Happy Thanksgiving

Where has the year gone?  I can’t believe that today is Thanksgiving.  Boy, the year has flown and is flying by quickly.  Here is wishing you and yours health, wealth and happiness and all the best on this Thanksgiving of 2014.

We have been cooking since about nine this morning.  The plan is to eat around two this afternoon.   The boys will be here and I think Eric is bringing a guest.   It is really starting to smell good.   It is eleven now and Candy is loading the turkey into the oven. So what’s on the Menu?

·        Turkey

·        Dressing

·        Rolls

·        Green bean casserole

·        Ranch Spinach dip

·        Roasted Cauliflower

·        Pumpkin pie

·        Mashed Potatoes

·        Margarita Punch

Should be some pretty good eats!   I know we have a whole lot to be thankful for.

I had yesterday off as well as today and tomorrow so I need to take advantage of it.   I don’t see much happening today.   I checked the weather and tomorrow will be the day to hang the Christmas lights.   Need to get it done now as I will be traveling and super busy the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday I got over to the shop at about 10:30AM and returned home about 4:00PM.   I cleaned, seems like I am always cleaning all the time, from putting tools away to sweeping the floor.   I make some pretty big messes, so it gets dirty quick with my various activities, sandblasting, sawing, sanding, grinding, etc.

I had some croquet balls left from my most recent project.   I was standing in the garage juggling them trying to figure out what to do with them.  Throw them away, store them in a box, whatever.

Then it struck me, I should just make a set of juggling balls.  So that is what I did.  I gave the balls a quick sanding.  Screwed in a small hook into each of them and then hung them from wire.   Shook my spray paints and I away I went.   Between coats and while they were drying I worked on making a wood stand to hold them.

After a couple of coats they came out pretty nice.  I will say it is tough to paint round balls and not get any runs.

I had one of the Williams wrenches blasted and ready to do something with.   I taped off the ends and gave it a coat of primary and gold paint.   Not sure why I chose gold, but it looks pretty good.   Now I need to figure out what I am going to do with them.   I have some smaller wrenches and was thinking about making a tree.   Using one of these wrenches as the trunk and then use the smaller wrenches as top branches and use nuts and washers as leaves.

Almost Done

Tonight I finished my painting and assembly of the clubs for the croquet set.  Hopefully it will warm up enough tomorrow that I can spray them with sealer and I will be done.   I had a lot of fun working on this project and it required several steps.  From blasting, welding, table saw, painting, etc.   This came out looking pretty good and will be a nice display piece.   Just not sure where it will be displayed at.

Maybe I will take it to the office and set it in the corner.  Would be an interesting conversation piece.

Wizard

If you have been keeping up, you know that I am rebuilding an old croquet set that I had found.   I spent some time trying to get a name of the maker and year built from Mother Google.   All I was able to find was a this picture on the right.   I am assuming this must be original and is selling on eBay for $89,99 or BO.

So I guess this won't be a high value restoration, but it has been a good learning process for me.   This little project has required metal working, painting as well as building all new clubs and handles which I still have to get to.

Since I found the picture above with the name on the side, I figured I had better do the same.  Candy dug a stencil set out of our craft drawer, so that is what I used.  It's not original but it looks good.  I did get the handles for the clubs cut and drilled the hole in the club head to attach them.

I need to work on the handles and clubs and do some shaping.   This will require me to dig out the table saw.  Its on the list for later this week.