Introducing myself

[MountainDon]

Rob, a number of years ago the unique Japanese Douzuki and Ryoba saws, Japanese water stones for sharpening, etc. all became popular over here. Anyone who sold quality tools had them. And they do work really well. Are there any American saws etc used/sold over there?

[YamaDaiku]

I've been cutting and pasting all this info you guys are sending me! Great stuff and thanks a lot! So much to learn. I was laughing Glenn when you said I should build my own. You give me waay too much credit. I certainly love a challenge but I'm a long way off from a full scale engineering feat like that. Let me get through the 1-1/2 story first. Laughing. I have a lot of great info from you guys though and two more months at sea to explore it.

Don, about a year ago I was lucky enough to befriend an old Japanese carpenter. He loves American baseball and teaching me carpentry. Anyway he asked me to get him a set of American saws, hammers and an axe. I did thinking he wanted to work with them but instead he hung them on his living room wall as decorations. I've never seen our tools used over in Japan. I have brought many Japanese tools to the states for friends though. I'd be happy to do the same for anyone here as well. There is a website called japanwoodworker.com they have a good selection of tools but usually at higher prices. People I know will use that site to get the name of something and then ask me to find it for them.  

When I'm in Japan the net is my refuge when I need a little English in my life. So I really enjoy doing stuff for people whenever I can. Unfortunately I have to go into town and get online at a cafe. Our area is too remote for anything other than dial up and in Japan you are charged unbeleivable rates. One of my favorite spots online is Rockler.com if you guys haven't heard of them you should check it out for tools and hardware. Great service too.

[YamaDaiku]

I just spent a couple of hours reading some the off topic conversations. I'm really glad to have found this group theres a lot of common sense intelligence here.

I downloaded a few more pics. One of the view from the rear of my land and a stream of pics of the work my wife and I did building our dinning room. I wanted to try my hand at plastering. I watched workers plaster a few walls and my over confident ass thought it would be easy. Not so at all! But what resulted doesn't look too terrible and memories we laugh about now will last our lifetime. One example is standing on the ladder with my wife below holding the ladder steady while I was shoveling plaster into a hole between two beams. I slipped and the entire bucket of plaster covered my wife from head to toe! We laughed until we were crying. As you see in the pics I built a wrap around bench with hinged lids to provide storage. This was a very easy to build project. After going through all the pics in this site and collecting so many ideas for my own home I thought maybe I could contribute an idea or two. Enjoy!

[fourx]

Great pics, Rob- and a great cat. I noticed your query about wind and/or solar users earlier..I also use solar, but on a more basic scale than the others here, just four panels and four standard marine batteries with everything 12 volt, just a small inverter and no generator Works fine as long as suburban comforts like blenders and microwaves are not important to your lifestyle.

[glenn-k]

Beautiful work, Rob.  Not much opportunity to get online from the ship I assume - that's a bummer.  I have a friend here who works on the MM ships as a cook.  His name is Rob also.  Seems he is only out a couple weeks at a time.

Careful in the off topics - rants -- some of us get a bit weird in there. :-/    We try to present the other point of view -- the one many don't want to talk about or hear and the one we feel everyone should make themselves aware of.  

Then there is just any general type of topic subject you want to talk about.  John started that as a way for our community to talk about anything that interests us.

[YamaDaiku]

Hey guys not sure how you are making the quote feature work but to reply to fourx message I think your system may be where I'm looking to start. As I read info I got from the group I think I'll need to keep part of my place on grid and try to supplement that with alternative means. Right now I still have so much to learn. I don't yet know enough to even ask intelligent questions. When I get home I intend to follow Mountain Don's suggestion and get my place analyzed (that can't be spelled right) anyway to see what kind of wind generator would best suit me. My biggest energy drain is undoubtedly my woodshop. I have a tablesaw, bandsaw, planner etc etc that draws a lot of power. Even though the summers are very humid we don't feel the need for A/C and other than the fridge there isn't much in the house draining power so maybe a solar system like yours might work well for us. How long on average can you maintain power without the sun. I guess what I'm asking is the storage capacity of your batteries.

Oh by the way that is the world's most useless cat! I actually watched him watch a rat cross the yard and he didn't lift a paw to even attempt a chase. He makes Garfield look like an overachiever!

Glenn your description of the off topics sounds like just the place for me. Aboard ship we get into some great healthy debates. I say healthy because we don't allow egocentric mind sets into the conversations.  The immigration topic went on for weeks! I think it's a wonderful way to learn. I feel like I get an education every trip! So is your friend on a tugboat? A couple of weeks at a time is usually something small. As cook he has the most important job on the ship! Out here nothing changes moral more than a good or bad cook.

[Amanda_931]

Any kind of question???

Oooohhh!

Does your cat have a full tail?

