I went out the other evening to play in the floods, it had rained hard and caused some localised minor flooding of low lying roads. I failed to get any video or pictures along the way. But I did take these when I got home.
I had a sickle blade, which my father-in-law had kindly given me. I’d sharpened it sometime ago but then it had hung on a hook every since, until today, when I found the inspiration to put a handle on it. The sofa that gave the leather for a few of my previous projects also had some nice woody in it, this is a bit of that. It rremains to be seen how well the handle stays on. I just heated the tang up nice and hot then beat the handle on.
Literally, I have an axe, and it had a very obtuse edge on it. My understanding is that a general purpose axe should have an more acute angle towards the edge. So I grabbed the angle grinder and hacked the edge away.
A rear indicator failed a few days back, so I set about changing the bulb. Only to find that the bulb was good and that not only did the indicator not work, but also none of the other lights in that cluster either. So I tested the bulbs and all were good. So I set about testing for voltage at the plug connector, I soon realised that the earth/ground pin had dissolved into nothing and was now just missing. After some faffing around I also discovered that if you turn the ignition on and the car can’t operate something that it will longer put power to it. So that had me baffled for a bit until I read about that online. I wound up soldering in a new earth/ground wire and bypassing the plus with the missing pin.
I thought I would just have a test of my welding skills, to see if I think I am of a reasonable skill level to take on the repair to the church gate. I have been asked to repair a gate hanger at the church. I have taken advice from a building conservation specialist who suggested it was best to make the repair as permanent as possible and also in keeping with the original design. So I shall be welding in some new metal to beef up the worn out pin. This is rather than drilling and tapping out the pin and using a bolted connection. The result of the welded option should be better in his opinion. Of cause if the weld doesn’t take well then I can always revert to drilling and tapping. These two welds were at very different amps, the lower left one was at about […]
Having fitted a new front prop-shaft I felt it best to go around with the grease gun and put new grease into all of the other places that have grease nipples, such as the steering joints and rear prop.
We got just the most pathetic dusting of snow last night. Which was interesting as for the first time I was clearly able to make out where the soft of the Land Rover brushes the door lintel on the way into the garage.
Well, I thought I was going to make make a swing set from that 1″ round bar I found but when I was able to bend the bar by hand I realised something. So when I dragged the two lengths of this stuff out, I found that they were 6m lengths, and so would make better legs, so since I was holding the V shaped bit, I thought I’d just see if I could open up the acute angle to be a right angle, without using heat. To my surprise I was able just bend it, but as it bent I could feel the metal cracking and breaking, so I kept bending until it broke. I then inspected the break and found that it wasn’t steel at all, or at least wasn’t a grade of steel that I wanted to work with. I actually just asked some friends what they […]
Tonight I stacked the reminder of the wood that was delivered last week. I had my trolley jack and jacked up the roof, then chocked the pallet I was jacking up and left it like that, I think the roof sheets will now shed the water rather then funneling it into the garage. It’s just a temporary permanent fix until we get around to wanting to put a new roof on it. This year isn’t looking promising and neither is next year.
A very rotten tree had fallen on the outskirts of the village, so a neighbour and I went down, cut it up and bought it home. It’s very well seasoned, possibly too well, it’s very light and will burn very fast, but it’ll still give of heat and my neighbour said he’d burned worse, so that was good enough for me.
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