mon oct 9
Ten days into the month, and I’ve blogged about Nothing!
It’s not like I’ve been napping and watching TV…
Time was when my shop felt huge.
Between a couple batches of cabinet panels, a couple of motorcycles, the aftermath of cidering, and an alarming level of disorganization, it’s feeling a little cramped.
We got an early frost and most of my tomatoes bit the dust.
We saved what we could, canned a few quarts, made a dynamite batch of spaghetti sauce, and composted the rest.
Fried green tomatoes are overrated.
My hard cider is a bust. Both batches!
Supposedly, you put 5 gallons of juice in a 6 gallon bucket, add yeast, and the primary fermentation produces a couple of inches of foam.
I’m thinking I over-sulfite’d the first batch, and failed to fully dissolve the sanitizing powder in the second batch.
If anyone asks, I am studying genetics, and breeding fruit flies.
One month into the program, and my finger still has not grown back.
It is, however, mostly healed, and I’m looking forward to showering without a plastic bag over my hand.
My shop safety awareness is sky high.
My typing is in the toilet.
wed oct 11
I went to an auction in Warren today.
Some old guy was down-sizing before he died (for once), and it was amazing. He was some kind of a jack-of-all trades. Woodsman / auto-body guy / farmer / excavator / etc, and he’d accumulated an extensive collection of skid-steer attachments, vehicles, and tooling, and it was all on display. It started with a couple of 30-year-old BMW’s and worked thru sports cars, convertibles, a dozen beetles, some dump trucks, a cherry picker, a few tractors, several trailers, roto-tillers ranging from self-propelled 8′ wide tracked units to 8″ wide weed trimmer attachments. Snow removal stuff. Trenchers. Lawn tractors. Tools of every description.
And about a dozen vintage motorcycles. The three I liked went for $350, $1400, and $2200 – way over my budget – and they all started right up on the first kick. Where’s the fun in that?
I snagged a very nice retracting pneumatic hose reel for $50 and would have bid on a sheet metal brake, but I was freezing my butt off, so I left early.
1972 Triumph 650, as ridden by Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Runs great. $2200.
Today’s auction attracted vehicle lovers – and thus high prices on vehicles.
For bargains like my $100 KZ750, you need to seek out auctions that have a lot of anything-but-vehicles, so the typical attendee won’t be interested in the odd treasure.
I turned off the water next door a couple months ago so I could cut pipes and install sinks. And with the onset of heating season, I need to turn it back on. So today, I went around and turned all the shutoff valves clockwise, and then turned on the main valve. I could hear the water fill the pipes, but it didn’t stop, so I turned it back off and went to check on all my valves again. Turns out that the valves in the washing machine wall port are CCW-off, and they’d spewed water clear across the utility room, creating a big puddle on the floor that dripped thru to the basement. I guess I’m just glad the utility room isn’t on the 2nd floor.
sun oct 15
Every couple of evenings, I spend a little time fiddling with the Honda which I rescued from the scrap yard. Now that the frame is “straight,” I’ve been re-assembling it without actually fixing anything — just making sure all the parts mate properly, while noting what’s missing or needs to be replaced.
There’s a lot missing. There’s a lot that needs to be replaced. I already knew that.
The bigger problem is that the frame is still a couple of millimeters off in a couple of places. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but you’d be surprised how troublesome it is. There’s a domino effect where, if I fix certain offsets, some other part of the frame will become misaligned. I’m a little frustrated.
I can buy a new frame on eBay.
I can toss the whole project in the trash.
Or I can box up the pieces, set them aside, and find something better to do.
Deep down, I know the right answer, but that doesn’t usually stop me.
This photo is looking directly down the centerline of the frame. The engine drive sprocket aligns exactly with the driven wheel sprocket, and the rear frame’s center holes align exactly with the weld seam of the front of the frame.
And yet the wheel is visibly 1/2″ left of the frame’s center.
Drives me nuts.
fri oct 20
Another week, another auction. I think they save them for the fall.
This one looked promising, but it was kind of a bust. Looks like both halves of a couple died, and the house and their ‘stuff’ was … going, going, gone. He was a ‘car guy’ and owned more socket sets than you could shake a stick at. I’d been looking for another set, and had high hopes, but the prices were crazy-high. More than retail, it seemed. I was waaay out-bid on all the socket sets, missed my chance on a parts washer that went dirt cheap, and I passed on a rusty motorcycle which was more rust than motorcycle.
I got dejected and left early, empty-handed.
If you like owls, this was the place to be, as the lady of the house collected anything and everything shaped like an owl.
Figurines, clocks, posters, calendars, salt shakers, refrigerator magnets, snuff boxes, christmas ornaments — you name it.
But NOT, unaccountably, record albums by The Owls.
