The first day of summer is a little less than a month away, (June 21, 2009) but at my locale, Pacific Grove, California, the summer weather pattern seems to be here.
The current conditions in Pacific Grove.
Blossoming Tree
Blackhawk Exposition Sale
Every year, the Blackhawk Collection sets up their tents on the 9 hole Peter Hay course at Pebble Beach, during the week leading up to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Their auction wares are right out on the fairways.
I happen to ride my bike past the course this afternoon and this photograph shows a pretty typical gray summer day around here, mostly cloudy, with high temperatures around 60 F (15.5 C). If you’re lucky, it’ll be sunny.
Asilomar State Beach, March 11, 2008
5:44 PM PDT
Fence Repair
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The Pacific storm that knocked down our Redwood lattice top fence in the beginning of January gave me an opportunity to buy a router. The wind snapped a 4×4 fence post and cracked off the 2×3 end sections from the fence panels. These one inch grooved 2x3s weren’t available at the lumber yard, but I thought with a router I could just get some 2×4’s and use a router to make a groove in them.
I ordered a bunch of Redwood 2x4s, some treated 2x4s for caps, a treated 4×4 for a post and a 60 lb. bag of ready-mix concrete.
I started digging out the old post and encountered my first problem – did I need to remove the old concrete footing? That involved more digging than I wanted to do. When I got down to the concrete footing, I hacked away the remaining part of the 4×4 out of the concrete and planned to put the new post in that hole with some more concrete around it. That sort of worked, but I wasn’t able to get the 4×4 post vertical. It was the beginning of another bush job.
I’ve seen Norm use a router on TV, but I’ve never used one. I found a Makita RF1101
I also didn’t know about rough lumber until I routed two of the side rails, nailed them to the fence panel and hoisted it up into position. It was about 3/4″too long. I had to cut off 3/4″off one side of the fence panel. How are you supposed to know these things?
The next day, I ordered some more 2x4s and 2×8 Redwood lattice, because the lattice was also broken in some sections. This time the lumber yard sent 1 1/2×3 1/2 2x4s.
My next concern was how to cut the lattice, since the sections on the fence were 15″wide. Also for privacy, I used two pieces of lattice back-to-back, which fortunately fit in the 1″groove. I ended up clamping the lattice between two 1x6s and using a cross-cut hand saw to cut the eight foot lengths to 15″wide. My friend Chuck recommended a Skil HD5825 6-1/2-Inch Worm Drive Saw, whatever that is.
This is why professionals should do this kind of work.