What did you do today?

[RB140]

So proud of myself today I filled up my gas tank and it only cost me $22.00 dollars


Now I can cut my grass one more time

[mattthemuppet]

finally rolled over 30,000 miles on my commuter bike (Giant Road-E 1). Took a diversion around the neighbourhood to do it, but still

[I make chips]

That's a lot of hours on a pedal thing!

[mattthemuppet]

It sure is, roughly 1500 hours I have a butt that would make an old cowboys saddle jealous!

[DennisCA]

Started putting up the board & batten paneling

[Cenedd]

Looking god so far Dennis. I've been wood-elf'ing myself. It's going.....adequately. Modelled it all in CAD first to make sure I'd get all the cuts out of the number of pieces I was ordering and that it'd all fit. Somehow completely failed to spot that I'd need three stakes per joint to connect it all together. Fortunately I did eventually find some A4 stainless (aka 316) that were long enough and didn't cost a ludicrous amount. Waiting for those to arrive but a quick test with some similar BZP screws locks the last bit together solidly. Stakes are 316 stainless 10mm bar with a pointy end - have lathe, will overthink stuff Cheaper than any of the screws I could find in A4...and apparently it has to be that for green oak (these are litterally wet to the touch inside when you cut them) or they just rust really fast.

One of the stakes (pins? Dowels? Nails even?!) in the back left corner hit the concrete foundation of a (really ugly) rockery that was there and just wouldn't be driven in the 200mm below bottom of the wood. My wife said it was clearly hopeless as it wasn't possible to get through that...but a 10mm SDS masonry bit (that's long enough to look like I'm compensating for something!) fits down the 10mm hole in the wood and got that sorted. I think I can say that corner is sufficiently anchored!

[ChazzC]

Received the Thunderbolt Dock and now have everything hooked up and organized. The dock not only gives me enough ports, but also makes it easy to disconnect the laptop for travel:


From the left: MacBook Air, iPad Pro 9.7", Acer 24" Monitor.

Although the M1 MBA will only support one monitor (plus its own display), Apple's Sidecar feature allows the use of an iPad screen, freeing up desktop space. I keep my Mail window on the iPad, use the Acer for CAD work and the MBA screen for miscellaneous items, such as keeping up with Andy Booth.

[Cuttings]

I recently did a little job making a couple of new wedge type pieces that run in a slot on the front of the mill table where the power feed stops screw in. To do this I had to tilt the head over 15°. So while I had the head over I took it a little farther so I could remove the cover on the back and check the grease on the gears inside. All looked good so I put a little more grease on and trammed the head back on center. Then while I was in the maintenance mode I cleaned off the ways and applied some fresh way oil gave the feed screws a little more fresh grease and cleaned everything up. Funny how one thing can lead to another so easily. Feels good to have the mill all cleaned up and lubricated. Good for a few more months now.

[challenger]

Took out more hives. Been doing 4-5 every week. Yesterday was a record. I took out a hive that had well over 100 lbs of honey,

[Ridgerunner]

Welded up a a modular ladder rack. I used stake body corner brackets for the cross braces. The top and sides come off by pulling 4 ring-grip-quick-release-pins. Because of the rear window protector welded on mounts, I had to make the sides off set to install. This requires the bed to be raised slightly to slide them in; then lowered.







One side removed

[DennisCA]

I laminated a strip of brass shim to the bottom under my lathe bed, there's a tab holding the saddle down to the ways. I guess over the decades this has gotten worn because the saddle could be lifted quite a ways compared to farther away from the headstock where it's been used less. It's probably wear from both above and below, but I am not ready yet for tackling scraping of the ways so this is the best I can do. Glued on the strip of brass where the slop was worst.





It's a lot better now, hardly any slop left. I scraped it a little for oil retention.

Also that's my new chuck mounted and tuned in by tapping it and tighetning the bolts, undersized register. It's within a hundreth of a mm now.

[nickel-city-fab]

didn't really document much of it, but I made a start on fixing up my new/old welder for regular work. Late 40's or early 50's is my best guess, based on the Willys engine.

I removed the original canister-style oil filter and substituted a more modern spin-on filter bracket with a (very large) AC type PF932 filter, originally used on GMC 2-ton trucks such as the C60 (school bus/dump truck chassis) Kept the original filter bracket and added a small piece of angle to get enough height above the generator to drop the filter element. BTW, these old beasts used a bypass filter system as opposed to full-flow. The Willys uses hoses from the block to the filter, similar to some Continental flatheads. One nice feature of the Willys block is that the oil pump is external to the engine, bolting onto the side of the block. Makes it easy to rebuild the pump and crank up some PSI.

All-new spark plugs -- original AC type 45, never used NIB.

Also removed the old throttle and choke cables, they will be replaced with nice marine-style locking t-handle cables.

Cut off the old exhaust from the manifold -- it was obviously not original, and very poorly done. Discovered a bolt snapped off flush in the exhaust flange (sigh)

Began work on a new intake elbow/pipe for a K&N clamp-on filter. The OE style filters are available, but they are NOT cheap.

Planning to add an OE Tillotson sediment bowl on the gas tank. Need to get some pipe fittings.

Planning to clean all the contacts and commutators. Need to make up the cables, I have ~140 feet of 2ga available in two equal sections. Using the Tweco MPC2/Lenco-40 style connectors. For a 250 amp machine running 1/8 rod it should be adequate. 1/0 simply wasn't in the budget.

The more I work on this welder, the more it is obvious that some demented monkeys had their way with it about 50 years ago. It does run and weld but man, they just farmer-fixed that whole machine so that nothing was proper.

[DeereGuy]

Finished up my shop expansion

[nickel-city-fab]

Ugh. Got that exhaust manifold drilled and tapped. Not without incident. Finished plumbing the new oil filter, that'll work good. Finished plumbing in the Tillotson fuel bowl. Went to fix or remove the manifold heat stove flapper, thats when it got fun. Finally decided it would be easier with the manifold off the block, busted off 3 bolts flush. Two in the manifold, one in the block. Saved all holes just fine with drill and tap. Waiting for new gaskets in the mail. Have the new heat stove kit waiting (anyone else remember those contraptions to warm up the carb/intake?...)

[Richard P Wilson]

If I understand what you mean by 'heat stove flapper', then yes, some small UK Ford flathead engines had them in the 1950s. They were a pain, and tended to seize up. Seemed to be replaced by manifolds with a 'hot spot' plate instead.