What did you do today?

[Dan Dubeau]

Note to self, don't leave tank extracted from machine overnight expecting gravity and fate to not cook up some cruel trick for you on your return...
Shopping tomorrow, since I have stolen the last of the cat litter from the supplies cupboard in the house, and we have 4 cats...

The law of gravity is very closely related to the law of Murphy.

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

building a workbench, the length of one wall. this requires much wrestling of plywood sheets, clamping, marking. just allow no distractions, or it will never get done, he says on the internet...

Easy Peasy. Try building a workbench the length of all walls. You'll need a trap door in the floor to get under the bench

[jdedmon91]

I finally finished getting the outside of the shop painted. Did I say I hate painting


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[PStechPaul]

After my difficulties trying to mow the high grass, weeds, brush, vines, and small trees in my hilltop meadow, I have been wanting a high wheel brush cutter. Over the weekend, I saw one advertised on Facebook Marketplace, for $50. I contacted the seller, and he said that it was hard to start, and would only run a few seconds before stalling out. So on Monday my friend and I drove about 30 miles to Westminster and looked at the machine. We tried to start it but it didn't even "catch", although it seemed to have reasonable compression, and overall condition was barely used. I was going to offer just $40 but he also threw in a pitchfork, so I thought $50 was fair. Here is the machine:





I verified that it had spark, and I found that the spark plug was loose. The primer bulb was missing, but I added a hose to the fitting and was able to get fuel into the throat, but it still would not start. I used starting fluid spray (ether) and it started and ran for a few seconds and stalled. So I removed the carburetor (which was remarkably clean), and took off the bowl. I cleaned some varnish off the inside surface of the bowl, and removed the main jet, but didn't find anything that would cause a problem.



I did some research on-line and found very little on this problem, but one discussion noted that there is a "hidden" low speed jet under the plastic idle adjuster screw. So I removed it, and found some black crud or corrosion on the tip, which also has a tiny hole. I used a wire from a wire brush to clean it, and put it back together.



Today I re-installed the carburetor, and now the machine starts and runs well. At first it was surging at higher speed but that got better as it warmed up. It still seems to need priming, which I now accomplish by blowing into the primer tube. A new primer is about $10, but I think I can use a squeeze bottle or eyedropper to do the same thing. Here are a couple videos of it starting and running. In the first video I think I had not set the throttle to "ON".

http://enginuitysystems.com/pix/tools/PowerMate_Trimmer_4316.AVI

http://enginuitysystems.com/pix/tools/PowerMate_Trimmer_4317.AVI

Now to drag it up the hill and attack the massive green invasion!

[3 Phase Lightbulb]

I finally finished getting the outside of the shop painted. Did I say I hate painting


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Fiction can be fun.... Where is the picture?

[Cenedd]

Did I say I hate painting

Now there's a man after my own heart! At least it's finished though and you can relax.....until your wife tells you that you need a change of colour!

[J Tiers]

Yellow flames can exist when the burner is first ignited, but if they persist, I agree there is a maladjustment or dirty burner.

I respectfully disagree; it's much more than this. It's partly/mostly about fast money. I offer this example. The garage, dealership, etc makes the most money by making 50% on a $350 part and charging $100 per hour to install it rather than charging 50 bucks for parts and $100 for more hours of work. ......

Not commenting on that issue, just why a new motor even though the old one could be made to work.

The home HVAC biz has had some real issues.

Years ago, one manufacturer's dealers were notorious for taking apart the heater/furnace (if it was a competitor's unit) for regular pre-season cleaning and adjustment, then announcing that it was too defective and they were not allowed to put it back together because it was dangerous. All they would do was either install a new one (of theirs), or leave the pieces laying where they were. Typically they did that to frightened elderly ladies. That manufacturer is still around, but does not do that anymore.

[MrFluffy]

Still plugging away, I removed the pump from the mounts, and discovered all of the rubber mounts had broke and it was just sitting there, explaining why it was so noisy. Also I extracted the intake filter from the tank and it was completely plugged with gunge, but thats ok, because at least it still had the filter to get plugged. I have bad experiences of being sold things with empty canisters in the past...
You know that bit about keeping hydraulic systems scrupulously clean? I think that ship sailed a few decades ago for this one. They are chips embedded in masses of slime under the pump itself.


Cleaned the pump up while keeping the fluid away from the electrics, it seems unscathed by its living conditions but only time and a pressure test with new fluid and clean filters will prove it for sure. Now need to clean the tank next then order some rubber mounting bobbins now and get 5 gallon of 46 grade hydraulic oil.


All good fun, friday night stood at the parts cleaner, living the dream here :-)

[Cenedd]

Nice. Round here, the 'parts cleaner' is called Cenedd!

Re-wired the shop circuit to include a wall-mounted emergency stop switch. Mainly because my lathe's one has stopped working (warranty fix in progress) but also a good backup. It's cut the power to everything in the shop - including the doorbell...you never know when that's going to get you!




