Sir Sam

Helper dog: Posts in, trimmed to height so the top of the fence is level, and corrugated steel panels cut to size. Since the steel is dimensioned to be able to screw into a roof with 16" on center rafter the size works out so that you can overlap and screw down both pieces, however I had an oddball sized opening, I think about 36" so I had to cut 2 pieces, overlap them a few ripples and then use construction adhesive to hold them together. In addition each piece had to be custom cut since the slop of the patio changed the dimension. What I had was an opening that was square at the top, but angled at the bottom. I left just enough space at the bottom that I could rinse and shovel some snow, but not enough for adult chickens to get through. However the small chicks were able to get through for several months before they got big enough not fit. I capped this part with just a simple 2x4. It would have been fine to stay that way except I had more plans. I used leftover 2x2s to sandwhich the steel at the bottom, so the slots on the side hold it, and the 2x2s at the bottom, This leaves a nice even 4x4 aesthetic. I also had EXACTLY enough leftover 2x2s for this, not a single extra piece. Temp board to keep chickens on their side: Perfectly level across the top: See how it "grows" on the right side? Thats because the patio slopes but I wanted a level top, made everything more work to keep it even. Now this was me thinking about the bar top and how to execute it, I reused the 2x6s that I incorrectly bough and cut several up to make the bar top. Also, this chicken looks sad. A view from a little ways back: I used some 2x4x12' pressure treated help limp along the fence here for awhile, it has this stupid shutterboard style fence that uses just as many boards as a regular fence, but you can see through, I took down my boards on my side, put up the 2x4x12', and then put my boards and some spares back up. The result was a cheap and quick better looking fence.

Then I bought a little more dewalt stuff. Diesel can share with a friend: Chickens still have issues with the coop, they are not smart: 3 nesting boxes but they only want to use 1: I don't know why I took this: So then I moved on to the fence. Basically I wanted a nice fence/bar combo that would be the barrier to the chicken yard. I used Justins HF router table to put a 0.5x0.5" slot in the 4x4s, then placed several cedar 4x4s at the edge of the patio. Also that blue post leveler is awesome! Now I wasn't going to have the posts this high for the fence in final form, but each one needed to be a different length due to how deep it was buried and the fact that my ground is sloped away from the house. I wanted to use corrugated galvanized steel for the fence since I like the aesthetic:

Getting my shade slats up, I tried both working from the top and from below on the ladder when I eventually decided the ladder was easier, but occasionally I would work up top for something, I used the 2x6s up there for a plateform while working. Neat patterns: So because the slats ran parallel to the house it made some of the spacing a bit weird, so the last row I had to measure each one, cut in in about half, and then figure out how best to use material, I was pretty low on 2x2s so I didn't want to waste any. You can see the minor variations in length including the weird one at the end. Then I used a chalk string to make the line I wanted to cut them to, and then used a long straight edge I clamped down to the 2x2s as a guide, and ran the circular saw alone the length of the pergola, wound up with a perfectly straight line of 2x2s. The was extra important to me since its very easy to see when you walk out the back door, this view is basically how it looks standing with the back door opened. Then I had to stop and go commission a new US Navy ship: And then when I got back I put up some rechargeable weather proof wireless speakers: Then I got all my bistro lights up, these were ones I had bought at costco over the years when they had the actual filament bulbs available. I love LEDs but I hadn't had a chance to see if the LEDs had the right light output for the space I wanted outdoors. I think the LEDs would have been fine, but at the time I didn't want to risk it.

These are the last of the big boards, 18 ft long! Most everything fit inside the van nicely but these few needed to be left sticking out the back and flagged. Used this for staining: Almost done, for the last few boards on the long end I wasn't able to put on my 45 degree cut without them being too short, I had done the math and though I would be ok to the end, but it turns out I was a little off. All rafters up, starting to work on the 2x2 shade slats. Slowly getting there:

So after chopping some height off of the main posts so that the eventual height of the pergola was no higher than my gutter. I got them back up and got the beams in place, this part went fairly fast. The rafters and shade slats took forever it felt like. Chickens were ever watchful: This is the old fence that used to lock the chickens in their part of the yard, it was mended temporarily to keep them over there while I worked on the new fence. Then we adopted a dog named Diesel: Then I started getting the rafters up, again I made a mistake and bought the wrong size, when I was looking at the span I did it on the small end, since the pergola grows in span the rafter boards were not sized correct, iuckily this was only half the material I needed for the rafters, so I ordered correct material for the whole thing. I was able to repurpose the incorrect material for some other projects. Since the pergola grows in size with the patio I decided not to cut the boards to notch them into the beams. I would have preferred to do it that way but it was enough of a pain already to get them cut to length and spaced correct without having to notch them. I wouldn't mind adding an extra bracket on each to help hold everything in place, and I might still do that.