On the drive home, I stopped at a garden center and bought a load of mulch – from a lady with a 2-foot iguana wrapped around her neck. I’ll stick to cats.
sun oct 22
Up to now, I’ve scrupulously avoided touching the Kawasaki, on the theory that I don’t need another project right now. But the other day, I was working on the Honda’s front brakes and couldn’t get the caliper cylinder to budge. Google says the easy way to remove it is to pump grease thru the bleeder valve (which looks like a zerk) and hydraulically force the piston out. But the bleeder was a rusted mess, so I figured I’d borrow one from the Kawasaki. It was pretty stuck, and ‘it sheared itself off’ from the torque. The second one came out fine, and the Honda’s greased piston popped right out, but it was a sobering thought that the very first bolt on the Kawasaki that I tried to loosen – broke off.
Four bleeder valves:
The original: A rusted out mess.
The wrong size.
A sheared off half.
A good one.
Honda discontinued this part number, but … no problem!
One of my garden goals for the year was to grow beans, so I planted a ton of them, and the spring rains killed most of them. Eventually, the weather shifted, and they grew. I picked them this week, after the frost killed them for good.
With radiant heat, the floor is warm, so we spread the beans out on a sheet to dry.
The trick to shelling beans eludes me, and the first pound took forever.
Mary made a dynamite baked bean dinner out of them. Do you drink a red wine or a white with beans?
We cracked open a bottle of mead (fermented honey) and it tasted water-y and sour. The better to fart with!
mon oct 23
When I was trying to get the Honda’s brake piston out (before I tried the grease trick), I tried soaking the whole thing in a bucket of penetrating oil. It didn’t do a damned bit of good, but it had the unintended (educational) side effect of swelling the rubber seal that holds the brake fluid in. Boy was I surprised!
The ID of the black rubber ring is supposed to be a tight fit to the piston.
One more thing to mail-order.
wed oct 25
Back in 2001, when Christmas rolled around, I decided to make everyone a bulletin board. I made simple wood frames, cut up a sheet of cork-board, and covered each piece with a nice piece of jacquard fabric, using spray adhesive. They were a big hit.
In the kitchen next door, there’s a surface next to the window that has bulletin board written all over it, and since I’ve done it before, I figured ‘Why not?’
I made a frame out of barn board and I bought a ceiling tile that’s about the right size for he substrate. We found some fabric that goes with the walls, bought some adhesive, and I cleared off the workbench and laid the fabric flat, backside up. Half the adhesive went on the fabric and half on the ceiling tile and then – carefully! – I eased the tile onto the fabric.
Whoops – there was a little wrinkle, so I backed it off and smoothed it out.
Whoops – there’s another wrinkle. A big one this time, and as I smoothed it out, yet another fold got stuck. In no time flat, there was a tangled, sticky wad of rumpled fabric stuck to the ceiling tile, and I was in the market for another piece of fabric.
How not to glue it..
Dandelions don’t lie. Global warming is real.
Mon oct 30
On saturday, Mary decided to pitch in next door by washing the windows. We both wish she hadn’t. The picture window is fixed, and had to be washed from the outside, so she got a ladder, washed the window, and then fell off and hit her knee hard. I was nearby and heard the scream/crash and came running and found her in pain on the ground. We could not get her into the car, so called 911 and the police and an ambulance came. Turns out Mary had taught the cop some manners in Sunday school 25 years ago, and she got good treatment, but there were plenty of gasps and sound effects, and she was hurting.
Take her away
The local hospital is 10 minutes away and I know, from my recent finger-related trip, that it feels a lot longer than that when you’re hurting. With all the ski areas nearby, there is an excellent orthopedics practice there and, after a lot of waiting, IV’s, x-rays, bed pans, a CAT scan, waivers, and the like, an OR was prepped, and they did some surgery that ended shortly before midnight.
“Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.”
They attached 2 metal rods to stabilize the joint until the swelling goes down. They can’t fix it until then.
They kept her there for 2 nights and then walked us through how to get her in and out of bed, on and off the pot, and in and out of a wheelchair, and into a car. (Getting her OUT of the car was homework). She’s not going far for 2 weeks, and she’s not going fast for 6 months.
Even with a 1-story house with nice wide doors and halls, we need a way to get a loaded wheelchair into the house.
A ramp to he rescue!
tue oct 31
Every Halloween, we buy a bag of candy, just in case we get any trick-or-treaters. And every Halloween, we get NO trick-or-treaters, and I’m left ‘holding the bag.’ My attitude is that it’s better to just get rid of candy than to keep it around, so I got my Kindle, started reading my book and, every couple of pages, popped a chocolate in my mouth. While Snickers have a plastic wrapper, Reeses PB Cups have a wrapper and a paper cup, and I guess I wasn’t paying attention, because I shoved a Reeses in my mouth and started chewing – paper cup and all.
I put the bag away.
Trick or Treat !
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