Almost caught up

[Mike P]

Almost caught up.

After 3 months of non-car stuff I think I’m almost caught up and ready to get some shop (37 Dodge) time. The sheds and fence in the arena are down and carted away and Mom’s house in Illinois is cleared out and soon to be listed for sale.

I spent the last 3 weeks redoing 2 bedrooms (paint, carpet and installing a ceiling fan in one) and building 2 Pedestal/Captains beds. Doing the beds would not have been too bad but I ended up deciding to build a mechanism in my bed to raise and lower the head of the bed a few inches. It’s nice for watching TV and I also sleep better with my head raised. On the second bed I decided build a large drawer in the base for the wife to store linen and such in. I guess I do OK with wood, I just hate working with it

Anyway other than the garage looking like a bomb went off in carpentry shop (cleaning up is today’s’ project), I think I’m about ready to get back on vehicle projects. Besides the 37 (and a few maintenance things on the El Camino) It looks like Sunday my 14 year old Grandson Cade will be over and we will pull the 74 Mustang out of the back shed and start getting it ready to put back on the road when he gets his license in about a year and a half.



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[Bob Parmenter]

14!? Prolly not that shrimp you first introduced us to anymore...............

[40FordDeluxe]

14? Man time flies. I feel your pain on all of that. My garage has looked like a carpentry shop blew up on an doff for almost 3 years now. I'm glad to hear you're making progress though Mike!

[Mike P]

Yeah, Cade's a freshman in high school. Hard to believe he's the same one who started following out to the shop 10 years ago. A weekend before last he was over and I introduced him to the riding mower out in the arena. With the seat all the way forward, he fits it pretty well .

Besides the obvious advantage for me, I figure it will help getting him used to a clutch, plus some of what I pay him will go for parts to get the Mustang II back on the road.



I decided not to pay Photo Buckets extortion so I guess the photos I had linked to in my previous posts are going to just be gone. Hopefully I've figured out the new photo sharing site and these pictures of the beds I built and Dresser and Chest of drawers I brought back will post.




Bed 1 by M Patterson, on Flickr


bed 2 by M Patterson, on Flickr


dresser chest by M Patterson, on Flickr


I really like the furniture I brought back. The dresser and chest have the wavy fronts and the mirrors are beveled glass.


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[53 Chevy5]

Wow, that is a very inviting room, nice work. I must be sure to hide the pics from my wife.

[Mike P]

I think I figured out how to get the pictures to post.

Speaking of Cade, this is probably one of the first pictures of him I posted when he started following me out to the shop.


Cade 3 by M Patterson, on Flickr


And this was about a year ago when we tore the 37 down to get the running engine and trans in it.

Cade 37 Dodge by M Patterson, on Flickr

I think he went thru a growth spurt since the last picture, I’ll of course have more pictures when we start on the 74.



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[firebird77clone]

I think I remember that first pic. It still makes me a bit jealous.

Toad and i never did build that tot rod. I eventually sold the narrowed Ford rear I picked up for the project.

[Mike P]

Just when I thought I was all done working with wood

When I was out in the yard Friday I happened to look over at the porch and it looked like one corner was sagging! Closer inspection confirmed that it was indeed! The corner post that holds up that end of the porch was slowly rotting at the bottom and shrinking. That corner happens to be were water settles and stays for a while after hard rains so fortunately the other 2 posts were fine.

Anyway part of yesterday morning was spent jacking the roof back up and replacing the post. The post was over 50 years old so I can't complain about it's service life

I'm guessing it was slowly settling over the 30 years or so that I've lived here and I never noticed it until Friday.

Anyway here is how much the old post rotted compared to the new one.

Porch by M Patterson, on Flickr



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[53 Chevy5]

Good grief, I bet stuff was creaking when you jacked that back into place !

[40FordDeluxe]

That sure is a lot! This spring I have to rip the floor off my porch and jack it back up and redo the brick foundation under it. I plan to add some post footings under it to help share the load. I'm sure it will be a 5 minute deal. Not.