6/22/19
(Above: An exaggerated warning sign to notify visitors that there are now hot wires within Jacobhouse. As to this blog-post’s title, it was inspired by the picture above and by a video that my friend, Shae, shared with me many many years ago. Watch at your own risk. )
Building Summary: Today I started off by neatening and half-wiring the various circuits of Jacobhouse into the breaker panel. (Half-wiring because I do not have any breakers at the moment, so I was only tending to the neutral / ground wires.) After I got everything I could stripped, labeled, and fastened in place, I set up some warning tape and turned the power back on. I then proceeded to set up and turn on the portable air conditioning, and after that, commenced with closet-wall activities which included: fastening the top slides to the wall frame, straightening the pull-out’s front by tilting back all the slides, and opening/closing the invention to ensure it slid smoothly*.
Commentary: At this point in time, I am quite content with the progress I have made over the past couple days. Two tasks that I was dreading to some extent have been taken care of: the pulling of cable #4 through the 2″ conduit** and the adding of drawer slides to the closet-wall. The former task was already detailed in yesterday’s log, so today I will include a couple interesting bits from the latter activity.
Firstly, after I had attached the first slide on the top in place, I discovered that it was positioned inside of the closet-wall cavity a little bit farther than the lower slides. I was going to fix this, but before I did, I realized that it was a beneficial error. By having the top slides offset backward by an inch and half compared to the bottom slides, it ensured that the top was helping the bottom support the pull-out when it was fully extended. The second interesting finding was that I had to tilt back all four slides. Apparently, despite their all being 100 lb. rated, there was a slight bow in those slides when the closet was fully extended, and to add to this, the top potion jutted out above the bottom even when it was closed. Tilting back the slides*** fixed all of this and helped the pull-out closet glide smoothly and sturdily in and out of its orifice.
The description above is a little difficult to understand without context, so here’s video proof of the functioning closet-wall:
Final Note: Tomorrow I will start off by cutting a piece of ¾” plywood for the back of the slide-out closet. This will help counterweight the front, and it will keep items on the future top and bottom shelves from rolling off or being pushed into the ‘abyssal reaches’ – that place in many pieces of complex furniture where objects sometimes disappear are never to be seen again.
*And out of sheer enjoyment.
** I’m still not entirely certain that cable #4 was needed. It seems that there is some tricky business that can be done with the neutral / ground cables when it comes to subpanels, but I’m not enough of an electrician yet to know all the specifics. What I do know, however, is that cable #4 is through and ready for attachment to the neutral connector. Thank goodness.
*** Lowering the back side of the slides whilst keeping the fronts in the same positions.
That high voltage video was absolutely ridiculous, enjoyed the post