4/27-29/10 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I was diagnosed with a sinus infection so I took some time to get a prescription before I left. I also talked to Mike Sullivan about my plans for ventilation. He concurred with my plan to use a 6” duct to draw air from the ceiling and circulate it through grills in the back rooms or outside during the summer. He suggested an inline fan in the crawlspace.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:00. There was a light rain but it stopped after a while. I was met by Bert and Ernie as usual. I had my lunch and then took a nap. I think the sinus infection has made me tired and sleepy. When I woke up, my teeth hurt. I suppose that has something to do with the infection too.

I built a fire in the wood stove and in the process, Bert and Ernie came around for another biscuit apiece. I started out by measuring a length of BX cable that I had gotten from somewhere. It has three AWG 10 wires in it and I was thinking it might work to wire up the water heater. It looks like it is long enough if it enters the service panel from the bottom, which I’d rather not do, and it is not long enough to reach up to come down from the top of the panel. I’ll ask Brian what I should do.

Next, I used the new 4 ½” hole saw I had bought and started in earnest boring the hole through the log wall for the vent pipe for the bathroom ceiling fan. I got through the rim joist and into the log about 2 inches before I quit for the day.

On Wednesday I built a fire in the wood stove. Bert showed up before I got the fire going and by the time I did, he had left. No patience, no biscuits.

I went back to work boring the hole through the wall. I used a home-made chisel that I made to clean the caulk out from the slot in the gable walls where the ceiling boards will go. It is made from an 18” piece of #4 rebar that I hammered sort of flat on one end and then ground to a chisel edge. It is long and skinny so it is just right to reach in and chip out the wood after the hole saw had cut in an inch or two.

When I finished, I discovered that I had messed up the arbor for the hole saw. This had never happened to me before so I was puzzled as to what I had done wrong this time.

What happened was that the two pins that go into the two holes in the saw blade after the blade has been screwed onto the arbor had somehow gouged into the thumbwheel that pushes the pins into the holes. This had raised burrs that locked the thumbwheel and prevented it from turning.

I even tried turning it by using a vise-grip on the thumbwheel and a wrench on the shank of the arbor, but I couldn’t budge it. I was afraid that if I tried any harder that I would actually bend those pins. Instead, I found that I could get a file in there and file down some of the burrs. After filing them down, I was able to turn the thumbwheel enough to be able to reach some more burrs. After doing this a few times, I was able to turn the thumbwheel all the way and remove the arbor from the blade.

Then I removed the retainer so that I could remove the thumbwheel all the way. Then I worked on all the burred surfaces and smoothed them all out. After putting it back together, it seemed to work normally.

I am still not sure what I did wrong but I think I probably tightened the thumbwheel too much. I guess all that is needed is for those pins to go into the holes in the blade and that is all it needs to be tightened. If that’s the case, I don’t know what prevents vibration from working the pins back out of their holes during operation. I guess from now on I will not tighten the thumbwheel and I will keep checking to see if the pins are working loose. I guess the time I spent on this will be worth it if I learned something useful.

Next, I took a big hammer and chisel outside and chiseled the log so that it will accommodate the cap. I took a picture of the finished, or so I thought, hole and then went in for lunch and a nap.

After lunch, I discovered that the hole was out of alignment. I thought there would be plenty of slop in a 4 ½” hole to align the 4”x4’ pipe so I wasn’t careful enough. I just aimed the hole by eye. The end of the pipe that had to mate with the ceiling fan was off about 2 inches. I spent several hard hours reshaping the inside of the hole with Rasputin, a saw, a hammer and chisel, and a big gouge trying to get the pipe to meet the fan fitting. I worked from the outside mostly, but I also worked overhead from the inside. It was all hard work but I finally got the pipe to fit.

Next, I connected up a length of wire to the ceiling fan and attached the fan to the ceiling joist. It attached to the other joist from what I had thought it would which caused a major part of the misalignment problem. The fan has a mounting flange only on one side so you can’t attach it to the other joist without modifying the fan.

Then, with the fan installed, I finished attaching the pipe and the cap on the outside. I was happy to get than done. I took a picture of the fan and the cap.

Next, I realized that I had some problems with the wiring plan for the bathroom. The plumbers had put a vent pipe right where I wanted to put a box for the fan switch. I also had second thoughts about how to install a set of mirrors and medicine cabinets like we have at home in Seattle. The medicine cabinets are built right between a pair of studs with a swinging mirror in front of each one. The vent pipe messes up that plan too.

Then there was the question of how many GFCI protected receptacles on how many separate circuits I need in the bathroom. Somehow I had gotten the impression that I needed two of each, but later I got indications that I only need one. Since I didn’t know for sure, I decided to mount the fan switch in a box I already had installed on the wall just beyond the door swing.

I already had a pair of cables strung down through the wall where the other box would have gone, so I decided to reroute those cables plus the new cable from the fan so they would enter the box at the edge of the door swing. I used a hammer to punch out some new knockouts in the ceiling joists, but there are three joists that are too close together to get a hammer between. So I picked out those knockouts with my pocket knife.

I was reaching way up overhead standing on a small stepladder working on those knockouts. At one point I was using my left hand and I forgot which way the knife was oriented. I was getting pretty tired at this point. Anyway, the knife partially closed up and cut a fairly big gash in the end of my left index finger.

Of course I had to go down to the trailer and tend to it right away. I cleaned it out real good and bound it up tight with a bandaid covered with Neosporin. The bandaid kept it from bleeding so I went back to work feeling pretty stupid.

I finished up some odds and ends completing the fan installation, except for the switch wiring, and then quit for the day.

I devoted Thursday morning to cleaning the cabin up. I had made a huge sawdust mess cutting and shaping that hole so now that the project was done, it was time to clean up. I am also expecting visitors next week so I want to have the place presentable for that reason as well.

I put away tools, parts, and materials. I cleared off table tops, and started sweeping the floor. About that time Larry showed up to see my progress. I was happy to show him much more progress than he is used to seeing. I proudly demonstrated how the toilet flushed and how the shower ran. I took him outside to see that the septic tank and the pump control box were all installed.

I decided to leave the rest of the cleaning until next week so Larry and I had a nice chat until it was time to close up, have lunch, and leave. I left for home at 2:15 after another nap.