Queequeg grows stuff, and fixes junk.

plants:
if they look crumy, its because they are.
need water and ive been lazy, ill go back out there and water them at some point today.
also got SMASHED last night by some nasty wind...
 




victim of mine, not the wind. pvc hose sliped off the table and snapped it.
serrano dosent seem to care though. we shall see what happens...





lettuce plants.



cactus plants.



tobacco plants from last winter... i chopped these down to a stump but they grew back. ive not watered these what so ever since last... december ?
no clue why they are alive still.



fertigation machine. in pieces.

my intention here is to shrink the system down substantiall.... such that it fits into the trunk of my car. im going to fold my old design into 2 pieces... and push the frame out into the third dimension.
im also going to add a filtration system. the filtration will require a far more substantial pump, so im going to just mount this onto the frame as well as the filter.





my fancy pump. grundfos up15-58 with a custom plastic head from some other hydronic heating company.



can anyone identify this plug? if so i will kiss your mouth.
spent like an hour on the molex website... im 60% sure its not a molex branded connector.

 

[queequeg152]

 
Cultured marble is made from marble powder mixed that is cast using molds. Natural marble would be like marble cut from a solid slab of rock like you'd see a sculpture or something made out of. 
 
The way we made cultured marble was you would take a mold, apply some mold release to it so you could separate the stuff later, spray down a clear gel coat and let it set up. Then you mix marble powder with resin, color it how you want then add a 2nd smaller batch of the color you want the veins to be. Then add a bit of catalyst that causes the resin to harden and quickly slap it down in the molds and smooth it out. Then use a big vibrating motor attached to the table or the bathtub mold to get all the air bubbles out.
 
It sucked. It was hot, loud, you would get covered from head to toe in marble, the catalyst would cause chemical burns when it got under your gloves or on your skin, the fumes were noxious & the pay was shit.
 
Also if you're using cultured marble one of the reasons it wouldn't polish well is because you would be polishing the gel coat surface. I think its possible to reapply the gel coat but I never did the installation part just made the stuff. I hated every minute of it too. 

 
well shit... cultured marble sounds great? i mean it sounds kinda like corian? corian is strong as shit.
corian is just shit held together with acrylic resins.
 
considering the cheapness of this stuff im sure its not cultured. it was sold as "carerra" marble what ever the fuck that means. im sure its not from italy or what ever.
the cracks occur along the striations and you can see grains and flakes along these boundaries. im pretty sure its a natural stone.

 

[grantmichaels]

 
well shit... cultured marble sounds great? i mean it sounds kinda like corian? corian is strong as shit.
corian is just shit held together with acrylic resins.
 
considering the cheapness of this stuff im sure its not cultured. it was sold as "carerra" marble what ever the f**k that means. im sure its not from italy or what ever.
the cracks occur along the striations and you can see grains and flakes along these boundaries. im pretty sure its a natural stone.

 
white carrera (marble) is the most common white/gray/quartz marble that's used for window sills in like every house, ever ...
 
it's so popular, that all of the man-made products have a version of their product that riffs on it ...

 

[queequeg152]

it's so popular, that all of the man-made products have a version of their product that riffs on it ...

 
yea i see what you mean. 
 
ive been ruminating about my marble shittyness... i think going forward im going to use corian type material for all knee wall tops and window sills and niche sills ,because like you said... i can always get it in a marble type look, should i need to replace some of the marble while keeping some other pieces in place.  not like it will stand up to scrutiny, but it would do its job well enough.
 
the guest bath will probably just use cheap white corian with some flakes or what ever to jazz it up.
 
corian is great... i should have just gone this rout in the first place. i used a corian sample once as a standoff for something ... it cuts nicely though not with a shitty ripping blade. it routs nicely too... and polishes well enough, though i doubt that the polishing kit i bought will work on corian.
 
it just does not "feel" good, like stone or quartz does. but f**k it.

 

[grantmichaels]

one of the cool things about Corian is the ability to join it such that you can't see the seams, which at it's best, can be seen in the integrated sink bowls where the top and sink appear to be one ...
 