Man cave sign was a birthday present from my wife. Tube is a 120W heater - just to keep it above freezing in the winter - and the black thing is Cat6 networking for the office side of the building. The building is 5 x 5m with a good 2/3 being office space.
The silver roller you can see in the top left corner is the table for my mitre saw. Stored in the only place I had space....hung ominously from the ceiling. The ladder is stored on the ceiling directly overhead. This picture is, in fact, the clearest spot of wall anywhere....and that's only because I need some space to stand!

[PStechPaul]

I let the draft inducer blower motor run for an hour or so, and it was uncomfortably hot, although still running smoothly. It is rated 1/50 HP continuous duty, but in use it probably only runs when the furnace is producing heat, which is probably only 50% duty cycle under most conditions. I don't know if that is normal or not, and I would not trust it without removing the blower cage and properly cleaning and lubing the shafts and bearings. If it were in my own home, I might be OK with just checking it or seeing if it starts making noise again, but it is reasonable for a professional repair to replace it with a new unit. However, I think the $700 charge is about twice what would be reasonable.

I contacted Horizon Services via Facebook Messenger and they wanted me to give them my friend's contact info so they could follow up, but I think she would be upset if I did. However, I think they should routinely follow up to see if the repair was satisfactory, although in this case it might be hard for the customer to know, since the furnace would not be running when it is 80-90 degrees outside.

The yellow flames might have been temporary, and caused by dust dislodged during service, but I think the serviceman should have cleaned the burners and performed other PM and diagnostics, including a CO check.

[J Tiers]

I let the draft inducer blower motor run for an hour or so, and it was uncomfortably hot, although still running smoothly. It is rated 1/50 HP continuous duty, but in use it probably only runs when the furnace is producing heat, which is probably only 50% duty cycle under most conditions. I don't know if that is normal or not, and I would not trust it without removing the blower cage and properly cleaning and lubing the shafts and bearings.

.......

Motors run hotter than your hand likes. ESPECIALLY blowers that are not connected to a duct and flow resistance. Open flow is the heaviest load on most blowers. it might be overloaded and drawing too much current. If the blower scroll is not on it, it IS overloaded. If the scroll is on it, then cutting the exit area by about 25% is usually reasonable.

Also, it is almost certainly an "air over" motor, which depends on the induced airflow to cool it. Normally, mounted in the "eye" of the scroll, they are well cooled.

[AD5MB]

I built a bench to build a bench. I screwed a POS particle board table top onto prefab workbench supports so I can saw and route on plywood sheets while standing up. if it survives tomorrow it did its duty.

[TGTool]

I spent some time taking measurements for mounting a taper attachment. This is going to be a more involved project.

The lathe came from an estate sale, and as we were moving the lathe away from the wall, there on the floor was a seriously nice taper attachment. I thought, heck, the guy got this and never got around to mounting it. This will be nice.

On closer inspection, the attachment is every bit as nice as I thought, scraped surfaces here and there, but I found out why it wasn't on the lathe. Well, more than one reason. It's designed for a telescoping screw which this lathe doesn't have. The one sheet mounting instructions point out that the mounting surface will need to be scraped for alignment. And there are no tapped holes in the saddle. A lash up clamp job and indicator point to some metal removal to have it really lined up. So, to facilitate the mount-and-check process I'm working out where it ought to be so I can drill and tap the saddle. There should be adequate room for movement before final location and drilling for alignment dowels.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. It's clear that things were scraped to fit at assembly on the lathe itself and some of the initial machining was just "close enough" The two flat ways of the crosslide/saddle mount aren't the same height from the bed. Even the top surface of the dovetail is a slightly different height on each side. This is just a clearance surface, but you might have thought they'd have ground straight across to the same level. Maybe they ground one side so it cleaned up, moved over and then found they had to go deeper to clean up there.

Anyway, not a serious problem since what is there works, but it's just a little annoying to have to make sure I note EXACTLY which surface I'm referencing from and can't assume that two surfaces that look like they're the same plane really are. Co-planar maybe but not coincident. And then there's the business of making up the telescoping screw unless I find a replacement that's close enough to adapt.

[Dan Dubeau]

Went and picked up the maple slabs I cut last week from my Dad's place. Took a bit of doing to get the trunk section up into the trailer, but the slabs were right at the threshold of me being able to manhandle them around and went pretty easy. Getting them off at home was a lot easier with the 3pt forks I made a couple years ago (but still havn't painted.....). Now I play the waiting game for a couple years until they dry, and then get to turn them into a bathroom vanity for me, coffee table for my dad, and a book case for my sister. The backyard climbing and swing tree will live on.

[vpt]

Just got in from the first camping trip of the year. Had to change a brake caliper in the camp site. Had good times as always!