(I have read about a few restored farm houses in Japan.  Nowhere near as many as here.  Windows might be one of the reasons there are so few.)

[glenn-k]

If you want to quote the whole paragraph, Rob, hit the quote button right above the reply you are interested in quoting - it will open the  reply box with the proper tags around the quote.  You can take text out - try not to get part of the tag at start and finish of the quote, --- or --- you can copy the part you wish to quote - select- right click - copy - then hit the reply button - reply box opens - then hit the quote button on the top line 12th button over -blue arrow on paper-  --it will insert quote tags - then you just paste the message you copied earlier  - then go below the last quote tag and type the rest of your comments.

I am not sure what type of ship my friend Rob is on, but I think it is something bigger.  I will ask him next tie I see him - I think they do the West  coast of the US.

I have 12 L16 batteries wired series parallel for 24v 375 AH per set - or 1125 AH - using about 1/2 of total would give me about 550 AH  if fully charged.  Gets into a bunch of number crunching for not to much use - many variables but 8 to 12  L16's is a pretty good system --- Probably about 3 or 4 light sun or wind days there for me -- I kick the generator on an hour or so about 1 time per week --plus or minus -- in the winter.  Seldom in the summer.  I would encourage you to start out with at least a 24V system if you do it.  Smaller wire - -more versatility to expand.  I went with stackable sine wave inverters and make 220 v to pump water and other things with.  Heavy use with bigger machines requires a pretty good system.  

Does your cat have a full tail?

I think it has an empty tail, Amanda -- it didn't eat that rat so there's probably nothing inside. :-/

[glenn-k]

Glad you enjoy the off topics, Rob.  Sassy, a few others,  and I try to keep things stirred up in there a bit.  If we find things getting a bit too quiet we just open up another can of worms there to keep things interesting.  Most of our cans of worms originate in Washington D.C.

[MountainDon]

suggestion and get my place analyzed (that can't be spelled right) anyway to see what kind of wind generator would best suit me. My biggest energy drain is undoubtedly my woodshop.

Rob, you might be able to get some use out of the "Kill-A-Watt" meter.
http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html
It does have a max wattage of 1875 so it may not be any good for some shop machines. I have one that I've used to measure innumerable appliances. One interesting thing I found that many of my appliances test out at using fewer watts than the nameplate rating. As much as 10-12% in some cases. It meters down to about 1 watt (on 120 VAC), gives the amps, Hz, watts, KwHr over a period of time. Got mine a whuile back on Amazon.com

...and you have it spelled right. Do you use Firefox? built in spell checker.

...one more thing.. have you noticed you can modify or remove any post you've made. It's in the same location as the quote function.... upper right. The modify makes it easy to try out editing quotes, etc. As well as changing any errors you might make when typing. One of my fave features.

[MountainDon]

Rob,
Q:  what kind os wood(s) are in common use there? Where from?  
Don

[fourx]

I think Amanda maybe is asking if it's a Manx cat ie: with just a stumpy tail?
Rob, you woud need a generator for power tools, etc, if you ran a small system like ours- all I run off it are a laptop ( via an inverter), lights, car CD player and radio, and house pressure pumps and pumps for the garden. We don't evan have a fridge now, just an icebox, no TV ( although we used to have a 12 volt colour one)...and no washing machine..hey, I did say non-suburban We can run about five days on our present storage with no sun.

[glenn-k]

I have to give Amanda a bad time whenever I get the opportunity--so Is the tail half empty or half full?

[YamaDaiku]

Does your cat have a full tail?

Hi Amanda, I'm sorry but I don't know what a cat's full tail is supposed to look like. I coexist with the animal because we happen to share an intense love for the same woman however there is a silent agreement to stay clear of each other. It's much the same between my wife and my beloved Golden Retriever.

Glenn I had to go back and forth between sites to understand what you told me but now I got a better understanding of it. I guess my next question should be about cost. My budget for building the 1-1/2 story cottage on an existing slab plus the alternative energy system is $50,000. I'll build the cottage myself hiring out only for the wiring and plumbing. Baring extreme cost differences between America and Japan do you think it's possible?


Mountain Don! Amazon is my third home! Thanks for advice on the P3. I ordered it right after I read your message.

What kind of wood? Well in my area there is an abundance of cedar. Not red cedar more of a white cedar and a beautiful cypress called hinoki. Hinoki is very similar to Port Oxford cedar in the Pacific Northwest. It is used for bathtubs. Wonderful smell. Pine is available from China, Canada and the US. Hardwoods are somewhat difficult to find. The native Japanese elm is wonderful but expensive. I get it quite often though by liberating boards and posts from houses due for demolition. I always find it amazing that the Japanese would rather burn perfectly good wood than recycle it. I could go on forever about the hypocritical way most Japanese view enviromental conservation but I'll leave that for an off topic day. Where was I? Oak is imported in small amounts but not in my area. I've been tinkering with the idea to build a Morris chair which calls for quartersawn oak but I haven't been able to find it yet. Some birch but very small sized. I would say the white cedar is the most commonly used wood.