Corian is a pretty decent surface, so I agree there's plenty of like about it functionally ...
 
if the funds are there, there are quartz products now that have waves that looks like real stone, now, as opposed to appearing as particulate ... these look better once installed, than in slab form ...
 
customers often screw themselves when they shop for slabs, because they don't have the vision to see that it'll be divide into at least a couple of 'rips' across ...
 
picking a slab with a michelangelo like swath of dark graining from corner to corner (diagonally) looks cool as shit taken as a whole slab - but what happens when you subdivide it? ... still cool? ...
 
if you don't have a slab-size island, you don't get to realize slab-size patterns ...
 
it's a natural upgrade path to full-height backsplash, though ... "well, we can line up the pattern and run it up the walls, which is nice looking" ...
 
by the way, that's a nice touch ... i love the rectangular tile jobs these days, with what i think is often glass ... the Walker Zanger-type stuff ... BUT ... full-height backsplash made from the countertops is pretty cool looking too, i am a fan ...
 
i'm down on lamination, fancy profiling (triple pencil, ogee etc), cutting-boards, and marble/onyx, and approve/like the appearance of full-height splash, negative reveal cut-out's for the sinks, and taking the stone out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house ... using granite for the sills throughout the living room, for example, isn't very costly, and really adds a nice touch to the home - that isn't found in inventory houses ... lamp or coffee tables, similarly nice ...
 
granite makes an outrageously shitty cutting-board, so don't do it ... but it makes a decent set of coasters, or a cheese board, or whisky cubes etc ...
 
the number one thing, though, if you are trying to get a deal, is seeing if you can use remnant material ... we sell our remnant material REALLY inexpensively, and i've helped *MANY* friends pimp the shit out of their house for really inexpensively ... *always* ask the fabricator if they do remnants, and see if you can walk the yard to pick remants for your satellite space - bathrooms, laundry, etc ... we sell level 3 and 4 stone as remnants for less $/sqft than level 1 stone bought new in slabs ...
 
builders know to ask for it, but retail customers never do ...
 
there's nothing wrong with asking the shop to cut anything leftover in your slabs as 5" or 6" rips, flat polished on one edge, and having them leave them onsite at install ... then you'll have a bunch of wall-cap or sill-making material in your garage or whatever ...
and since you are DIY a lot of things ... let me just say, don't try to DIY your main countertops, probably, unless it's exceedingly simple ...
 
you really can't seam your own stuff and have it look good ... seams should be like 1/32", without chipping etc ... and the whole issue of compensating for cab boxes that are never level, a bit of an art in and of itself ...
 
but if you do, always carry the stone like this:
 
---
|  |
|  |
|  |
|  |
|  |
|  |
|  |
|  |
---
 
and never like:
 
-----------------------------------------------
|                                                       |
-----------------------------------------------
 
in the worst cases, some materials will break under it's own weight beyond like 3' length ...

 

[queequeg152]

you bring up alot of good points. especially about the remnants. ill have to check with the stone yards when i get into the guest bath work.
thanks for the pointers there.
 
im doing an extensive gutting and rebuilding of the duct work next though. r8 ductboard, load calculated and completely engineered for constant static pressure balancing and possibly a zoning system in the future, but probably not.  depends on how cheap the VRF equipment gets by the time the existing unit fails or vents to atmosphere(R22). though i guess i could try swapping gasses.
 
the existing duct work is like... hall of shame bad. i mean its REAL bad. worse than probably 90% of the bad ducting pics you see out there on the net. last years august electric bill was like 500 bucks lol. 
 
the gust bath work will not go down for another 5-6 months probably.
i just need to get the m bath shower done so i can take the g.bath shower out of service being that its leaking terribly... or it did before i sealed it up foam and epoxy shit. 
 
i was not planning on corian for the kitchen countertops. im pretty firm on quartz here owing to "feel". i think feel is important in accessible spaces or in shit that gets touched alot or touched as a part of its use , example being hand railing or those ballustrauds at stair cases with the ball ontop? all of that needs to feel good. 
 
its why i did hardi lap siding and not vinyl in this houses atrium area. the space is used alot, its very accessable and always going to be touched. floppy vinyl here would just not cut it, and was not appreciably cheaper than hardi lap anyway, just easier to install and maintain.  
 
