In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, September 7, 2026 11:50
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 799 of 834
Since I want to get 6 coats on this thing, I'm trying to speed it up a little bit. I have a pretty low-key chepo fan I got for a few bucks after rebate that turned out not to be really worth much but it's probably perfect for this. I've cleaned up the basement real good and the sanding was all done in the other room, but I just don't want any of my high powered fans kicking up everything while I'm trying to speed this along.
I've decided that the bottom of the box is going to have at least one if not two of those coats skipped since I have a good amount pooling in those screw holes despite the superglue going in there first to provide a barrier from the water/rust. At the end of the day I don't really care if it only gets 2 coats, but I will try for 3.
I still have a bunch of rubber feet that I bought for the front stairs of the patio whenever I get around to building the back section. I used them on the front step that I remade years ago becuase it was completely rotted out and unsafe, and these rubber feet have ensured that the rot never sets in, but the paint job on the bottom sides of all 6 legs is still good.
I had just enough left to do the back, but I guess I'll just have to buy more whenever I get around to it. I think I'm going to use 4 of them in the corners to get this thing off the ground. That hopefully would get it high enough off the ground where the carpet isn't coming into contact with it while it's curing. It won't be easy to drag around though, so she'd want to find a more permanent place for it.
I always thought if I did it right it would look great sitting right under a foyer table that I measured years ago and knew was wide enough to fit this. I'm not sure if it would slide in and out safely with the handles, but if I've got those feet they could still just be put under there pretty much for keeps one time and the handles would just be in between the front and back legs on either side and you'd have to be careful if ever you did move it from under the table.
Unless I'm up past 8AM, I'm not getting all the coats on tonight, but I'll probably have some pictures of the progress. I already have pics of the first coat and they look great, but I'll probably wait to show anything until at least 3 coats are on it like I've already got inside.
It's just too bad I couldn't do the lips at the same time and I'm going to have all this stupid drying time just for them at the end. Oh well... Next time I'll have painters triangles and hopefully 2 giant work benches free to do this stuff on.
Got my Gram's music from the 30's through the 50's all backed up and in the process of putting my music on the card. Slow as hell with the cheapo thumb drive I bought that has about 7 different slots for different things. It's handy as hell on the rare occasion you need it, but I didn't realize it was only USB2.0 and I'm stuck with about 1.5mbps speeds.
I'm not even sure the radio actually works anymore, actually. Got it plugged in now and haven't gone back to look at it for about an hour. Just plugging it in the wall did not give it the juice it needed to power on, so hopefully it starts now. Bummer if it doesn't. My buddy bought the same one before me years back and he still uses it all the time today. I've only used the thing 1 time for about a week and it's been in storage ever since.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Coat two is on and drying. It's much quicker than 2 hours with that little fan on everything. I was able to get to scuff sanding it a lot earlier than I thought I would. Still no way I'm going to get 6 coats done tonight.
I wasted away the daylight hours so I'm not going to be putting spackle up in the dark and that will have to wait. I might bring some more stuff down into the small bedroom. I'm going to need a monitor for the work I'm doing, and some of it requires old composite cables, so fortunately I didn't throw away the small TV my old man gave me to throw away that's got them, or I'd be taking a TV from somewhere I don't want to be moving them.
I'm also going to test out a piece of old tech I have sitting on the TV stand that's no longer needed there to see if it even still works before I move it up in the bedroom. Gotta make room for that Atari. Still don't know if it works or if that adapter my brother had in there is going to do the trick for me, but I'm dying to find out.
So mad that I have to wait 30 days to put that contact paper on the bookcase. A lot of decisions about my stored books and knickknacks and what I'm keeping and giving away is dependent on what fits on that thing. Oh well... There are other projects to do and other things I need to dehoard over the next 27 or so days.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Does it still look like a Coffin, Brenda?
