Tank birthday, 47+ years

Paul B · Jul 8, 2019

I acquired this Steamer trunk from the 1890s (about the same year I was born) ans I am restoring it. I completely took it apart and it has over 400 nails in it. The nails are to long and in these trunks they hammered in the nails with a steel weight on the other side so the nails would get bent inside the wood. It is very strong in spite of the thin pine it is built out of.
I ordered new canvas from the period as well as the handles but I will use all the existing steel, and there is a lot of it.

I will also line the inside with cedar but I am not sure what my wife wants to put in there. Probably me. :eek:
These trunks held everything people owned when they came here from Europe and were quite common.

BeejReef · Jul 8, 2019

Paul B said:
I acquired this Steamer trunk from the 1890s (about the same year I was born) ans I am restoring it. I completely took it apart and it has over 400 nails in it. The nails are to long and in these trunks they hammered in the nails with a steel weight on the other side so the nails would get bent inside the wood. It is very strong in spite of the thin pine it is built out of.
I ordered new canvas from the period as well as the handles but I will use all the existing steel, and there is a lot of it.

I will also line the inside with cedar but I am not sure what my wife wants to put in there. Probably me. :eek:
These trunks held everything people owned when they came here from Europe and were quite common.

yes.. if she orders an electric chainsaw and a lot of plastic sheeting off of Amazon, I'd definitely put the trunk restoration project on the back burner.

norfolkgarden · Jul 8, 2019

Lol, tried to just pass this over earlier.

So when 'we' are 'representing' our entire generation, do we get to be the 'good' guys or the 'bad' guys?
And who gets to decide?
Us or some kid talking to us?

[emoji23]

Hush silly (I'm following forum rules [emoji16]).

Respect your elders.
[emoji846]

Paul B · Jul 9, 2019

I would imagine when those Europeans brought their reef tanks over here they had to drill holes in those trunks and put screening over the holes so the Sally Lightfoot crabs would not crawl out. My Grand Parents came over in about 1902 on a steamer ship and most likely had one of these trunks. Maybe this one. :rolleyes:
My wife and I went to Ellis Island in Manhattan to see the picture of their ship and we found their signature on the manifest.
Very cool.

Today is My Grand Daughter's 7th birthday and it is a beautiful day. Greta is having a party and she lives in the West Village in Manhattan so that's where were going.
Greta is the absolute only thing that would get me into Manhattan as I really hate the place.
I always tell people you would have to pay me at least $8,000.00 for me to go there for something else.
I won't go for $7,999.99.

But I I will do anything for my Grand Daughter.

It looks like Our Daughter and Greta were playing with lipstick.

Where does the time go?

Oh Wait, That is me, disregard this picture. I hardly aged at all ;Smuggrin

Paul B · Jul 10, 2019

I just got back from bike riding and have to say, the roads here in farm/sea/ wine country are loaded with wildlife. About a mile or less away we have a horse rescue farm that takes horses that were either abused or are sick or near the end of their life and allows them to live out their days in relative "Horse Paradise". As I approach them the first thing you smell is "wet horse". I was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens and didn't get much of that aroma.

Near that we have a Miniature horse rescue farm where they take in these tiny horses to allow to live in peace as they were in petting zoos or pets.

We also have a Buffalo "ranch". No, really, this guy keeps a few hundred head of buffalo, the rest of the buffalo are attached to the heads.
http://eastridinginc.com/Buffalo.aspx

There is a some kind of farm I pass right near my house and the amount of life in there boggles my mind and there isn't a lot of space to boggle. We have deer up the Kazoo, all the way up. Birds, forgetaboutit. Bluejays, red wing blackbirds, ospreys, swans, geese, egrets, Quail, ducks, chickens, turkeys (which are as big as Emu's) Humming birds and birds that know the words, Cardinals and I think I saw a Pope.

Rabbits are like, well, rabbits, foxes (no, I am not talking about the Lady's, they don't get up at that time).
And bugs, I have never seen this many types of bugs since I was in Viet Nam. Of course in Viet Nam the bugs were bigger and would carry you home to feed their nephews. :rolleyes:

I know a lot of people on here live in farm country and this is normal to you. It is relatively new to me.

On the way to my Grand Daughters we encountered this little Fella walking across the road.

I love turtles and stopped to make sure he wouldn't become turtle sushi. He wasn't walking fast enough for me so I helped him across the street.
I have been encountering a lot of turtles lately and some people here call me "Turtle Man" which I kind of like. :D

I am taking out the "Girls" today for Girls Night out and have to get to the boat to make sure it is in great shape and light all the girly smelling candles. :rolleyes:
Still cleaning up from the Fourth of July, but almost done. :D
My Main Squeeze looks good. :)

norfolkgarden · Jul 10, 2019

Looks like your new digs are agreeing with you.