likewise the kitchen surfaces get touched all day long... so i wanted quarts being it feels identical to stone. 
 
im not planning on doing the kitchen countertops. not unless something crazy happens and i need to get ready for a short sell lol... if that happened id be doing butcher block or some cheap shit tiled countertop i guess.
 
quartz isnt that expensive anyway. not the half inch stuff with the mitered edge banding? it needs good 3/4" plywood underlay, but its like 20-30 bucks a square installed + cutouts + fees for the mitered edge profile or other edge profiles.  hell you can order quartz at fucking IKEA now. its the LG brand i forget the name. they advertised at just under 20 bucks a square for some of the cheap less exotic stones, but i dont believe that shit for a minute.
 
i know exactly what you are talking about... the textured quartz surfaces. its some brand new shit thats very interesting, but insanely expensive. its basically scintered quartz. instead of casting a huge block and slicing out quartz slabs. they basically mix some powdered material,press it into a die and scinter it solid.
 
saw a youtube video about it a while back. its just too expensive though. this is only like a 200k house, nothing that fancy is warranted and probably will not hold its value.

 

[grantmichaels]

don't use HD/Lowe's ...

don't get charged for flat polish or roundover, or really bevel either ...

i'm for 3cm in the kitchen ... 2cm is fine elsewhere, but the narrow span in front of the sink, and/or cooktop, in 2cm, can snap under moderate load - like a stock pot filled with soapy water ... and you'll never get away w/ banging one of those hookers on it, lol ..

 

[queequeg152]

don't use HD/Lowe's ...

don't get charged for flat polish or roundover, or really bevel either ...

i'm for 3cm in the kitchen ... 2cm is fine elsewhere, but the narrow span in front of the sink, and/or cooktop, in 2cm, can snap under moderate load - like a stock pot filled with soapy water ... and you'll never get away w/ banging one of those hookers on it, lol ..

is 2 and 3cm the standard slab thicknesses? 3cm is over an inch and 2cm is more than 3/4"... seems like the stuff i saw on display at ikea was thinner.

ive never heard of quartz snapping from everyday abuse before. ill have to research that. the kitchen is like way far off so im not worried.

this happens even when its glued to the plywood? and what about when you have the thickened mitered edge i was talking about?

 

[grantmichaels]

is 2 and 3cm the standard slab thicknesses? 3cm is over an inch and 2cm is more than 3/4"... seems like the stuff i saw on display at ikea was thinner.

ive never heard of quartz snapping from everyday abuse before. ill have to research that. the kitchen is like way far off so im not worried.

this happens even when its glued to the plywood? and what about when you have the thickened mitered edge i was talking about?

quartz doesn't snap as readily, no ... but when you go sub-2cm, it's

but you typically only have 1.5" overhang past the cab boxes, and thick enough plywood kind of shows in that application ...

for islands and bartops, we use it for that, but we hold it back more than 1.5" so it's not revealed ...

yes to 2 and 3cm being std's ...

 

[queequeg152]

update time.

bought a "hot dog" tile saw blade... thinner kerf... little bit less runout and wobble. these f**king bullnose tiles man... they are SO f**king soft they chip insanely badly. this blade helped with that.



ii found this tiny ass possum.



he was turning on the atriium light over and over i was like wtf is going on. then i found this rat sized possum hiding behind some lumber and shit. never seen a possum this small before.

tails pretty cool. feels like a snake.





they have these f**king wierd hands... with legit thumbs. the hands can squeeze shit like human hands, its very wierd.







probably like 6 inches long minus the tail? he was real bony... idk if he was starving, or if this is normal for a possum... probably starving? idk.



its hard to see, but this thing has like 142 teeth. its rediculas.



anyway... tile stuff now.









tile to drywall transition.



kinda big gap... like 3/8" at its widest. i did not anticipate this! dont think it looks too bad though. other side looks similar.



threshold with tape protecting it... i sealed the threshold with dupont stone shield first this time!



plant stuff now;

maters. nipple high.





melons.

 

[queequeg152]

 

[grantmichaels]

We have opossum family that live in the brush pile in the back corner of our yard ...

Ugly ass mofo comes through the carport at night, and when I work late I usually hear him and go peek at him ...