I decided for the design that I wanted to "T" the top of the posts so my beams sat on it instead of held to it with a bracket. I really liked the way this worked out. To notch it I set the depth of the saw, and then made a bunch of little slices, which then just broke off easily by hand: It is possible to get some big slices as well: Then just a little hand sanding to get the "burrs" off: Yet another mistake I made, I ordered the brackets and got them for milled and not nominal, so a few posts I had to shaved a little at the bottom for them to fit the brackets. A little more labor, but not too much trouble. Fits nicely at the top: Ok this was the first version. This pergola is too damm high! Realized that onces I added the cross beams and slats the whole thing would be like 3' higher than the gutter on the house! So they had to get trimmed. I think the height would have been fine if the pergola had been freestanding away from a house, or if my house had been 2 story.

Not much happened until Feb of 2018, when I got into the pergola project. With the wedding looming for the beginning of July I had to ramp up the pergola build. Not really pictured, but there is a concrete footer below each black bracket, the bracket is held down with a single 5/8 rod which is glued into the concrete with some crazy strong blue 2 part glue thats about $15 a tube. A nut gets put on top of the rod to bolt the bracket down. The pergola uses 6 6x6"x8' cedar posts, I actually bought 10' when I was thinking they would be concreted in the ground, and then realized my mistake and had to cut them down as I had already notched the tops. oops, that was a pricey mistake since the 8' posts were much cheaper. I actually modeled the pergola in ProE and had a coworker print the parts on his 3d printer, the printer broke part way through the print and I never actually finished getting the scale model built, but the few parts I did have was enough to get me an idea of what it would be like, and I made some design changes. Its 10' between posts and the end of the pergola cantelivers out over my patio by the grass, I wanted to keep the posts where they were not in the way but also get some more shade coverage on the patio.

Got to work insulating the coop and installing some peel and stick vinyl tiles to make cleanup easier. Mostly painted, and in place where it needs to be: Then I had to stop and take a break because someone else got married: But then it was back to work. This is the final form of the stairs, with coloring, and sealing:

So with the grass and sprinklers done we had to put in some new edging and move rocks around.........no real pictures of that. The next big thing was the patio, I had been using a harbor frieght greenhouse as a chicken coop for many years, it was pretty rigged, and taking up a big portion of where the patio would go. So we decided they needed a new chicken coop and it would get put in the backyard where I stored my parts cars and 96 Z. So the 96 Z had to come out of the backyard, which kicked off me getting the head gaskets replaced and it driving again. That was a seperate thread about back "my project as of late" Since my lot slopes down away from the house pretty good on other side of I have a hard time getting a level spot for a chicken coop. My solution was to dig out and level the lower side of where the coop would sit with cinderblocks, and just level the top side. Hard fukkin clay around here man, this stuff sucks at the end of summer, its almost workable in the spring after its gotten a lot of moisture. With that prepped I had to wait for delivery for the chicken coop, so I moved on to clearing the patio area. The old green house coop got temporarily moved to where the Green Z had been stored so I could clear the pad area of the patio. The black irrigation lines piled up there are 2 of 4 zones in the backyard, the first two are for the grass, the other two will goto the garden area to auto water our garden stuff, which we basically kill if it doesnt get auto watered. Chickens liked all the new area to scratch around in: Coop arrived, just needs paint and insulation! Concrete forms getting laid out. Not pictured here is the footer than was dug down for the posts to be on top of for the pergola. irrigation lines run through a pipe to what will be the garden area: Poured and stamped:

So with the dirt all finalized it was time to get sod, we got recommendations for a sod farm about 45 mins south of us that had good prices. Family run operation where the farm boys came out to load it up. White haired blue eyed like something out of children of the corn, but they filled the van up way quicker than I could unload. I have no idea how much weight this was, but it had to have been significant, the suspension was squatting down 2-3 inches, and the load was so big I had to use granny gear(usually only used when crawling offroad) to get the van to start moving. Remember this thing has 4.56 gearing and a super low granny gear. All said and done the van worked out pretty well for the sod, turns out I should have gotten a little more, even with buying what I thought was plenty extra I still needed a few more rolls, and had to resort to crappy home depot sod in a pinch. Sitting low! First bits of sod in! Trying to clean up debris that accumulated on the ground before sod goes down: Laid out: You can see the mess of the patio that has to follow(including one of my cars in the backyard, the 96 300zx TT).

And then tested working!

