That Kiwi Bloke

O Ye with delicate stomachs. I was eating dinna while removing the corpse. It was very well preserved. Fingers with no gloves were used. I had to pry it initially with a screw drivers but once it was hanging by a foot [paw] I was able to pick it up and drop the poor wee fella on the bench. I was guessing it wasn't going to run off and steal my cheese.

That sounds just so wrong when you say Bloke. The word is a description of something not a name of a thing [or something like that]. In this instance its describing me as a male. I could have said. THAT KIWI MALE or THAT KIWI MAN. Now if I were in your shoes for this instance I would have gone with the word before Bloke and asked the question like this. "Kiwi, are cribs a place to put your feet up at the end of a hard day doing not a lot of anything?" I would then reply yes mate a crib is another word for a Batch or Cabin or something along those lines. I think you Yankies call them a Cabin in the Woods. Or something weird like that. Or is Yanky just a name for some one from New York? Anywho. . . probably doesn't make a lot of difference to you but for instance if you were to treat the word THAT and BLOKE as the same sort of thing and the redo the question using THAT instead of Bloke. Would that read as weird to you as it does for me. ie THAT, are cribs....etc... Because to me that's how it would me and when you started that question with Bloke. OOOOORRRR you could have just dropped the "THAT" and gone with "KIWI BLOKE" ie "Kiwi bloke, are cribs . . . Just don't do BLOKE on its own otherwise I might have to start calling you Co Op. If I'd been running when I first read it, I would have LIKE tripped over and landed on my donkey. It was kinda LIKE smelling wet road kill. . . LIKE how it sort of catches in your throat and is hard to breath. If that makes sense. . . on the other hand if you haven't smelt fresh wet road kill then your lucky or you just haven't gotten out there enough [What I mean is a freshly minced possum that's been flattened by a couple trucks and then its rained, the meat hasn't started to decompose yet but with the rawness and the wet combined it has created a very unique bouquet ].

Hey bush wacked your a lot younger than I thought. Looks like you have a great technique with the sander.

For the tension bands see link below. https://www.bunnings.co.nz/lumberlok-strip-brace-with-tensioners-10m-zinc-galvanised-sb10t_p0734740

Will need a lot of standing to get that door smooth....maybe even a bit of sanding as well. Thought I'd proofed it before i hit the go button.

First sheet of plastic on. . . and we are off. . . Four hours later the first packet is on. . . . Took a lot longer to screw down than I was expecting. The ground wasn't flat so has to position the ladder so it was stable every time, then I had to wiggle my way through the strapping and not fall of the ladder to get the screws in. The metal ridge piece goes on in sections and i can only reach across one sheet of plastic at a time. I was using a self drilling tech screw that was about 5mm to short. I didn't take into consideration the self drill part of the screw when I was buying them. I tried to get this as square as possible and keep it square with everything parallel and so forth but I still managed to screw things up as I went and its not very square and the trusses aren't very parallel. They are vertical though so I didn't screw that up completely. So If i keep taking pictures at angles you won't be able to see just how bad things are.

Just unclamped the door from the glue up.The highlited areas are the live edges. This side of the door is lumpy and will be the outside. The inside of the door is flat so I can add the reinforcing and extra thickening for hindge and the lock hardware. I have lined this side up with the edge of the workbench underneath as it is the straightest edge. Door is now flat side up. Screwed up a bit when I did the glue and clamp. I didn't square up the ends as well as i could have and I have lost a bit of length to non squareness. Yikesssss... Checked the cross door measurement and found it to be slightly wider at one end as to be expected. So only needs to be trimmed a smidgeon. I ran a sharp knife down this edge before I measured the offset for the skill saw for the straight edge to be clamped at. A Nice and clean cut. Trimming the door ends next. Scored this end the knife as well. Next time I will glue the horizontal reinforcing peace on before I do the trim. Should make it a neater cut. I always forget to do that. But anyway its now square. Once I get the go ahead from the inspector I will start the inside part of the door. Will need a bit of standing to get the joints smooth. . . ..............

