesive and remount it, afterward clamping it to the electrical box and taping the edges to the ceiling so that the glue would set up overnight.

After getting the medallion in the air, I went to Home Depot, purchased some 1/8” stainless steel cable and with a swaging tool -everyone should have their own… 🙂 , I remade the safety cable. After waiting until the next morning, I spent an hour installing the beast. My wife danced around with giddy joy when I flipped the switch after all twenty of the 45watt bulbs were installed. Happy wife, happy life…

I will be done painting the trim this week, the blue and yellow tape will come down, and then the dining room is 100% done. On to the Kitchen.

A open letter to GoPro:

January 8, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Dear GoPro,

I am afraid that our relationship isn’t working out. It is not me, it is you – most definitely you. I have been a loyal fan-boy for years, but 2016 has undone us. Let me explain:

I have 4 GoPro cameras, 2 originals, one Hero Session and one Hero 4 Black. There must be $400 worth of mounts and accessories in my video equipment cabinet and mounted to almost everything I own. I was the first in line for the KARMA Drone, and I own a few shares of your stock. Hell, I was at your booth/jam box at NAMM 2 years ago and gushed to the staff there like teeny-bobber. I was at the 2016 NAB show when you guys won the “Best Of” award. Trust me, that I was all in and committed to making it work between us.

I can’t say enough great things about the cameras I own. I love them and use them while biking, boarding, cart racing, 4-wheeling, diving, running, working in the shop, etc… I am happy that the engineers, programmers, and employees in the SF Bay Area can go to work and do cool stuff, get paid a living wage, and work on tech that millions of people use every day. So why are we breaking up???

I mentioned that I own stock. Have you seen those numbers lately?! Hmmm… Screwing up the Amazon relationship before Christmas and not having production capacity did not help after the KARMA fiasco. Did your Contracts Team not even flip through “The Wal-Mart Effect” before negotiations started? Yes, I am somewhat irritated at losing money because a great product line is managed like a PTA bake sale. Additionally, I have had a DJI Phantom 3 Pro for a year or more and it has never once fallen out of the sky. I had the KARMA for 3 days before I had to climb 30 into a pine tree to retrieve it after it fell out of the sky. Camera was OK after the fall, but I sent the drone back for a full refund. One of the smarter things I did in 2016.

The final straw though is GoPro Studio. Holy sweet baby Jesus, I wish I had all the HOURS of my life that have been lost due to crashes, auto-overwrites, searching web forums for patches, and completely re-processing almost half videos I have made in the last 10 months. A recent attempt to make a film out of a Christmas snowboard trip made me want to beat my computer with a hammer for even associating with GoPro Studio. I know, I know it is “free” software… Bundled software with a $500 camera and an $800 drone is not free. As of the writing of this post, the last update to Studio was in October of 2015 – that was 15 months ago, eons of time for software. I finally had to drink the Kool-Aid and use my wife’s Mac Book to edit the film in iMovie. I made a killer little film in like 50 minutes. The software didn’t glitch, hang, or overwrite my project. It was easy to use even the first time and it just worked. As a note, iMovie is “free” as well…

To be clear, I do not see any of this as a production, software, or engineering failure. It is an issue with program & senior management. Hire professionals that understand product launch logistics, QA/QC, beta test management, vendor & supplier relationships, and the impact all of this has on your business and investors.

In closing, I am sorry that you made me do this on such a public forum. I am sorry that I can no longer support the hard work of your engineering team and production staff by purchasing your products. Spend some time on you, work on who you are and who you want to be, and get some professional help. Maybe someday we can sit down at the table again, but I am going to need my space for now.

Christmas Vacation 2016

January 5, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Christmas vacation this year was pretty good. I got great stuff Christmas morning, my mom stayed over Christmas Eve, and Stamps-With-Foot made a yummy Honey-baked ham for dinner on Christmas Day. I took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off from my J-O-B. The time was spent just hanging out with The Ruminator, finding a little adventure in the mountains, and getting some stuff done around the house and garage. My vacation this year looked like this:

