Wow your wife lasted a lot longer than mine would have. I have often said I couldn't write a book about my life because no one would believe it. The series of events just couldn't happen to one person in that order.
My wife tends to leave about the time I start preaching. Not that she has a problem with God or Jesus, she just doesn't think I'm called to preach and especially with the references I tend to use... But hey, the door is in and it works and all that "bonding time" you spent together. ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Rossi To: Blind Handyman List Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 1:52 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] The door epic. It seems that every project I undertake becomes an epic, instead of a simple job. Must just be my personality. I do tend to go over the top a lot. I installed the door in my basement over the weekend. It took a lot of work and several trips to the store, as usual. First, I propped the door in the opening and wedged it in place and took some measurements. It seemed like a five quarter deck board on either side was a perfect shim, but I needed about 3.5 inches of header. I built and installed the header first. I made it flush to the outside edge of the basement wall. I then stuffed the door back in the opening. That is when I realized I had my first problem. With the top edge of the door aligned with the front edge of the header, and with the door plumbed vertical, the bottom of the door was way far forward sticking out of the whole. The foundation wall leans outward at the top. So, I disassembled the header and moved it back further into the whole. All that took a lot of time. Then I had to mount the deck boards to the cement walls. I dread hammer drilling into cement and brick, it is hard work and I have had, .. issues with that before. I had 2.75 inch Tapcon screws to work with. I got the board up against the wall and plumbed it vertical. I had already pre-drilled the holes in the board so I got the hammer drill out and plowed a couple of holes into the cement. This is where I got worried. My mason had made mention of using some pretty big Tapcons, but I figured the 2.75 inch were long enough, even though one inch of them would be in the wood. Well, of the holes I drilled, it was obvious that some of them were only making it through the coating of mortar that he used to flatten the ends of the block wall. They probably made it into the block a bit, but not much. Other holes were obviously hitting the block as it was much more difficult to drill, and took much more time. I got the screws in, and was reasonably happy with the security of the board to the wall. This was the latch side of the door. Of course, I snapped the drill bit on what was to be the last hole on that side, and didn't have another bit the right size. That was the end of work for Saturday. On Sunday, I went out and got four inch Tapcons, and three bits of the right size. I got the hinge side deck board against the wall, got it plumbed up and started drilling holes. It wasn't too bad but definitely a lot of work. I was definitely hitting block with the deeper holes. Then came the next problem. My little driver, which could mostly drive the 2.75 inch Tapcons, didn't stand a chance with the four inch Tapcons. I started wrenching them in by hand, with a ratchet, but quickly realized that I would reach retirement age before getting them all in. So, I borrowed an air impact driver from a neighbor. Of course, it has a half inch stud on it, and the driver bits need a quarter inch socket. I couldn't go from a half inch stud to a quarter inch socket with out using multiple adapters which made the whole rig very unstable. So, another trip to the store to purchase a single adaptor which I couldn't find, so still ended up with a rig that was not the best, but more stable than what I started with. Even with the impact driver, these four inch Tapcons were a bitch and a half. I snapped two of them clean off. I was having problems because, in order to get one all the way in, you couldn't stop once you got it turning. But I was worried about over driving them. If you stopped part way in, you couldn't get it started again without stripping out the head, which I did several times. Finally, that board was up. Then the door went in and it took a lot of coaxing since I couldn't quite get the thing shimmed as perfectly as I would have liked. There just wasn't enough movement after I put in the framing. But finally, it was in, shimmed pretty close to perfect, and fixed in place. I was so close to being done I could taste it. I just had to put the lock set in place. I got the knob put in no problem. The door opened and closed just fine. I got the dead bolt in place without a hitch. Just one piece to go, the metal cup in the jam to receive the dead bolt. No joy. It wouldn't go in all the way. So I had to drill and chisel it out. After several attempts, it finally seated all the way. I screwed it in place. Then the door wouldn't close. It kept hanging up. After some investigation I found the issue. The screws holding the cup to the jam were pretty long. They were passing through the jam and framing and when they hit the cement they pushed the jam out just a hair, but enough to prevent the door from closing. So, a couple of shorter screws later, and the door could close and lock. There is still much work to be done to seal the door, trim it out, pour the cement slab, build the walls around the pit, blah blah blah. But I leave for Peru on Wednesday and I can really use the vacation. *GRIN* Oh, and when I say "I" throughout this narrative, I actually mean "we" because Teresa was working side by side with me the whole time, except for a couple of hours when she fled upstairs after I pissed her off. Later. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