Have a great summer.

Victoria M · Jul 10, 2019

Paul, she makes you look good. :)

Paul B · Jul 11, 2019

Somebody has to. She is holding in my belly. :D

Sea MunnKey · Jul 11, 2019

Paul B said:
But I I will do anything for my Grand Daughter.

It looks like Our Daughter and Greta were playing with lipstick.

Oh wow ... both your daughter and grand daughter definitely have your facial "Paul B." feature. ;)

Daniel@R2R · Jul 11, 2019

You have a beautiful family, @Paul B! You are a blessed man!

Paul B · Jul 11, 2019

Thank you. I thank God for them every day. :D

Paul B · Jul 11, 2019

The girls had a great time on the boat and didn't want to come home.
My wife had an accident though getting off the boat at the restaurant. We docked at the gas dock but it wasn't a floating dock so my wife had to step up about 2' from the boat to the dock. Her leg didn't make it and good thing I was holding her. She almost went into the water but I had a grip on her and managed to hoist her up to the dock. Her shin was all cut up and she bled all over her shoes. I had a first aid kit on the boat and patched her up with a 6' gauze bandage. It didn't ruin her night, just her shoes. :(

I have the entire steamer trunk taken apart and I removed all the hardware along with hundreds of nails and metal. I sanded the entire thing smooth which was easier than scraping to remove the old canvas.

I ordered new canvas, leather handles and hand made nails. Today I also found a source right near my home for cedar which I will line the thing with as the paper in the inside is all rotted off. I will use all of the existing metal and I won't re-finish it too much as I want the age to show. I still have to sand all the oak slats that were all over the top and sides.

Paul B · Jul 12, 2019

The inside of the chest smelled like "Old people.":confused:
I sprayed it a few times with bleach and water, now it smells like Lotus Blossoms in the wind, with bleach.
That belt sander is very old. It died last week and I had to re-condition it and solder a wire on to the brushes. I would never throw out an old American tool as I would have to replace it with something from China and that can't happen. It is as good as new now but I have to get the belts on line as they don't make that size any more. It's a Craftsman but Sears is going out of business and now just carry snowflake shoes and shirts. :cool:

The sander does have a vacuum built in to catch the dust but sanding the old canvas off just made too much dust. The canvas turned into cement and they used flour and water for glue so I can collect the dust from that and bake a cake with it if I like. Maybe I will invite you guys over to sample that. :rolleyes:
I held my Re-designed vacuum next to the sander to take off the excess dust.
I bought nails, canvas and handles for that trunk and I got them yesterday. The "hand made" nails come from an ancient machine that used to make the nails when that trunk was made. It makes one at a time. :rolleyes:

They are special nails that are very soft and designed to be bent over inside the wood. I don't have to do that as I am putting 5/8ths cedar inside the trunk so the nails can go into that. Bending each of about 400 nails over is too time consuming at my age. :agree:
I also have stuff to "age" the shiny nails.
The sheet metal that goes on the sides, corners, bottom and a lot of other places is rusty. I will reuse it and just blacken some of the rust as I don't want the thing looking brand new.

If I get time today, I will work on it. I still have to sand the wood slats. I thought they were oak but I think they are maple.

My restored drill.

My vacuum is very cool. Virtually all the dust gets collected in that top bucket and none of it goes into the lower vacuum container where the filter is so the filter "never" gets clogged. Nothing goes on to the filter so I never have to clean it and it never loses suction.
The top part of the bucket with that vortex thing on it just twists off and I lift out the bucket to empty.
I connect it to my radial arm saw when I use it .

I know I posted a lot of this stuff before, just get over it as I posted this in Other places too. :D

That inflatable boat is in the back of my garage (above picture) because it has a slow leak that I will fix tomorrow. I also wanted to clean it.

Fudsey · Jul 12, 2019

Looks like a salt bucket ;)

Paul B · Jul 13, 2019

It is a salt bucket. That or Spackle. :D

Today we went to Nikola Tesla's birthday party. Right near my house. No Really! they still have his workshop/laboratory and the pad where he had his huge Tesla coil that was supposed to give everyone in the world free electricity.
Of course thats why they stopped funding him. Free is not a great thing for businessmen.
Anyway he is the reason we have AC electricity today as well as Radio, TV, cell phones, dosers, electric eels, Facebook, controllers, etc.

I was totally disgusted with the event. The guy was one of the greatest minds in the history of the world right behind Justin Beaber and in almost 80 years since he died they did absolutely nothing with his workshop. It is still boarded up and no one is allowed in. Next month they said they were going to do a little work on the chimney. The Chimney! after 80 years thats all they are getting to repair.
Supposedly under the shop there is tunnels and a shaft that goes down 120' so he could anchor the tower so it could "shake the earth".
But all you can see is the outside.