They don't cause us any trouble, so we don't bother worrying about them ...

 

[queequeg152]

We have opossum family that live in the brush pile in the back corner of our yard ...

Ugly ass mofo comes through the carport at night, and when I work late I usually hear him and go peek at him ...

They don't cause us any trouble, so we don't bother worrying about them ...

yea this one was pissing me off so i "detained" him for the rest of the evening. seriously though he was turning on the atrium light on and off like 10x an hour. idk wtf he was looking for.. there is 0 food in there unless these things eat plants?

it was all bony like i said so i tossed a can of fancy feast cat food for the thing to eat. around 5am i got up to piss and i let him out... he was like 10x more pissed then when i grabbed him. i guess he was all lazy and lethargic when i caught him.

 

[Scovie]

and since you are DIY a lot of things ... let me just say, don't try to DIY your main countertops, probably, unless it's exceedingly simple ...
 
you really can't seam your own stuff and have it look good ... seams should be like 1/32", without chipping etc ...

 
 
2nd'd 
 
And let me just say, nobody around here put's ¾" plywood down first. You would have to somehow cover the edge of it under the slab.Wood trim? Also, plywood heaves. The industry standard is not to exceed ⅛" elevation variance in 8'. GM might correct me on that but the cabinets need to be FLAT. And the thinest solid surface material around here is 1". ¾" sounds REALLY dangerous to DIY. You have no idea what you are about to f**k up, (lol) trying to maneuver, seem, transport and install that shit. I HIGHLY recommend hiring it out. They will come out to your site, template everything in an hour and when they return for the install, it will also be done in an hour.
 
One more thing, (sigh) Unless you are a certified fabricator, (at least in WA state), you can't buy slabs of granite (or any other solid surface material marble, soapstone etc). I am a certified tile installer and my suppliers won't sell slabs to me because I am not a fabricator. Slabs are up to 10' X 10' and unless you have the proper insurance to transport/handle the stuff, it ain't going out the door to just anybody and supply warehouses won't cut it, they don't have the means.
 
Just pay the money and have it done. Seriously.

 

[queequeg152]

2nd'd 
 
And let me just say, nobody around here put's ¾" plywood down first. You would have to somehow cover the edge of it under the slab.Wood trim? Also, plywood heaves. The industry standard is not to exceed ⅛" elevation variance in 8'. GM might correct me on that but the cabinets need to be FLAT. And the thinest solid surface material around here is 1". ¾" sounds REALLY dangerous to DIY. You have no idea what you are about to f**k up, (lol) trying to maneuver, seem, transport and install that shit. I HIGHLY recommend hiring it out. They will come out to your site, template everything in an hour and when they return for the install, it will also be done in an hour.
 
One more thing, (sigh) Unless you are a certified fabricator, (at least in WA state), you can't buy slabs of granite (or any other solid surface material marble, soapstone etc). I am a certified tile installer and my suppliers won't sell slabs to me because I am not a fabricator. Slabs are up to 10' X 10' and unless you have the proper insurance to transport/handle the stuff, it ain't going out the door to just anybody and supply warehouses won't cut it, they don't have the means.
 
Just pay the money and have it done. Seriously.

no im not doing the counter tops. never planned to.

just the templates and tools to do the gluing is more than id entertain paying.

 

[queequeg152]

 
 
2nd'd 
 
And let me just say, nobody around here put's ¾" plywood down first. Y

 
didnt see this before i posted last time.
 
that may be the case with quartz? like i said the kitchen is like... atleast a year out. probably NEXT summer? idk. the kitchen is going to be like 15 grand. have no where near that atm.
i was just... assuming they treated quartz like they do granite?
 
like in this detail?
 

 
BTW. that also has the mitered edge detail i was talking about... though ive never seen that stone backing right behind the mitered edge before. 
 
i dont even have a design firmed out yet, just some random cabinet layouts in home design software thing.
 
regarding plywood distorting, yes this is true, however real, furniture grade plywood of thicknness beyond 5/8" will distort very little when kept inside the house. also the the counter is glued down to the plywood so there is that additional rigidity. there is also MDO plywood? layers of MDF sandwiched by soft pine layers? 
 
idk. ill research all this shit when i get to it a year from now.