Hopefully that blue/grey makes a difference.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Sorry man. For right now it still looks like a coffin. Maybe once you are finished with it won't.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
How does that work with the shakiness, Brenda? Does it come and go? Does weather impact it? I don't remember you talking about it too much before. My mom's MS comes and goes. I could see her one day and it's like she never got it, but I could see her 3 months later and she can't hardly get out of the couch on her own and she takes small steps to get everywhere. Humidity is really bad for her, which is why I was really mad when they upped and moved from Arizona (one of if not the driest state in the country, to the most humid).
The notifications for no threats is normal. That's the built-in Windows Defender.
Normally I would have told you not to bother with anti-virus software because Windows Defender is good, but I'm pretty sure we're not getting updates on our Windows 10 security anymore (since October of last year).
Adding antivirus is easy. Which one did your computer have before?
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Hey, SIX. Both my family doc and the neurologist basically say the shakiness comes from doing to many heavy things. Before I moved here I had two or three nasty falls and landed on my hands hard. It's taken till now for those falls to show up in my hands. The shakiness does come and go. Sometimes they don't shake at all and because of carrying to much heavy stuff on Friday and Saturday. Yeah, not good. Taking it easy today has made a difference.
It is Malware anti-virus. It's spelt weird but like I said it is a free thing and I get the pop-ups to redo it every so often. But with all this weird stuff, I haven't bothered with it.
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I emailed my friend about my cancelled trip. She answered that and then later the same day she sent me another one. Her husband's cancer has come back. He has an appointment on Tuesday to find out when he starts radiation treatments then it will be another course of chemo.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Does it still look like a Coffin, Brenda?
Hopefully that blue/grey makes a difference.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
Sorry man. For right now it still looks like a coffin. Maybe once you are finished with it won't.
I wonder if the handles will make it look more or less like a coffin.
Not a bad idea though... Maybe I should get into the coffin making business. Those things get stupid expensive.
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Hey, SIX. Both my family doc and the neurologist basically say the shakiness comes from doing to many heavy things. Before I moved here I had two or three nasty falls and landed on my hands hard. It's taken till now for those falls to show up in my hands. The shakiness does come and go. Sometimes they don't shake at all and because of carrying to much heavy stuff on Friday and Saturday. Yeah, not good. Taking it easy today has made a difference.
Oh okay. I know you can't watch movies with flashes and thought that maybe it was all related. Still not good, but probably better that it's physical rather than neurological. Do they recommend you to do any sort of exercises that could help. Light stuff even as light as daily stretches that might relieve some tension build up?
Quote:
It is Malware anti-virus. It's spelt weird but like I said it is a free thing and I get the pop-ups to redo it every so often. But with all this weird stuff, I haven't bothered with it.
Malwarebytes? Probably.
If yes, here's the website: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download
Just click on the button that says "Free Antivirus Download". It will show up in your browser's download when it's completed. You just run that and let it do all the default setups and say "I agree" and "OK" all the way through. The defaults would be all that you need.
But you don't do any financial stuff on your computer at all, right? If you're not tied into that world at all, you probably don't have to bother. And I don't imagine you're doing much online that's putting you into places where you could get yourself into virus trouble anyhow.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I got my brother's Atari working.
That little adapter he bought worked perfectly.
The bad news is the controllers are bad though, because of course they are. That's why the system failed and those controllers were notorious for that. This is my fault though because I stored them away for maybe a decade in just about the worst spot possible. How many summers has it been baking up there in the humidity?
All's not lost though. The strange thing is that the sticks on both of them still work. That's usually the part that goes. The start/reset/pause buttons on the top work. But none of the buttons on the sides of either controller are working though. I might be able to open them up and clean the insides of any residue and gunk and get them working nice again. I'm sure there's YouTube videos on how to do it.
Worst case scenario would be buying new ones. I doubt I'd find anything original that still works that wouldn't require me to take a mortgage out on my house, but that oldschool video game community is pretty huge and they make all sorts of things like replacement controllers and even brand new games that they're making nearly 50 years after the systems came out.
They're not cheap though. They can't mass produce them because the market is so small.