The entire event was a big waste of money and they could have done so much better. Near the gate where you pay $25.00 they were selling half wraps with a small container of potato salad which we bought for ten bucks, But they had no napkins or forks to eat the potato salad so I assumed you were supposed to eat it like an Aardvark and suck it out with your tongue. Luckily we are smart enough to cut a piece of the container off and make forks but people who don't know how to do that had to use a stick or credit card I guess. :eek:

Then they had this big truck selling cookies and grilled cheese sandwiches, which is an odd combination. Now we were like the fifth people in there as we got there when it opened and I went to buy a cookie.
The guy tells me they ran out. I said, how many did you bring? Six!

They they had Port O Sans and next to them they had a portable sink which I thought was nice. There was a paper towel holder next to the sink to dry your hands but no garbage cans in the event so I assumed they wanted you to put the wet paper in your pocket and take it home. :confused:

I don't know what people think when they put on these events. They could make so much more money and have more people come back the next year but they just don't get it.
It was like 90 degrees and they had lots of chairs out in the sun for the "Scientific Presentation" about Tesla that I wanted to hear. It's the only reason I went, but the entire thing was to thank the volunteers who put the thing together. No science, nothing about grilled cheese, no discussion about ich, nothing.

There was a 40' replica of Tesla's tower that was supposed to make a display, which was a spark. But after that titillating speech in the sun we forgoed that and went home. Total waste of time.

The best thing there was a Lady selling tick repellent which didn't have much to do with Tesla. But she had some ticks stuck to Scotch tape and she was a tick expert.

She also told us that they were not allowed to spray to kill ticks any longer on Long Island where ticks are very prevalent. We asked why and she said the jewelers complained and sued the state. I said "The Jewelers".
Why would Jewelers care if they kill ticks. She said because if they eliminate the ticks, clocks would just go "Tock, Tock, Tock. :rolleyes:

Paul B · Jul 16, 2019

Yesterday I looked at my tank, I have been so busy that I rarely look at the thing unless I hear the crabs banging on the glass to get my attention. One "arm" on one of my SPS bleached. I figured I would test the water. The Alk was like 4 and the calcium was so low I couldn't make an Alka Seltzer tablet out of the entire tank. So I dumped a load of alk in until it went up to 7.
Don't worry, I did it over about 5 minutes. :eek:
I don't believe in Old Wives tales unless it is my wife about doing this stuff slowly.

If you were dying because you had no food, water, or internet, would you rather take a small sip and maybe an M&M, or would you want a full Gourmet meal right away?
Thats the way corals think about it. If you don't agree. Write me a letter and send it snail mail with a self addressed envelope. I won't read it but I could use the scrap paper. :cool:

Anyway, I looked at the tank today and all seems well. That piece of coral didn't miraculously re grow but nothing else bleached. :)
I really need to change some water, but it is not in the cards for a while. My workshop is so full of projects that I have no room for water buckets. :cool:

But besides that, today I am very happy. After living here a year I found a fish market, (not a LFS) that is supposed to be the best on Long Island. It's right on the docks and you buy the fish still jumping, you can't get fresher than that. They have every kind of fish caught in the North Atlantic and the prices are pretty good. My wife and I are "foodies" and we need good food.

The stuff you get in a supermarket marked "Fresh Fish" is code for Cat food.
Fresh fish is so much better, it's like comparing a gold fish to a moorish Idol.
My Dad had a fish market and I grew up in it so I know what fresh fish is supposed to smell like. The aroma brought back so many memories.

We got some fresh tuna and scrod that they were cleaning when we got there. They even fill the bag with ice for you.
But they had squid, octopus, MahiMahi, porgies, fluke, flounder, striped bass, and almost every fish and crustacean that I can name including soft shell blue claw crabs which is amazing now because they are not even in season.

I can't wait to go back.
I made the scrod tonight and was in Heaven. What a difference. Fish after it is a day or two old, is not the same animal. As I said, it turns into cat food. :D

Paul B · Jul 18, 2019

I just finished restoring this 160 Year old Steamer Chest. I think it came out pretty good. I used all the existing metal, wood, hinges, lock, latches etc but Had to buy some more cut nails. The entire thing was put together with about a thousand nails that were purposely to long and were bent over for strength. I lined the inside with cedar so i was able to get longer nails that went into the cedar. I found nails that were made individually on a machine from the same time period so the thing is pretty authentic. I also replaced the handles and the OD green canvas with a light brown one also from the same period that I got from a place that sells authentic chest parts. I added wheels because now it is real heavy.

This is the old chest as I got it.

I also have a "Victor Talking Box" record player from about 1910. That was before RCA merged with Victor making RCA Victor. It is on top of my Ice Box from the same time period.