ERMMM graduated from what? The only place we have graduation ceremonies down under is when you get your degree at University? And no body does stuff like that. On the other hand people are starting to do more outrageous stuff for Halloween and Xmass like putting lights all over their houses and other crap. Even had a kid or two show up once trick and treating. I showed them a trick, it was a disappearing act. I shut the door and walked away when I checked through the window they'd left and they never came back. I do the same sort of thing with Mormans and Jehovah Witnesses. Now that just leave me letters in my letter box. AH....just read Jamies comments. . . "SCHOOL Graduation" Really. . .why do you guys celebrate leaving school? Over here it's a complete non event. You do your end of year exams and go home. End of story then a couple of months later you get your results. And unlike when I was at school which was either A B C Pass or fail D E F, its now PASS A to F. EVERYONE'S A WINNER. \o/

Some time way back in the dim dark past. I'm not sure how many years ago it happened but not more than two. The fan in my Range hood started to vibrate something cronkic with this flap flap flap noise. So I stopped using it. But last night I decided I'd see if I could figure out what the fudge was going on in it. Which is when i discovered Franks Cousin taking it easy. So why didn't I smell it? It's a chimney. . . Plus I have a cat. Contrary to popular belief cats don't catch mice and take them outside. They catch them and bring them inside. They seem to work on this TAG and RELEASE program. I can have the smell of dead things in my house at any given time. Not to mention the smell of poo somewhere as well. Like the little bugger has been caught short or it has been locked in a room it shouldn't have been in and has hidden a log behind something or dropped it on a towel or magazine to disguise it.

I love that MAG SWITCH gear. The small mags hold good but the large ones are bullet proof. Unfortunately they don't work on the aluminum slide on my panel saw. But Incra have come to the rescue there. As for the dust collection. The blower used to sit on this big double bag wheely setup. But I have very limited room in the shed, so I did the next best thing and mounted it on the wall with the exhaust shooting onto the ground. Now if I need saw dust for mulch its easy to get at and no bags to empty every other day. Or if the pile gets too big I just toss it under a tree or spread it around the orchard. If its a windy day when I'm in there then the wind does the spreading job for me.

On a side note here. The NZ government POST COVID-19 decided that in the interests of speeding up the Building Consent (BC) process (Because its really bogged down with a stupid amount of small jobs). They would up the size of the minimum building that needs a BC. Buildings would still need to be designed to specification and would need inspections by a qualified practitioner etc...but anyone with half a brain should be able to design and build something small that is to code. Any. . .who I have decided that my second building will be bigger [luckily I haven. Instead of 2.8m wide and 3.6m long its now going to be 2.8m wide and 6m long. Which will at the end of the day save me a whole lot of wastage from trimmed off foundation would. 6m is a standard length as well so less cutting. Minimum building size is now 30 sqm and you can also build a green house up to 40 sqm. These buildings cover garages and carports, sleep outs, garden sheds etc. . .So long as they aren't plumbed. If plumbing is added then a BC will be needed for sure. So technically I should be doing that for mine buts its off grid and out in the wops, so as far as the authorities are concerned they can stick their BC where the sun don't shine.

After the quarantine was lifted I went down for a 1/2 week and put the roof on. I met up with a mate down there who was going to help me but in the end he spent more time hunting than helping. Hence I did it all myself. I did hold the ladder so I could get off the roof when I was finished. The big white hunter shot a small deer and a pig for the freezer. I went down a week later for three days with another mate and we did the walls and installed the door. I still need to finish the walls around the top of the ply and cut out and install the windows. But with the roof on and walls so far the inside should now be dry.

Building inspector showed up and demanded a close up inspection. I think the jointer is long enough for the boards.

I mostly use the joint-er to square up the botryoides before i turn it into chopping boards. The dunnage I'm using (which I think is some species of European Spruce) is a soft light wood. These thin boards seem to be at the mercy of temperature change a lot more, though its a bit more variable per board. Any who I will run em all over my cute wee jointer as has been suggested. I'm thinking I will document this build with pictures because I am awesome. . .a legend in my own lunch time.

I am so not very good at doing that. . . with a jointer. I was SOOOOO hoping there'd be another answer. So easy to make the narrow side square but i usually end up with a board that's even more poked than when i started. BUT I hear you O B one. I need to do some practice on wastage.

