Good morning!!!!

[mostly_gas]

Good evening all. 45F at the start, clear, light wind. High temp was 73F, clouded up for a few hours, them sun came back out, wind 12-17 from north. Bike ride this morning, nap. Choir sang Christmas carols at tree lighting ceremony. Will work on front Christmas lights tomorrow.

 

[rswyan]

Looks like we may have a cold front moving in later today ... high is only supposed to be 38F.

Got a few things done today in spite of getting started kinda late.

Cut the 12' drop piece of 4 x 4 x 3/8 angle in half to make it a little easier to handle by myself.

Then I used one of those pieces as a backer when I welded the 16" piece of angle on the tine bar to create a box for the pivot, to act as a heatsink and minimize warping:

After that I cut the tube for the pivot that goes on the 3PH frame, and drilled it and tapped it for a grease fitting. Also ran a cylinder hone through it a few times to remove whatever coating they had on it:

Have slowed the hydraulic feed way down on the bandsaw ... not sure what it's doing for the teeth on the blades, but the saw has stopped throwing the blades off.

Lastly, I pulled out the needle scaler and went to work on the 3PH frame. No sense going to all this effort unless it's gonna get some paint and be made to look all purty, amirite ?

I'm guessing that KK probably does little to nothing in the way of metal prep before they paint their stuff. Why you'd bother to throw paint on something without removing the millscale first I have no idea ...

Anyways, the paint is coming off pretty easily ... let it rust over the winter to get whatever millscale is left on it off and then squirt it next summer.

It needs to go back over to Mike's for a little torch work here shortly ... the plate that the tube for the parking stand is welded into is badly warped and the tube itself is bent forward ... also the right bar on the A-frame is bent ... might as well handle those while we're about it.

The brace from the top link to the rear of the unit was a piece of pipe that had the ends crushed flat (my personal favorite) and welded on ... it was pretty badly pitted up so I cut it off (had to, to make it quick-hitch compatible) ... so it's going in the scrap bucket and will get replaced with some (fresh) 1 1/4 x 3/16 wall square tube.

A few of KK's welds look like they could use a little beef up (although they haven't broke ... at least not yet ... )

 

[rswyan]

... RS quite an undertaking I'm sure it will turn out perfect ...

LOL ... what could possibly go wrong ?

No pooping problems today very tired though.

That kinda thing has a way of taking it out of ya ...

Went out to blow more leaves and remembered that this past Tuesday trying to help with removal of section of old asphalt and got flipped in the air by piece breaking loose with me on it. Mini ex pretty strong and now left ankle and right hip no functioning properly so leaf blowing on uneven ground almost impossible and painful. Getting old not for sissys

No it ain't ...

 

[Buppies]

Were you a steel fabricator in another life, if not you would make a good one now

 

[Buppies]

LOL ... what could possibly go wrong ?


That kinda thing has a way of taking it out of ya ...


No it ain't ...

You are correct my carelessness caused this

 

[rswyan]

Heaven forbid you should have to take a cab off, but if you run into any major engine/transmission/drive line issues, that's part of the deal.

That's a very good point ... thanks for the insight ... :thumbsup:

Given the hours on the tractor (coming up on 2100) it's well worth considering.

Unless you have an overhead hoist of some kind, a modular design would minimize the impact of that a LOT. And no, I don't mean a come-along. You might get away with it, but you might also drop something on something or someone else and really regret it.:shocked:

Yeah ... I've got a chainfall ... I think it's rated for 2000 lbs ... (OTOH, it is a HF unit ... )

But I don't have an gantry or anything to hook it to ... sure wouldn't trust the bottom joist of the trusses in the barn ... at least not without supporting them in the middle.

Could probably enlist the aid of a neighbor ... but I hate to rely on that, or inconvenience them for that matter.

Probably should keep my eyes open on CL for a cheap chunk of H beam ...

It was bad enough having to take the floor off the 3240 to split the chassis, and I did use a come-along, and I felt like I'd cheated death even though the thing only weighed a few hundred pounds.

I'm fortunate ... the floor for the B2910 is in two sections ... a left and a right. I'd guess they probably aren't too heavy.

 

[rswyan]

Were you a steel fabricator in another life, if not you would make a good one now

LOL ... I dunno ... maybe ... I sure do enjoy it.

Wish I had more actual formal technical training ...

Scary thing: Uncle Buck (who is/was a certified welder) has said more than once that I weld better than half the guys he worked with at the last place he was at. Don't know that that is saying all that much though ... :laughing:

I guess maybe part of it is just actually caring about the work you do ... sorta got the impression that the guys he was talking about just really didn't care to do it right ... seems kinda sad to me ... particularly if you have the training and education ... but just can't be bothered.

The reason why it's scary was this place was a structural fab shop ... big stuff ... and the potential for having something fail would be pretty ugly.

 

[rswyan]

You are correct my carelessness caused this

Huh ?

Sure didn't mean to imply that ... so I don't know how I could be correct about it.

But I appreciate the situation ... rarely a day goes by for me, when something ain't hurting ... usually it's multiple somethings

 

[rswyan]

Speaking of welding and fabrication, here's a neat time-lapse video of a guy building a CNC plasma table ... (run time 12:22):

 

[Eric Salop]

Good morning all. It's going to be tempting to stay mostly inside today, I've already had a cold soaking while out and now the weather is kindly showing a pretty rainbow while it decides if the next yellow tinged black cloud is to let loose with rain or snow. Ground is saturated, I'm trying to keep off fields with tractor as it's starting to make trenches in more than just the gateways.