3/7-9/17 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was snowing in Seattle when I left and it snowed pretty much all the way to Camp Serendipity. There was about 5 inches of new snow on the ground that had not been plowed when I arrived at noon but I had no trouble driving in, turning around, and parking at the foot of the concrete stairs.

On my first trip up to the cabin I found one mouse in the trap at the foot of the loft stairs. After throwing it out, resetting the trap, starting a fire in the stove, and hoisting the flag, I went back down to the truck for the rest of my gear. Then I had my lunch and a nap.

When I got up, I went out and worked on the front stair railing. The next step is to drill the holes in the stair treads to receive the balusters. I selected a few bits and drilled four test holes in a scrap 2x4 in order to find the size that works best. When I tested the rebar in the holes, it was clear that the ends needed to be dressed so the rebar would seat in the holes nicely. Rather than filing or grinding the rebar, I decided to use a hammer and an anvil to beat down the burs and sort of taper the ends. I used a 10-inch piece of railroad rail as an anvil and I used a ballpeen hammer to dress the ends. It worked very well so I dressed all 10 or 15 pieces of rebar that I had previously cut.

Once I settled on the correct drill bit, I wrapped tape around the bit an inch from the tip as a guide for drilling the proper depth. Then I drilled the first six holes as an experiment to see whether or not I could drill plumb holes by eyeball. I figured that since the holes were only an inch deep, I should be able to do it.

When the holes were drilled, I tested them by sticking a piece of rebar in each one. I was shocked at how bad they were. They weren't close to being plumb and they certainly weren't acceptable. I now had to figure out a way to drill them plumb.

Before I went in, I fastened Dr. Dick's rebar cutter back onto the deck with a couple of lag screws.

On Wednesday, there was about 8 more inches of new snow on the ground. It had snowed all night but the sky cleared up and it was nice and sunny for most of the day. I called Bill and wished him a happy birthday after I had my breakfast. We had a nice chat.

After sleeping on the problem, I decided to use my DeWalt corded drill to make the holes because it has a bubble level built into it. In order to make sure the holes were centered correctly, I drilled a small pilot hole first. Having the cordless drill available for that meant that I didn't have to change bits in the two drills. I drilled a few holes and was pleased that I was able to drill them perfectly plumb by watching the bubble. I proceeded on and drilled all 35 holes in the treads, the porch beam, and the last two in the porch deck.

After having my lunch and a nap, I used a plumb bob and a sharpie to mark the underside of the rail for the holes directly above the holes in the treads. That was harder than I thought it should be. What ended up working fairly well was to wrap the string over a thin piece of wood that had a small notch cut into it for the string. Then holding that with my left hand and pinching the string with my thumb, I was sort of able to let the bob down slowly while holding the notch and string right under the rail. If things worked right, the bob went down to the hole and settled there and when it did, I marked the underside of the rail with the sharpie with my right hand right where the string and the notch met the rail. I can't say I really got the hang of it, but I did make all 35 marks.

Then, before I went in for the night, I split up a bunch of firewood.

On Thursday morning, it was 27° outside and there was another 5 to 6 inches of new snow that had fallen overnight. I woke up at 3 AM and couldn't go back to sleep. I read from 4:00 to 4:30 and then was able to doze off at 5. I finally got up at 8 feeling kind of crummy.

After breakfast, I went back out to work on the railing. I decided to check all the marks I had made on the underside of the rail because I really didn't trust them. To check them, I got a small screw eye, and a small drill bit. I ran the plumb bob string through the screw eye and drilled a small hole up into the rail at the first mark. I couldn't use the bubble drilling upside down like that, but it was easier to keep the bit plumb because since I was drilling at eye level, I could sight against columns and the foundation wall that are plumb.

Next, I turned the screw eye into the small hole finger tight. Then, by starting the bob at the top, hanging right under the screw eye, it settled down right away. When the bob was still, I lowered it by feeding the string into the screw eye, and the bob went straight down without any swinging. It showed me that the mark was in the right place if it ended up centered in the hole.

The method worked very well, so I proceeded to drill a small hole up into the rail on the remaining 34 marks, and then one at a time, I turned in the screw eye and verified that the marks were in the right places. They weren't. There were 3 or 4 of them out of plumb enough so that I moved the marks and drilled new holes in the rail. I am now ready to drill the big holes into those pilot holes and the rail will be ready to receive balusters. Finally, I am making some progress that will be visible.

I left for home at 1:00 after spending a half hour shoveling away the berm the county plow had deposited at the end of the driveway. It snowed heavily all morning so I was a little concerned about being able to get over the pass. Everything went fine until I got to the railroad tunnel portal. Then the traffic came to a dead stop and I sat there for about an hour, with the snow coming down, not knowing whether the pass was open or closed. But once the traffic started moving, it flowed normally the rest of the way home. I learned that a semi had gotten crosswise across both lanes and it took an hour to move it out of the way. It could have been much worse.