Up at 6:00 Christmas morning and made coffee.
I got an XBox One and Battlefield 1 for I could play with my 40-year old adolescent friends online.
Got lots of other great stuff!
Worked a little in the basement on Boxing Day (the 26th).
My son, The Ruminator, flew in the day after Christmas.
Second Christmas morning with son on the 27th.
I put him to work that afternoon moving stuff in the garage and basement.
Pulled 4 circuits worth of wire in the garage.
Hung 3/4 of crown molding in the dining room.
Hired a carpenter to help with the finish of the crown molding and window install in dining room.
Hung pocket door and built last wall for bathroom downstairs with carpenter.
Installed structure in attic for chandelier installation.
Went to see Rogue One.
Loved it.
Snowboarding trip to Crystal Mountain in the Jeep.
The Ruminator rode really well
I am a fat old guy, but can still ride.
Owners rented the cabin we had reserved to someone else – insert grumpy face
Drove home.
Snuggled with wife.
Up early and drove to Snoqualmie for 2nd day of riding.
Glorious day in the mountains!
Watch a movie all together for New Year’s Eve.
Had family over on the 1st for long lunch.
Tried to edit snowboarding trip film.
Failed.
GoPro Studio sucks balls!
Serious online gaming session.
Brunch at Easy Street.
Got The Ruminator’s cracked iPhone glass fixed.
Picked up new kitchen floor tiles at Lowe’s special order desk.
Dinner with Nana.
Dropped off Ruminator at Airport.
Teared up in Jeep on the way to work.
Worked late first full day back to work in 2017 – an inauspicious start.

Working on my day off

November 14, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The house remodel seems to never end… I will be so glad to just be and live in our space at some point. We are close, but there are still details left undone – enough that I am trying to concentrate on one room at a time. My plan is to get each done in turn and then move on to the next. I wasn’t as successful at that as I wanted to be this weekend as I bounced back and forth between the living room and our bedroom closet, but I did get a ton done.

I installed the upper shelves and corner shelf in the walk-in closet, laminating two layers of 3/4″ plywood for really strong support over a 54″ span and in the unsupported corner. In addition to using copious amount of glue and screws, I attached the butted plywood edges together with wood biscuits – it is always a fine day when I get to crank up the biscuit joiner.

Almost a year ago, I sourced some corner shelves at one of the local architectural salvage places for less than $200 – far cheaper than what it would have taken me to build them. They came out of a 1930-40’s house and were painted Christmas colors, but I knew that they would be perfect for our living room, which was stripped of its built-ins at some point in the last 88 years. They have sat in storage and until this past week when I pulled them out and got some material together to permanently mount them. Stamps-With-Foot helped me set them in place after I built sturdy bases. Each of them cover a wall plug, so I am in the process of re-routing the receptacle using armored cable. I also have to build in an air-return duct under one and that has taken some serious brain power to get right. I will add trim this week and my wife and Mother-in-law will paint them cabinet white this weekend.

While I was at it, I punched out a rubber washer for a pot lid knob. I made the knob a couple years ago out of some scrap cherry firewood after the original plastic one broke. The original washer had corroded, so I made a new one and installed it.

I also took a couple minutes to mount the red glass post topper on the back fence. It was ordered (along with a spare) months ago and have meant to put it on every weekend since. There is always an excuse for why I didn’t, so I marched right out first thing Saturday with a tube of clear silicone and finally just got it done. It is the little victories that keep me going.

A Walk-in Closet for My Wife

November 9, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

As part of the now 10 month rehab, remodel, rebuild of our house my wife wanted some space to hang her clothes and put her shoes and boots that was not an afterthought. A place that, for once was not crammed or disorganized and was purpose built. It was decided that we turn a small bedroom/office into a walk-in closet.

I sketched out a few ideas in my notebook and went over them with her. She removed a large shoe rack and opted for more clothes bar space. She also wanted a bunch of drawers to store smaller stuff in. I initially drew everything with a built in dresser, but changed it a little and made room for a free-standing French dresser made in Revel in the 1930’s that we acquired while living in Toulouse. There is 27 feet of linear hanging space using iron pipe (no sag), 24+ shoe cubbies, shelves, drawers, storage, and two full length mirrors.

I spent most of this past weekend getting the flat panel section dividers up, installing the clothes bars and adding top shelves. There are three areas that are made for off-season storage: coats in the summers/short sleeves in the winter. For these spaces, I decided to line one wall each with cedar. While some people might line the whole closet with cedar, I would advise against it unless you and your significant other wants to smell like a lumberjack constantly. Too much and the smell, while pleasing for me, pervades everything.

I lined two of the three spaces this weekend and got to use my old-school hand miter saw. While manual, it is faster to use in the closet – no dragging in a stand and cords and creates a LOT less dust than my big power Bosch miter saw.

I still need to add shelving on one side, put up all of the upper and lower panel trim, fill my nail holes, sand, paint, and bring the dresser in, but the space is usable and has allowed us to unpack all the boxes that have sat in our bedroom full of clothes. I will take the clothes back out on the day that I sand and paint.

