Saw this coming...the simple things are always hard...

Ok... so... my week again...
Last time I talked about needing a new saw...
Well, figured out the best saw for my needs. And that's where it all got complicated...

I found a decent price on a water cooled diamond bladed band saw. It also has optional wood and metal cutting blades (just make sure the clean up is done right!). The thing is it will need to stand on something. Lisa had the idea to put it next to the new drill press that is on my shop list. Then, she suggested I get a bench model drill press and mount both on a new workbench...

Space wise the bench should work out, and would give me a spot to move my swap top rock set up away from some other stuff, and give more storage for the hoard of tool boxes and other goodies that crop up. It turns out that some of the motors for the better bench top drill presses equal the power of the ones on a professional stone carving flex shaft (for those not familiar it's a Dremel on steroids (seriously a Dremel with a 1/3 horse motor and flexible shaft attachment)) and cheaper than the floor model that I was looking at. So the budget works...

The problem is that that wall needs a little cement work...
The first part is no problem, but I might as well get to the whole wall while I'm at it... The thing is this wall is the one that we had some water leakage on early on. It hasn't been a problem because we fixed the outside of the wall, fixed the drainage up to the wall and the mangled hose bib that was leaking against the wall, everything but work on the part inside the wall. It hasn't given us any serious problems since and I've had a couple hundred thousand other things to deal with, but now's the time.

The thing is the inside damage really is inside the wall...

As in it is center mass behind where this inside, happily non load bearing, wall buts up against the cement. That means I get to pull out a door and door frame (hinge pictured); pull out the crappy old (rotted at the bottom) 2x4s on the side; fix the cement; put up new 2x4s (I'm going pressure treated, non rotting, can live against cement 2x4s) and then put the door back up. As you can see there are some webs there so some spiders are making a living on something in the area (but the webs are dust covered and not really maintained so the food source may have dried up when I fixed the outside of the wall). By the way this is in a basement back room that is only used for storage I.E. this is not normal housekeeping!

So good news... New toys coming. Bad news... I'm involved in a work on the house adventure of the kind that is never as simple as you think (Er, um... isn't that all of them [Lisa] {Patrick hangs head} Yes, but this one I can already see is more complicated...)

While we're on the subject of crazy things in basements...

We have here a telephone wire (it's 2014 some people reading this aren't used to land lines) and next to it a fixture of mystery: it's ceramic with a circle that would say old light but instead of a screw in it has three blades inside... I have no idea what it is, but since it's not actually attached to anything I'm not worrying about it, I just want to know what it is... The bit of weirdness  is over where the new bench will be and is right in front of another little thing I forgot about.. we have an extra 220 line that ends in a box with a switch (it's safely shut down but could be reactivated if we want to use it (professional checked! I don't mess with that kind of voltage!)). It had been run out through the back wall to a back yard hot tub the last home owners had and was turned off and shut down when they took it out , but I could get a plug mounted on it and have a workshop 220 line... (now I just need $9180 plus shipping and handling and a space for...

A truly ridiculous, but just about the biggest power tool to live in someones home, diamond saw with 36" blade and power feed system! Seriously I have nowhere to put this monster right now... but I still want one! And yes if you get one you need a power feed system... that's a diamond blade it can cut anything, but it's speed is measured in inches per hour and at that rate I don't have the time or patience to shove a two foot long rock into the blade.

Ok, back to reality... We did our version of Titos beef last night... used our first Dragon Cayenne peppers. Definitely hotter that the yellows, and very good!

Back to I can't believe this is really reality... I'm going to be submitting an article for publication this week. So if my next post is completely neurotic I blame the publishers!

Have I put a joke in the post yet? Ok, Two missionaries and the Pope are out fishing...[at this point Lisa shut down the post... See you next week (kidding I shut it down myself, but still see you next week!)]

Update (Tuesday 8/26) I hate being right! (only some times though!) Never quite as simple as you think, but feels good to get stuff done!