A question for you hot shot wood joiners’. I’m in the process of building some more doors for my crib down south and would like to get the boards that I have now cut to length parallel. Or less wiggly/bowed etc… These boards started their life in my workshop as rough sawn lengths, a good many of them have live edge [feature]. I have put them all through my thicknesser a few times to clean up them up and give them each the same width [long side]. I have a jig I use to hold them on their edge so I can also give the narrow side a bit of a tickle as well. On the whole they are all pretty good, but when I lay them out there are gaps. At the end of the day I want to glue them edge to edge, last time I did a finger joint and it did not work out so flash. This time I’m going to try a straight but joint as I would like the outside face to be flat. I could probably just glue them all and hope that when I clamp them this will squish the lot together and take out the gaps. How wood you fellas go about this?

OK so far this is where I is at. Just finished putting the battens on. Put the criss cross tensioners on, on Friday. Saturday I was building a little covered box type structure that you could sit inside when it rains and shoot targets from (For a local air rifle target club). One of the clubs main blokes was there giving me a hand a recipe for change. So my simple design kept changing, ie "How about if we could sit in it and shoot Bench Rest as well, just like other clubs" And what do u know...Sunday arrived as it will since it comes after Saturday. The regulars showed up for a shoot, the gods must have been listening in and watching because we had a sudden unexpected deluge and guess what. NO ONE used it while it was raining. It did get a brief run earlier while someone used it to line their rifle up as they hadn't used it in several months. I hopped in it to see just how well it worked. I didn't get wet, though I decided that the roofing iron wasn't long enough.

Kia Ora (in New Zealand) a greeting wishing good health. Ermmmmm this is my first post on this website. Since Covid-19 started I have been very busy doing nothing. But since NZ has beaten the virus into submission I'm still doing a whole lot of nothing or a whole lot less than I was before. Oh sure we get the odd new case every now and then, but these cases aren't picked up here they just end up here when they hop off the plane and get tested in quarantine. Then the people complain that they are being forced to spend two weeks in a hotel room with very little to do while they ride out their time. They are forgetting that they are staying in 5 star accommodation while the government is paying their hotel and food bill. They just need to shut the hell up, stop being so damn selfish, and think of the privilege of being allowed back home to a virus free country. I managed to endure the month and half of isolation stuck at home, just me the cat and 7.413 acres of maintenance and hard work. I did some building till I ran out of materials [which blowed]. Cleaned out my garage, which is cool because I can now walk around in it without tripping over stuff in the dark. Might even have some room now to use the wood lath or build that cedar strip canoe I have been threatening to build for the last 20 years. Cleaned out the workshop a wee bit, cleaned up the trailer park, weeded the sand and finished putting the wooden edge around it. Built another shelf in the shade house so we can fit in another couple hundred propagated plants. Re did the irrigation in the roof, put in some extra taps to isolate certain sections from the whole. Weeded the floor and sorted a whole bunch of pots etc...and so on and so forth. Pruned the oak tree so that trucks coming in can now get in, which in turn will stop the drivers complaining that the branches will scratch the paint on their cabs. Had a couple of HUGE bonfires, burning [believe it or not] wood. Moved a couple pallets of bricks, did some digging, moved some sand around. Did a couple of food runs for me and my rents. First time i have even been able to walk into a shop with a bandana covering my face. Even did a couple of trips wearing a full face respirator. Which covered my eyes, noise and mouth. Wore safety gloves as well so I didn't touch anything that might have been contaminated. Then once i got home i left all the none perishables out in the sun for the UV to do its job, the other things I washed or sprayed detergent on. Bit of a waste of time really since my part of the country never had any cases. But we all went through the motions JUST IN CASE. I cleaned out my gutters, Washed the truck. Weeded the drive and spread a but load of GAP 30 on it. Also did a lot of sleeping, watched a bunch of movies, surfed the net for porn. Did a bunch of exercise, walked a marathon or two. Fed the chickens. Pruned the shelter belt and stacked wood. It was a hard month and a half...I almost got bored a couple of times. ? Regards That KIWI Bloke