Wednesday, October 6, 2004

Shopping at Lowe's

Tonight I went to Lowe's. It was uber-thrilling.
Stuff I got:
  1. Contractor's Case of Liquid Nails.
  2. 3 Gallons of Contact Adhesive. They didn't have WilsonArt H2O Contact Adhesive. They had the Formica kind, but I don't know about that, so I decided to go for the tried-and-true ultra-smelly kind. But it dries in 10-20 minutes and was half the price of the water-based kind. I'll just have to use it when Norm isn't around or something.
  3. 24 slant nail joist hangers for 2x6-8 and 2 boxes of 10d nails that are supposed to be used in them. They had a cool tool for setting joist hangers without another person, it was about $22. I will probably buy one after I check with Ben Carter to make sure that we don't already have one, as this will allow the overhire person to build the big cantilever platform on his own. Do the nails in the joist hanger need to be set by hand with a hammer, or can regular 1 1/2" nail gun nails be used? I got the by-hand nails because we really don't have any that aren't rusty and gross in the shop, but I'm hoping that they can be set with the nail gun.
  4. 3 Post joist hangers. These are for attaching the double 2x12 to the columns more securely. I didn't realize that these would be necessary until I saw them at the store. Can I just go back in and attach them to the wall that has already been built? Are they actually necessary? For a grand total of less than $2 total, I'm not going to return them, but maybe I don't need them.
  5. 1 gallon wood glue.

Things I learned

  1. They sell thin aluminum sheeting in rolls (flashing) I actually learned this from Hallie and Will Cooper-Daub, but its still cool. I am going to use it for the door plates. Probably going to share a roll with Hallie. Its cheap too.
  2. Adhesives are mysteriously sold in the paint department.
  3. Don't buy things from doityourself.com. I was just getting the links because they have more stuff than lowes.com and their prices are high.
  4. I may as well be speaking Klingon to the people who work at Lowe's when I say "contact adhesive." They were clueless.
  5. There are lots of pretty laminates out there, and they will let you have sample chips at Lowe's. woohoo! Even better than paint chips.

an update about Tuesday night later.

A 7 person-6 hour Saturday call would work for the rehearsal stairs, but not for most of the other units. The stairs need to be made in small pieces anyway, to fit upstairs, which lends itself to lots of smaller projects. The drawings are approved. Thursday morning is ordering hell time.

Expect Platform drawings to be coming tomorrow.

Need to talk to David about rigging.

Who wants to volunteer to explain budget projections to Harumi? I think that the quantity take-off is set up to make it pretty easy, but I'm sure that one of you can explain it better than I.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hmm...

Good call on the aluminum solution. Typically the nail gun people tell you not to shoot the fastener through anything like a joist hangar for fear you will miss the hole. Have someone from production planning take a run at Harumi, we talked about current projections this afternoon.

I think you need to start thinking about what to do if they don't fill the overhire calls. Two things to evaluate right away:

1. What happens to your calendar if you use your crew to do the rehearsal stairs next Thursday and Friday, and think about what it would do to Lenny's calendar as well.

2. Can you up the shop commitment for yourself and your assistants?

I don't mean to make it sound like we're going to stop looking, but the cupboard is pretty bare and not delivering the step unit to the rehearsal hall will not be an option. db