 

[grantmichaels]

do not do that.
 
that's a ridiculous PITA for no reason, that doesn't turn out well ...
 
just get regular 3cm granite ... it doesn't need plywood, they (installer) just use little pieces of shim where needed to have it work out ...

 

[queequeg152]

the plywood? and the edge detail? 
 
i can see the edge detail being a PITA even with jigs and really good stone cutting saws etc, but how is the plywood a PITA? its just a giant sheet?  i mean i can rip plywood sheating down to what ever thickness in just a few minutes. its not that hard.
 
in all likely hood this is 100% done in the shop... i mean they are not going to show up and glue the plywood to the quartz or what ever material... it will all be done in the shop.
 
its probably unnecessary for quartz, but i dont see it being that much of a problem.
 
i do like the fake thick slab thing... as there is really no point in having a real thick slab. its inefficient and wastefull. but you are probably right in that a 3cm slab costs less than this the slab in that detail there what with all the labor involved.

 

[grantmichaels]

trust.
 
here's a story about a highrise in MIA that we replaced 135x of 160 units kitchen island tops - each made using two slabs of Delicatus - because the construction paused at the end of the recession in like '08, and the bldg because humid when the air was turned off. the 3/4" plywood took on moisture and flexed, breaking 80% (or whatever 135/160 is) of the units ...
 
if you plywood, you should really marine-grade plywood ... and that's not cheap ...
 
as for the mitered front edge ... it's shitty looking, because it'll chip like crazy down the length, and furthermore, it's prone to snapping off because the slabs aren't really in-plane over the length, for one, and also they aren't typically the same thickness from one end to the other ...
 
trust me, when you see the price for mitering the tops, you won't do it ...
 
the ONLY time we do that, is for modern-style console design stuff where we run granite vertically down to the floor, too ... and it SUCKS ... compound mitering the corners ...
 
i maintain, just get 3cm ...

 

[queequeg152]

trust.
 
here's a story about a highrise in MIA that we replaced 135x of 160 units kitchen island tops - each made using two slabs of Delicatus - because the construction paused at the end of the recession in like '08, and the bldg because humid when the air was turned off. the 3/4" plywood took on moisture and flexed, breaking 80% (or whatever 135/160 is) of the units ...
 
if you plywood, you should really marine-grade plywood ... and that's not cheap ...
 
as for the mitered front edge ... it's shitty looking, because it'll chip like crazy down the length, and furthermore, it's prone to snapping off because the slabs aren't really in-plane over the length, for one, and also they aren't typically the same thickness from one end to the other ...
 
trust me, when you see the price for mitering the tops, you won't do it ...
 
the ONLY time we do that, is for modern-style console design stuff where we run granite vertically down to the floor, too ... and it SUCKS ... compound mitering the corners ...
 
i maintain, just get 3cm ...

 
alright, ill probably take your advice here.
 
i hear what you are saying about the mitered corners being a flexural issue, being stiffer than the rest of the slab... i guess i just saw it alot with corian and figured it would work with quartz just as well.
 
but the plywood warping when exposed to ambient humidity... thats a f**kup on the general contractors part.  a buildign with finish work should never be abandoned in place like that
 
also what was the plywood? do you know if it was furniture grade 5/8" + grade?  because subfloor ply and roofing ply is like 1/3rd the cost... and alot of people are tempted to build shit with it however its just not designed to lay flat ever... i mean like never ever. its only 3 -5 plys of softwood pine and out of the factory its cupped and potato chipped... because its designed to be glued down and screwed.
 
the plywood that you pay 2 bucks a square for is alternating layers of soft and hardwood veneer and for the most part its dimensionally stable with indoor conditions... NOT exposed to the extreems of moisture you mentioend above, but much more stable than the sheathing or subfloor stuff.

 

[grantmichaels]

We do 4, 5, and 6cm by laminating combinations of 2 and 3cm stone, but you almost NEVER do it full-depth - it's usually just the front 3", deep enough to get past the cab boxes ...

the highrise project, we rescued it, and weren't the original fabricator ... in fairness to them, though, from A/C to no A/C at all in Florida is pretty extreme ...