Friday, May 1, 2009

Projects, Projects

Yesterday I walked around the house in bare feet and a t-shirt. I mention this for several reasons. First, it wasn't that long ago that I was walking around the house in many more layers of clothing, trying to imagine a time when I might actually be "hot" in the house.

Second, the outside temperature was 64, one degree warmer than the inside temperature. I know that when September arrives, 64 will require a sweater and maybe even a coat. Its amazing to me how we adapt to our surroundings.

My parents were kind enough to give me a table saw for my birthday and I've been putting it to good use over the last few weeks. In fact, based on the six inch pile of sawdust on the floor, you might think that I've taken up sawdust manufacturing.

See this picture?



Did you notice that there is a hole for a drawer? The reason the drawer is missing is that it fell apart. With the new table saw and the recovered drawer front, I was able to build a new one. All the cross pieces we put in the attic? Used the table saw for that too.

The current project with the table saw is to build shelving to store our storm windows. The storm windows come off the first week in May (starting this weekend!) and I need somewhere to store them. Last year they sat on the garage floor and I was always terrified that one of the girls would fall into them and hurt themselves. This will hopefully get them out of the way.

The other project I'm working on when the weather allows is this.





The soffit needs to be scraped and washed. Any old, rotten pieces of beadboard need to be pulled out and replaced. And of course, we need to paint it. Fortunately about 50% of the soffit can be reached easily by standing on the first floor roofs of the porte cochiere and the two outside porches.

One of the things that has me a bit puzzled though is what kind of tool to use to cut out the rotten beadboard. It needs to cut through 3/4" thick wood nailed to the underside of the joists. I need a tool that is lightweight, capable of cutting straight lines and going no deeper than 3/4". Ideally, it should be able to do plunge cuts. So what's the right tool for the job? A rotozip? Reciprocating saw? All I have are a standard skill saw and jig saw. Neither of those seems appropriate.

Suggestions anyone?

Mouse count went up one again too - 50 and counting.

3 comments:

Christopher Busta-Peck said...

I have no idea how to remove the beadboard - I have a smaller area, but I think in more rotten condition - and I plan to sneak a small pry-bar in the areas where it is buckled.

I can't remember what your insulation situation is like, so this may not matter right now, but while you are tearing apart the beadboard, you might want to think about installing soffit vents.

Anonymous said...

How about a 4 inch skill saw?

ShoNuff said...

For the straight cut your skill saw would be the best. It also does a good plunge cut. Of course that does leave getting closer... a hand saw or reciprocating saw could get it done but any depth control would be entirely in your hands. Neither has a guide to control depth of cut. If you were going to go that way you might be better off with a saber saw (often called jig... the hand held ones that have a small blade that goes up and down). Those have much less power than a recip. saw so are easier to control. A rotozip or other rotary tool should have depth controls that let makes the 3/4 inch cutting easier but these are much hard to cut a straight line with. Cutting a straight line with any of these tools would probably be easier by setting up a straight edge to ride the tool along. There is one other tool option to consider... an oscillating tool. These are recently coming into popularity and Dremel makes the Multi-max which is the one you'd see most places. This would let you cut with the skil/circular saw then finish with this which doesn't have to much power so is pretty easy to control both depth and angle. It would just be a bunch of plunge cuts with it. The problem is this is kind of a specialty tool (they sell them as having tons of uses but I would say there are better tools for most of them) that isn't that cheap.

If I was in your position I would probably just go out and buy a decent quality hand backsaw (probably about 20 buck) then cut with the skilsaw and slowly (it would be slow especially over your head) use the backsaw cutting through the face of the board. This isn't to expensive and a backsaw has a lot of other uses (though the saber saw or rotozip are pretty handy... you'd have to decide on the oscillating).

There you go way to much info. Feel free to call or email if you want me to explain anything in more detail. If you do I might mention what I think a wiser way to do the unwarping of board you want to... making more likely to get the results you are looking for.

Best of luck have fun.