Hopefully they clean up and work. The fact that the sticks are working, even if they are a little tight, is a good sign.
One complaint though... No Pac-Man??? Where's Pac-Man??? It's the most common game and it came with the console. I could have been playing that right now without the need for the buttons!!!!!
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Not as expensive as I would have thought to replace those controllers actually. Still far out of any amount I'm willing to spend on that right now. Look to be about $50 to $75 for one that's guaranteed to work, and some guy will supposedly fix them for you for $40, but seems really cheap in 2026 to me unless they're from a different country where the USD goes a lot further than it does here.
Unfortunately, unlike nearly any other system ever made, you can't just buy a cheap USB adapter and use modern controllers on it. It had a unique 15 pin connector vs. the 9 pin connector that most other consoles were using (Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Sega Genesis... yes... you could use a genesis controller on the two other atari systems and vice versa). Nintendo was 9 pin too, but they molded the plugs different so you couldn't change them up. The Atari 5200 though had analog controls and a potentiometer inside which varied the voltage in ways modern digital controllers won't handle, and it also had the 4x4 phone keypad that makes it twice as hard to do. People have figured out how to do it by cobbling a bunch of dongles and wires together, but that's going to run you $300 if you never want to worry about a controller dying on you again.
Maybe I get lucky and they clean up well.
It's at least a cool conversation piece as is right now. The system, games and controllers all look fantastic without hardly a blemish on them. Shame if I can't get it working soon, but it's not wasting space anymore than the other thing I took out already was, and this looks a lot cooler.
Getting tired and getting tired of waiting for that 2nd layer to dry enough to move on. That first coat seemed to dry so quick, but this is still tacky in some spots. I might just let it go until tomorrow. Shouldn't have a problem doing 4 coats in one day now that everything is already moving.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I think I must have gone thicker on that 2nd coat or something with how long it took to dry.
I'm really getting a feel for the wood now. I don't know whether it's the brush I'm using, the fact that this is an old half can of poly that I can't even be sure I bought myself, chemicals that may have still been in the wood or what, but I've been getting bubbles popping up from the very beginning when putting poly on the inside. I didn't shake the can... it's stirred... so that's not the problem. It's not everywhere, but only certain spots. I realized that this is anywhere there were bigger imperfections in the grain that also sucked up more stain, as well as around the corners of the piece. As I rubbed my brush across these areas the bubbles would just pop right up on the surface. I assume this must be some sort of displacement of tiny little pockets of air getting trapped in the grain as I swipe.
So, at least for the first 2 coats anyhow, I haven't actually been sanding down enough before putting a new coat on. After my 2nd coat, I wasn't happy with how the light shined on the piece as you moved your head so you could see the light bounce off of it. But the funny thing is that after spending about an hour sanding it all down real good with 220 grit paper, even though a lot of the high spots are greyed out a bit and I haven't yet dusted it off for poly, the shine is good and runs smoothly from end to end now.
While I sanded with one hand this time, I was also going back over the whole thing with my fingertips of my other hand to feel how smooth it had gotten. If I felt even the tiniest hint of braille, the sanding wasn't done in that spot.
It's late, but if I'm as happy with how the 3rd coat looks as I think I might be, I'll take the time to post a pic of it. The 2nd coat looked good, but I'm really hoping after all this sanding between the coats this time it really shines.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Yup...
I think this may just be my favorite thing I've ever done.
I think I said a few months back that I was already jealous of my aunt for the box she was going to get when I finally got around to it. I wasn't wrong.
Shiny!
We're only 3 coats into it and you can already see stuff from the ground reflecting off the left side of the box like a foggy mirror.
I'm doing 5 or 6 coats, depending on how far the rest of that poly gets me. I didn't think that I would, but I'll probably get 6 with more to spare now. That 3rd coat went on easy compared to the first two after that sanding job. I just have to make sure I leave enough for the lips when I finally getting to turning these things back over again. 24 hours after whenever I put the final coat on.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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