[MountainDon]

...hiring out only for the wiring and plumbing.

You know your limits better than anyone, but I wouldn't sell yourself short on electrical or plumbing, depending on local laws, etc.

Locally a homeowner has to pass a test to be able to do electrical installations on any building permitted work. It's not all that difficult; I've done it three times here, over 22 years. Plumbing isn't all that bad either, especially if you can find an old plumber for gyidance like I did when enlarging a bathroom. Same thing; simple enough test and I did for $200 or so what the pros wanted $1K to $1.5K for.    The most difficult part of both the electrical and the plumbing was finding out just how things must be done to pass code. Anybody can do the grunt work. Ya just have to learn the approved way of doing it.

[glenn-k]

I guess my next question should be about cost. My budget for building the 1-1/2 story cottage on an existing slab plus the alternative energy system is $50,000. I'll build the cottage myself hiring out only for the wiring and plumbing. Baring extreme cost differences between America and Japan do you think it's possible?

From what I've seen others here do by doing most of the work themselves, I would say it is doable.  We have seen the houses dried in for less than $12000 as I recall -in materials.

Alternative energy system can start small and be built up.  We could go over phases with you so you don't get overwhelmed all at once.  Don't buy stuff that is too small to start or you will spend more.  --Do as I say -- not as I did.  It does not have to be new -- only working good when bought used.  Try to buy from a trustworthy source though.  Both of my sine wave inverters were used.

We could also help you on the plumbing and electric as Don mentioned- with study on your part - you could save there too.

[MountainDon]

I always find it amazing that the Japanese would rather burn perfectly good wood than recycle it.

Not so much different from here, except here it would end up in a landfill.  :'(  I'm about 1500 miles south of the Canadian border and I find it weird that most of the lumber I buy is from Canada,     rather than homegrown.

[glenn-k]

It is against the law to burn lumber here.

I keep a few hot dogs handy.  :-?

I just have barbecues --- big ol' barbecues.

Usually I save the junk lumber up and cut it into kindling sizes for winter wood though.

[YamaDaiku]

Don beleive me if I could do the work I would. I've already run into problems with some locals who seem to think I am hurting their business by doing things myself. I installed a small light outside my front door. Next thing I know a city inspector shows up saying he got a tip I was building without a license! The way this guy acted I truly thought I was going to be taken off and beaten! He was rambling on at lightning speed and I couldn't get but one word in ten. I'm not ashamed to say my wife came to the rescue telling him to carry his mafia ass off our property. Now I get watched which is another reason to go wind/solar. Traditions here say that only a carpenter builds a house, only a mechanic can change the oil in your car and only an electrician can wire a house. It's tough getting past that. I recieved the plans for the 1-1/2 story a couple of days ago and faxed it to my wife. She will have it translated into Japanese and then we'll bribe a carpenter to stamp it with his seal of approval. Only then will I have permission from the city to build it myself. Playing the game.

A pic for Amanda.

[MountainDon]

It is against the law to burn lumber here.

Glenn, sometimes I don't know if you're kidding or not; but you're in the People's Republic of CA so anything absurd is possible likely.  

[MountainDon]

Don believe me if I could do the work I would. I've already run into problems with some locals who seem to think I am hurting their business by doing things myself. I installed a small light outside my front door. Next thing I know a city inspector shows up saying he got a tip I was building without a license!

Oh dear! The permit gestapo strike again! They're everywhere, followed by the black helicopters.

I vacillate between trying to stay underground, under the radar, or surrendering (re my-cabin-in-the-woods to-be-built.) So far I haven't made any overt moves.

Cute picture!

[YamaDaiku]

Do as I say -- not as I did.

Learning from other people's mistakes is my favorite way to save time!

[YamaDaiku]

Careful Don big brother might be watching us as we speak!

[glenn-k]

I' not kidding, Don.  I watched two neighbors loading waste lumber from the old dancehall into the back of a pickup to haul it to the landfill where it will cost them about $40 to dump it - rough guess.  They were trying tothink of someone out in the country far enough to be able to burn it.  Our fire departments are like little police forces here too.  Some even carry guns.  Most are decent though.

Rob, we have areas with the same problems -- mostly where the unions are strong.

Great for your wife.  Run those little public servants out of there.

Are they considered public servants over there?  or a division of the Yakuza?

[glenn-k]

Careful Don big brother might be watching us as we speak!

There is no doubt- he watches anything he wants to and now he wants it all.

http://www.rense.com/general76/fedsplan.htm

[highlight]Thread drift and helicopter alert.[/highlight]

Learning from other people's mistakes is my favorite way to save time!

...I can say -- and money.