The short of this is that my wife and I had our wedding reception in our backyard and taking over my rental house backyard. Instead of spending money on a venue with spent it on the backyard. Over the past 1.5 years the backyard has been getting a pretty big makeover. The bulk of the work is done and I have a useable space, now I'm getting to the smaller details. This is the latest mini project for the patio, my lighted YJ grill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9mXMHTM2tA I'll dig up the photos of the backyard along the way. Ok going a ways back to May-ish of 2017 I had finished up with the rental house and gotten the last of the old fence replaced between my house and the rental, I also added a gate between the yards for convience. Rental backyard: Backside of gate from rental backyard: Gate as seen from my house, you can see some elements of the old patio, chicken coop, planter box, flagstone, junk, car parts, etc. My backyard is almost flat, so I don't have good drainage away from my foundation with how the lawn built up over the years. My house is on a high point, and right at my fence line it drops right away, but overall the back side where the grass is pretty flat. So we had to regrade and reslope near the house. You can see here I put up a pressure treated wood box to raise the window well up so I could fill in more dirt to raise near the house, while at the same time borrowing dirt from lower down to make something of a grade. Overall I wound up with a sort of trench down the corner of the yard running along the house, but its done what it needs to keep the water moving away from the foundation. I had a sprinkler system, which I basically turned off when I bought the house and let the backyard basically die off, only bothering to water the front. I thought it would be relatively simple to fix and keep using, but as it turned out somehow several lines wound up getting punctured over the years. Digging into it further(no pun intended) it turned out some of the lines were only buried 4-5 inches deep, and then they dove down when it got near a head so the sprinkler head was low enough. Basically the whole system ended up getting ripped out, trenches dig down deep where they should be, and a whole new system put in. This was a massive bit of labor and lots of dusty sweaty work, and included random concrete that I assume was spillage from when they poured the foundation in 1976. I had to break up a bunch of concrete to properly bury the sprinkler lines.

I expect demand to be low for some, but its more of a principle sort of thing to offer all them, and accurately. Good news for you, I drew the DJ today! I'm not quite done with the YJ as of now.

Ya I collect them a bit. Oldest I have is a 1913 colorado plate. Got a colorado skier too. I've got some plates from places where I went to work, Australia, Europe, I even found one at the side of the road in Israel that is not part of the collection. I need to figure a new way to display some of them, I have LOTS of plates, but some are just a bunch of duplicate styles so its only so interesting to see all the same ones.

Yup its on my list to make. I'll work my way through the various grills, 96 and 97 XJ, ZJ, SJ, FC, etc etc I really want to have a complete lineup so there is something for everyone.

Got to making some wall art: https://youtu.be/_pseV3_JnNM

I got a touchscreen setup that I am going to mount to the table somewhere to hookup and show the cut progress instead of my laptop nearby. I got the touchscreen for free from work awhile back and have it sitting around for maybe 4-5 years now. I have a USB3 to DVI graphics adapter that was spare, then to DVI to VGA to the display. Then I used an old USB to RS232/DB9 adapter to drive the serial touchscreen interface. Then I installed the touchscreen drivers. And amazingly all that stuff worked right out of the box without headache and hassle of troubleshooting. I also have an industrial/mil spec keyboard I will use with this, and the table controller is driven off USB so I am going to get one long USB3 cable to goto the table, then have the table controller, USB to monitor adapter, USB to Rs232 adapter, and the keyboard all plugged in at the table, so all I have to do is run the one cable from my laptop over and I can drive the whole thing. My wifes brother is also in town right now so we burned out a bottle opener for him, got to play with the settings a bit to find something that would cut about right. I think the bottle openers are too much trouble for how much I think people will pay for one, better for gifts really.

Ok so I traced an image of a CJ7 grill, made a DXF, then modified it to add some key hangers. I figured I would do a quick test and see how the sizes worked out by using a piece of paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JuBX9LZTxw After a fair bit of trying to figure out amperage and cut speed I cut a couple tonight, the first one had a small section where it didn't cut right so I dropped the speed and I had another section instead where it didn't cut all the way through, so next one I might up the amperage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKIkiVBSOXI

Pete, I don’t really have any plans for a big project. We have plans for plenty of wall art sort of stuff, decorations, etc. I can think up a bunch of small things I want to make for different projects. Its more that its a general tool to have aroubd to make something as I see fit. For example on the MJ Crd I have been thinking about running a NP242 cable shifter from a KJ, since my transfer case sits much further back than stock it was going to mean some weird linkage issues. With this I can make a bracket to bolt the shift handle to the floor. Or all all sorts of stuff. When I can bend sheet steel in a few directions it opens up possibilities.

Started firing it a little last night, just doing practice stuff to get used to the workflow: https://youtu.be/dEVkhPI4SSU

For sure I will be making some videos to review it once I get a little more into it. Water table arrived today, finally! Got the table installed and the gantry adjusted for height, should be good to run material now!. And as it turns out.....the water table is made from stainless, pretty thin stainless, but thats fine, keeps the cost down.

Checked baggage fees might make it not such a great deal.