Here is the progress to this point:

Using My Dad’s Tools

November 7, 2016 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

In 1982 or 1983 my dad made me a ball, bat, and glove rack for Christmas. I was super into baseball and it was cool to have your gear up on the wall ready and waiting for you to be able to grab it all and run out the door to a game at a moments notice. Getting the pocket for the ball cut correctly and rounding over all the edges and corners took him forever. He decided that he HAD to have a router and for that same Christmas, my mom bought him a Craftsman 1-1/2 HP, Model #315.17492 Double Insulated router. He was as happy as a puppy with a new bone and looked for stuff to round over, “ease the edge…” everywhere in our lives for months. He was so proud of that router and for years a wood project around the house wasn’t complete until it had been kissed by a 1/4′ shank bit, whirling at 25,000 RPM.

When my dad passed, I got all his tools and the router was part of the deal. I have used it for years and while it is a little funky to adjust and has a base that isn’t perfectly round, it still does a fine job of “easing the edge” on shelves and cabinets. For the most part I use a 1/2 or 3/4 round-over bit in it and use my trim router for 1/4 and 1/8 round overs. Technology has much improved since the early ’80s and I have other routers to do fancy stuff these days but, Daddy’s still gets used a good bit.

I few years ago I had a garage break-in and a bunch of tools were stolen. I lost a lot of Daddy’s wrenches, power tools, my grandfather’s chisels, all sorts of stuff, but the big funky router happened to be in the basement where I had left it sitting for weeks on a long undone project. I am thankful it didn’t end up in a pawnshop somewhere and I am still able to use it to do a little work and connect with my dad, all these years later, just by using the router that he so badly wanted. I used Daddy’s router today, while building a walk-in closet for my wife. I thought about my dad, his smile, his quiet manner, and his patient love for his small son.

New yellow Mustard-Monster Lathe up and running

October 27, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

When building The F-Bomb Garage, I bought some new tools in which to fill it. One of those hunks of iron delight was a Powermatic PM3520b wood lathe with a bed extension and lots of accessories. It was a replacement for the three lathes of varying sizes I had sold before the original garage was torn down. I didn’t have the room or desire to store equipment that I wanted to upgrade anyway. The new lathe had been boxed up for 4 months waiting for me to clear some room, unpack boxes, and for the power to be hooked up.

I spent all of Saturday afternoon, the weekend after power was finally turned on, putting together my sweet lathe. The thing is a beast, so I had to start out with the bed upside down and install the legs. I carefully rolled it on its side after all the leg bolts were torqued down and girded up my loins for some heavy lifting. Now, what I should of done was hook a block and tackle to the rafters and pulled it up right, but I am hard-headed, so I put on wrist straps and dead-lifted the bed onto a 2′ wood block. Then, after psyching myself up a little, I lifted it the rest of the way vertical. If my sweet wife would have caught me, she would have said dirty words and i would have been in serious – grounded form the shop – trouble.

Anyway, after the base was upright, the head-stock/motor, banjo (tool rest holder), and tail-stock went on. I installed the 18″ bed extension while I was at it and made sure to check everything over one more time.

It is 710lbs of mustard-yellow sexy.

We Have LIGHTS!!!

October 21, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

HOLY Bejesus… I have Electricity in the F-Bomb Garage!! Only 4 months after permit pulled and 9 months after garage build began. I have lights that are not hooked up to an extension cord, the auto door openers work, there are five 110VAC plugs ready for power tools, and my lift is now working without the aid of a 220VAC extension cord running from the drier plug in the basement of the house.

I just had the bare minimum done to get the panel and transfer switch in place and have the city sign off on the garage. Now, that is not to say that all is well in the electrical department: I am still waiting for final permit sign off for the work already done, which is on hold. Apparently, my electrician screwed up the wire routing in the meter box and SCL cannot install a meter. Thankfully they are letting me keep the lights on until my current electrician can come back and address.

I am now prepping in all the other 110 plugs myself – at 4′ high, putting in 2 additional 220 plugs and a 50amp plug for my welder. There is no way I am going to pay an hourly fee to have romex run, holes drilled, staples put in, and plugs & switches wired in. Nope. I will be paying electrician that my company contracts for industrial work to sign off on my install and run the lines into the panel and install breakers – already arranged and the price isn’t too bad at all. While I can do this in my sleep, I am not licensed and my insurance would not pay a dime is something happened, regardless of fault.

Additionally, My J-O-B was getting rid of a huge organizer bin cabinet: 1/8″ steel, 72″X24″X84″ and 350+ lbs. There was no way I was going to watch that beast go to the recycling center, so I asked if I could have it. Yep, the facilities guy said “load it up” and btw “I have a pallet jack that is wonky if you want it…” Yes, please. Got them both home and the cabinet fits perfectly and will be amazing for climbing, boarding, camping gear organization – keeping all the shop dust and debris off of my gear and making it so I don’t have to dig for small parts ever again.

The pallet jack was low on hydraulic fluid. I filled it up, put a weighted pallet on it overnight and this morning I found the pallet still in the air and no fluid on the floor. Win-win.

Driven Outside

Tag: project