cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WOOD IS COMING Yesterday I left work early and I went off to order my lumber. This is better done in person rather than over the phone because one wants to inspect the goods. If you say 'I want 116 two by four studs' on the phone, then maybe the person taking your order doesn't know their ass from their elbows and they end up sending you a bunch of two by fours that are not actually stud grade or something of that nature. It's best to go to the lumber yard, walk around and look at what is there. Make sure that you're happy with the grades of lumber they have and write down the exact item number for each batch of lumber so that you know there won't be any unpleasant surprises. The wood is supposed to be delivered on Monday afternoon. I wish it could have been today so that I'd be able to work on it all weekend. I was pleased by the price. Including delivery, it's under a thousand dollars. That is pretty much all of the wood that I will need to get the building dried in. I've settled for a shed roof rather than a gabled one in the interest of keeping the price down. I'll still need to buy a couple of rolls of roofing felt to cover the sheathing (it's better than Tyvek in this climate because it breathes a little better and reduces risk of mold) and then sort out the siding and the finish roofing. But once the roofing felt is on there, I've bought myself a little time since it will technically be weather-tight. Either after work or tomorrow I'm going to the architectural salvage place to see about windows and doors. It would be best to have those on hand before I frame the walls since otherwise I won't know how big to make the openings. Trish's parents have an old wood stove. A little one sitting in a shed doing nothing since they replaced it with a bigger one. They said that I can have it so I'm thinking about using that to heat the workshop. Shouldn't be too hard to put in. Buy some stovepipe and some kind of heat shield to go behind it. If anything, the stove might make it too hot in the there in the winter time. For cooling it in the summer, I'm installing 2 windows on opposite ends of the building along the axis where the wind usually blows. We usually get a west wind at my place. I figure that a lot of the time, I can open both windows and even a slight breeze will cool it. When necessary, I'll put a little box fan in one window. It's all about having those 2 windows lined up so that the air moves right through. I could theoretically put a window AC unit and a baseboard heater in. But there is only one electrical circuit that has been run out to the well pump that I'm building the workshop on top of. Probably there's only 15 or 20 amps to work with and I'll need to run power tools and a light at the same time. Air conditioning or electrical heat would just draw more power than I can spare. I might even rig up a solar panel on the roof that charges a car battery to power the lights. I can get a solar panel at Tractor Supply for around 0 or so. A bunch of my stuff that I ordered for the Mauser came today. The front sight, the scope rings, the replacement screws and the glass bedding kit. Of course, this would happen the after I shipped that rifle off to the gunsmith to have the other work done. They must have crossed in the mail like ships in the night. *Sniff* [wipes tear]. Probably I won't be getting that rifle back for another 2 weeks at best. Possibly a lot longer than that. A good gunsmith takes forever to get anything done. I'm really looking forward to furnishing the workshop. Building the workbenches and getting everything put together. My inspiration for the lay out is going to be kitchens. I have this theory that a good workshop should be laid out and designed like a good kitchen. Both kitchens and workshops have to store a large number of tools and raw materials. Both of them have 'work triangles' that most people fall into. In a kitchen, it's counter, stove and kitchen. In my workshop, it will be workbench, compound miter saw and drill press. I'll put most of my rifles in there as well. A little love seat, chair and table in one corner. It will be an excellent little retreat. I'm dealing with about 200 square feet here, which is enough to have some fun with. Oh, I did something else yesterday. I stopped at the gun store to buy the rest of the really, really nice 8mm Mauser ammo that they had on sale. A bunch of old boxes of Norma 196 grain hunting ammo with the ballistic polymer tips. This is really good stuff that normally goes for around 5 a box. This stuff was at least 10 years old. They were cleaning out the back room I guess. Anyway, I got 4 boxes of it for 5 each. That's basically 80 worth of 8mm Mauser ammo that I've got stashed away. Now the only potential problem with this will be if the gunsmith looks at the barrel on my Mauser and says that the rifling is too worn to ever get decent groups out of. In that event, I will be having it rebarreled. And in that event, I would be going with a different caliber if I've got to pay a couple hundred bucks for a new barrel. Something more common and easy to get ammo for. Maybe .308 or 7mm-08? I dunno. In any case, I'd feel pretty damned stupid sitting on 80 worth of 8mm hunting ammo with no 8mm hunting rifle. I mean, I've got other Mausers but they are all in original military configuration. Not hunting rifles. Ah, but I have a nice thought. This gunsmith specializes in Mauser sporting conversions. Therefore it is absolutely certain that he has a pile of take-off barrels somewhere. Perfectly good 8mm Mauser barrels that he removed from other people's rifles when they asked him to make it into a 30-'06 or whatever. Most people don't want the old barrel back. There must be a bunch in that pile that are still in excellent condition. He'd probably sell me one of those for 0 or so. Then I'm just paying 0 or so for the installation and headspacing. Then I get a very accurate barrel for very little money that allows me to use this stockpile of expensive 8mm ammo. Excellent plan. 16:06 - 2008-03-07 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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