PEP Badge: Oddball

I'm not clear on whether it's cool to break a project up and submit it in parts. But I recently roofed my in-progress henhouse: https://permies.com/t/189628/permaculture/henhouse-diary-progress#3834489 and getting some oddball points for it would be great.

(There are a couple "replace a roof" BBs in homesteading, but I didn't replace a roof, I built one from scratch. And I can't wait and submit the whole job because most of the original framing was done in partnership with my brother-in-law, a professional carpenter..)

I decided that I needed a lucet for cord making. I carved and sanded the tool from basswood my uncle gave me. I spent about 4 hours on it but I was just enjoying the process while bunny sitting and later around the campfire.

I'm not sure if this fits the theme of permies.com, but it's worth a try, primarily because I believe "Otis" would see value in renewing a piece of furniture, instead of tossing it out and replacing it. It's NOT press wood or particle board, it's a nice butcher block maple, nearly 2 inches thick, so I thought it worth saving.

My baby sister has a table in her kitchen that has a beautiful maple top, but it's unfinished, and she doesn't feel comfortable with her ability to effectively clean it... She's said she will toss it if I can't come up with a solution that she feels like she can reliably clean/sanitize.

All I can come up with that's reliable under her specific use, is the same kind of acrylic/polyurethane coating that they use on commercial bar tops.

I know it's not anywhere close to tung oil or ANY natural finish, but it's very durable and it saved this gorgeous real wood topped table a new lease on life.

First I sanded down the surface (and that's where I have the fewest pics, but a wheel on my shop vac broke, and I took pictures of it on the table - the vac was under warranty and I wanted to file a warranty claim on it).

I put the initial seal coat on, then I had to "tent" the table, to keep the cat off of the table for the 3-5 days recommended.

The table also need to be perfectly level for the next step, so there was lots of shimming with sometimes a sheet of newspaper at a time.

After the first coat had cured, it was sanded again, then I did the "pour" coat, which is where you literally pour a puddle on the middle of the table and encourage the puddle to spread out to the edges. It will end up dripping off the edges eventually, if you get it right (the bottom edge of the table, the trash bags are actually attached to the bottom of the table, so the edge is not covered up and available to be coated.

The product pool is self-leveling, so if you got the surface perfectly level beforehand, it won't drain off, it will puddle, for the most part, although there will still be some messy stuff on the edges to clean up a few days later.

After another week, it's no longer tacky to the touch, and it's safe to remove the tenting/cat guards. The edges were chiseled and sanded and then several more light brush coats were applied to the edges. The instructions say if there's any bubbling or imperfections in the surface, they can be sanded down and more can be applied. I found a few spots I wasn't perfectly happy with, but my sister was so thrilled with the table top, that she wouldn't let me make it "perfect"...

It occurs to me that what I did might be a badge-bit worthy task, and I did take pictures of the adventure.

Benign deliberate vandalism of Allerton Abbey

When we were staying there as SEPPers in October, the front door was very hard to open or close, because the door had sank down from where it was originally hung. Not sure how much of this was from the building settling, or the door just sagging, but it made the front door somewhat impractical to use, as it was not just hard to operate, but this had gone on long enough such that the door had gouged a sweep into the floor too, so it was limited to about a 60 degree opening swing.

The door was large/heavy enough that I was certain that my wife and I wouldn't be able to remove it to adjust anything, so on the next trip into town, we bought a set of chisels (from Harbor Freight) and upon returning, I tackled paring down the high spots of the threshold, which would at least ease the opening and closing of the door.

At the next morning's boot camp meeting, I confessed to my crime (but the door worked much better afterwards!)

This seems to perfectly fit the spirit and description of "Oddball" tasks, so here it is...

The original door

The depths it has sunk to presently

A combination of loose rocks/gravel from the floor degradation are making it worse

First carefully sweep the area to remove loose debris

Then see where it's binding up and pare it down (first pass)

Second pass


Door is working well enough to open with one hand now. Donate the chisels to the shop, and hope it will be enough to cover the security deposit 😉