February goals

New month, new goals. This month the emphasis is going to be on updating this blog and as a side benefit - getting more practice in writing. Albeit not creative writing, though I could do that.

Goal is to make a post on this blog every day in Feb. Note that it isn't "make 28 posts" because then I could make three posts one day then miss a few days.

Ideally they would be halfway decent and not just "here's today's post" lazy ones!

Assuming I succeed, this would be my first time making a post every day of the month. And I've had this blog since 2007, so that's a lot of gaps.

Here we go!

Upgraded - or at least replacing an old one

 Bit late as it was a Christmas pressie - I got a new angle grinder. Wooh!

So now I say goodbye to my old reliable one:

Bought this GMC grinder from a hardware store that no longer exists, pretty sure somewhere between 1998 and 2003. Had it for a long time and despite having several rather dangerous quirks and being very reliable - it really was long overdue for replacement.

Going to be much safer using the new one!

Back to work

 Sigh, back to normal hours now. I could have gotten used to working one day on, two days off. Though not so good when the day on lands on a day there was something on (looking at you PoGo community days!)

Worked! Sort of...

 Still ongoing with the plaques, learnt a few things and also made a few mistakes.

Looking at the previous update, there was a typo on one, which was a bit frustrating. But since these are tests on scrap wood, no biggie - just sand it back and try again. Here's their current state:

The blank one at the back is the sanded one. The others I had another go at with water and rubbing to get the paper off and looked mostly ok. Then I made the mistake of trying out a "light sanding". Did the one on the left first, didn't notice some of the writing was rubbed off. Did the one on the right and with the first stroke saw lots of writing removed. Whoops!

I gave them a coat of varnish anyway, the damage can be "rustic look". Plus I wanted to see how much of the paper would still show after sealing. There was a definite white "sheen" of paper fibers prior to adding the varnish but happy to see that the writing showed through strong and clear after. Photo taken just after applying, need to assess after it's all dried out.

Lessons learned: pick a font between the two - the thicker one is too obvious when there are issues or damage to the ink, the thin one does not stand out enough from the wood grain. And spell check!

Bonus update!

Here's some useless numbers, that are changed by making this post anyway:

I started this blog in July of 2007. That's 187 months, of which 38 months had zero posts and 29 only had one. Current highest post count in a month is 24 - which was August 2007, first full month I was writing. So far, only the years 08, 09, 15, 20 and 21 had posts in every month. My gross average monthly post count is 3.88, so I'm already ahead of the curve for January.

I might try and post every day in Feb. Too late for Jan, and Feb only has 28 days!

Progress on quote plaques

 Here's a progress update on the first ones:

The good:

Design works well, amount of toner is good, toner stuck well and I couldn't find any spots where the toner had fallen off. This point is after a first pass wetting and removing the paper, next step is to let it dry and do it again to try and get as much of the paper off prior to sealing.

The bad:

The mod podge needs to be evenly spread out over the entire face of the wood - I only applied it where the text is. This means less paper stuck on that needs to be removed (the reason I did it) but has the side effect that there is a colour difference between where there is and isn't mod podge. Also, one of the reasons polycrylic gives better results is that it is basically a liquid plastic, whereas mod podge is water soluble and there is a constant risk of removing the printing when trying to remove the paper.

I'll let it dry before doing another pass to try and get more paper. And frustratingly, one has a typo! Luckily this is just a test with scrap bits so it isn't a big deal, but I won't bother sealing that one.

And as a bonus - my phone informs me that I've spent four hours less on my phone this week than last week. Not a lot, but definitely a step in the right direction.

Staying off phone - good progress so far this year!

 Never mind that it's only day six...

Fourth of Jan I was working, fairly busy so managed to mostly stay off the phone. Yesterday we were mowing and spending time with the family, did good there. Today so far I was on it for a bit in bed then remembered so I got up, tidied up the kitchen, sorted out some sand for sandblasting tomorrow and put together some of the first quote signs.

I'm using the mod podge method (from this video, it's the polycrylic method); the paper is down and they are drying now, we'll see how they turn out. I'm pretty sure I can get better results with the acetone method (also in the video) but I'm not going to go out and buy acetone (yet) plus I still have mod podge left over from prior projects so I may as well use that up. I've previously tried using nail polish remover which has acetone in it, but the other non-acetone ingredients led to sub-optimal results.

I did see a video the other day (which I can't find now) which showed that xylene gives better results than acetone - but it's twice the price.

And Pokemon Go doesn't count as being on the phone because I'm also exercising.

And I wrote this up on the laptop, so it counts as staying off the phone!