I am currently working on several projects to prepare for the team coming over in September so they can have "shovel ready" work projects. Unfortunately none of that is too glamorous. So I am going to clean off some photos of work/play projects I have been doing lately.
The last of the tools I purchased with the generous donations to the electric tool fund was a jigsaw. I am very excited about what I can do with that and my new find of plywood. For those of you who don't do facebook, a Peace Corp friend helped me track down a source of plywood. It is the boxes they ship motorcycles into town in and since they ship a good many in I am hoping it will be a steady stream. It is thin plywood but I am still excited about the project I can do.
The giraffe above and attempted elephant below though were my first jigsaw projects using some of the scrap wood from other projects. Both were cut free hand (no template or drawing) out of scrap from 1x8 boards.
In addition that day I made my first and sorry to say unsuccessful attempt at a bentwood bracelet/bangle. I have not done this before and most of the posts online talk about using veneer or popsicle sticks to do this. I cut my first attempt to thick so it would take way to long to get it to bend and even then it would most likely not bend well. I intentionally wanted to start thick so I can test to see what thickness can be accommodated. You first cut the wood into strips.
Then you boil it in water.
When it works you can then bend the wood around like it was steamed around a pipe to form a bangle type bracelet. The reason I want a thick one is I want to do some wood burning to decorate it. I will make additional attempts in the future as I have time available.
One of the work projects I was doing was to repair the rotten wood frame for the incinerator pit where we burn medical waste. The biggest problem with this repair is attaching the wood to the concrete because they made it out of red mud bricks which will not hold a nail or anything like it and our anchor sleeve screws only allow about 1/4 inch between the head and the sleeve to get it to anchor properly. So I used bolts and glue again. I had all the wood painted with the bitumastic paint which retards the termites.
We used sheets of the roof we just replaced on the medical clinic to make the new covers.
Also on the list was replacing broken concrete around the rainwater harvesting tanks outlet pipes that prevent damage from people leaning on the pipe. In the states that would be easier to solve by putting a sign on it saying don't do that. But here they would read the sign while leaning on it.
Last up was repairing a door that was partially damaged from some type of rot. this is a panel door on the ward building. They don't sell wood putty here so we busted out the gypsum plaster and mixed it with a little cement and applied it to the door. A couple of good coats of paint and hopefully it will last several years but if water is able to penetrate the repair it will not last a long so this has to be on the list of repair watches.
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