Good morning!!!!

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 66F @ 6:30AM. Sunny. High around 95F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.

That's some encouraging news about Harry, JKC. How much longer will he be in class?

Which side do you feed your screener from, RS?

You could always charge your EV from your generator, Drew.

A few years ago I tried to buy a set of torque sticks from the Snap-On guy but he wouldn't sell 'em to me. Said they were not accurate, and to just use a torque wrench. Of course he sells more expensive torque wrenches that way. And I get real nervous crawling under anything heavy while trying to apply a large amount of torque. At least with a torque wrench only your arms would be under there, and not your head.

Still haven't figured out the odd smart switch behavior. Put the switch on another circuit with other LEDs and it worked fine, and the LEDs go all the way off. Put it back and that LED stays dimly on. Next step is to put the new LED in one of the other circuits and see what happens. If it goes all the way out, the LED I removed will go onto the wonky circuit.

Called to check on the tractor hub yesterday morning and was told they were working on it. Several hours later I got a call that it was done. Put on a clean shirt and picked it up, and was shocked at the price: almost $400!. One of the seals was $65, but they charged two hours of labor at $135 each. I could have done the work in fifteen minutes with the right bearing puller. Next time I'll go to a machine shop, or rent a puller at Autozone. And my next order for filters and such won't be from that dealer.

It was too late and too hot to put the tractor back together when I got home, so I took a nap instead.

New car cover was delivered, so I'll wash the car this morning and then work on the tractor. Might get to some mowing, but it might be too hot by the time the tractor is ready.

Hang in there, gang, Friday's comin'!

 

[jbrumberg]

Kyle- Nice picture thanks for sharing.

High level haze and clouds with 26ºF as this morning's low temperature. My friend's Wife who is a serious flower gardener lost a couple of her favorites this morn. It has been a mix of clouds and filtered sun all morning so far. The trip down to the "Big City" for supplies was uneventful; some day I may look at just how much $$$ I spend on bird food, feeders, etc. I expect these weather condition to continue despite the NWS predicted "clearing skies." In theory this high pressure dome building in should be suppressing that wildfire smoke plume south; so far it is not. My Wife smelled smoke here a couple of days this week.

I hope that everyone is having a manageable day today.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning! Low of 51°, heading to 72°. Showers and T-storms this afternoon. 80% chance today, 70% tonight, 90% tomorrow. Only got an 1/8" yesterday.

Today's agenda will be to spread some more gravel. Then might be able to get the big strawberry planter filled. Can't really get the tractor off of the drive.... don't want to make any more work to fix ruts in the mud. Might not be able to get to the dirt pile......

It's "dog food day", so KP duty will occur in between gravel spreading.

RNG, does the light itself have a circuit board? If so, I bet it was damaged. Something is leaking power.....

Drew, good to hear the RV repairs went well. Kudos out to PopG! --- and Ken too!

Don, that's a lot of chainsaw work! How many miles of trail work have you done?

Need to order some blades for the garden tractor. I had swapped out to the "spare" set. The set removed had no "lift bends" remaining..... totally sandblasted away! The spare set isn't much better. Need to see what's available for "heavy duty" use. Our sandy soil wears blades out in a short time.

Everyone have a great day!

 

[sodamo]

65°F and .10 inches rain.

Planning on a full day with the pw, but a significant storm forecast to be coming in today from the west.
Got out of Costco less than $700. Unfortunately, that change wouldn’t be enough to get me a beer at any of our Happy Hour venues except home. Did get a reeled extension cord that appears nice. The door attendant told Sophie she got her husband one and he is extremely pleased. Guess I should have gotten two.
Pickup some nice looking Ribeyes destined to hit the grill later today.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[Engineer42]

This would have been a great day to load up the ZT and take it to the lot and mow. But I would have had to be half way there by now, so looks like a Costco run instead

Thinking about a shed at the lot to keep one of the small tractors in, probably the BX. When I look at shed prices I think I can build one for 1/4 the cost. So considering building it in sections here, and hauling down on trailer to do final assembly there. It’s only time and money.

Have you given thought to a 20' Sea Can for the lot? Probably more money than what you could build your own shed for but more secure.

 

[rswyan]

Which side do you feed your screener from, RS?

I've fed it from both but typically I feed it from the high side - to avoid the potential of any large rocks bouncing down and hitting the tractor.

FWIW - and it may be different out there - the Autozones around here do not charge anything to use their "rental" tools. More of loaner program.

They do require paying a deposit, which they will refund once you return the tool.

I think they allow 90 days ... which IMO is insane and probably subject to people abusing it.

Good luck on sussing out what's going on with the LED/switch ...

 

[rswyan]

What about the protective paint level on those new extra hard blades of mine?

To quote Martha, "It's a good thing ..."

Do I run them over the grinder lightly to take off the paint and improve the sharpness?
Or leave them well enough alone.

I wouldn't do anything to them.

Moreover, when (and if) you do sharpen them, I'd take some care in how you go about doing it ... keeping in mind that they use a special heat-treating process to achieve their hardness and durability.

Don't want to end up annealing the metal in the process of sharpening them.

I started to sharpen my original set and then got to thinking about that and checked their website for how to go about doing that and didn't see anything.

Been meaning to send them an email about that but haven't locate my round tuit yet ...

my thought was these extra hard blades would work well in the late Fall sucking up leaves and small sticks using my
oem JD power bagger. It creates enough suction by itself I don't need gator or high suction blades when I use the bagger.

They should work fine for that.

I've always enjoyed sharpening knives and blades, find it very satisfying. Have always owned a grinding wheel. Have a medium and extra fine wheel on mine.

I have used both flap discs and grinding wheels in an angle grinder.

I've also hand-filed them ... which I kind of prefer (better control, no heating of the blade material) but the downside is that it takes much longer and is strenuous on the hands and arms.

then the issue is to you put a real knife edge on your lawn mower blade?

The blades on the Kubota MMM call for leaving a 1/16" (IIRC) flat edge on the blade. No idea what the heat-treating process is on those but they appear to be fairly soft.

They cut pretty well even so ... probably due to the blade tip speed.

An edge so thin it would slice any weed effortlessly, but if you get lazy and don't get down and pick up that hardwood stick, and run over it instead, that's when the heat treating of this blade's edge will earn its pay.

Like I have said previously, I've been very impressed with how well these Marbain blades have been holding up.

While we generally try to pick up the sticks here, I can't say that we always get them all and some do get run over with the mower.

Mostly maple and oak ... so yeah, fairly hard wood.

 

[rswyan]

67F and sunny @ 13:30, heading up to around 75F for the day's high.

Refill mealworm feeder first thing.

After that locate that fitting for the Water Buffalo and get it to filling.

Then start prepping the bed for the strawberry plants and start getting those in the ground.

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday ...

 

[LouNY]

As far as sharpening blades the antique large slow turning wet stones will sharpen a blade without the heat buildup of the new grinders and flap wheels.
Something like this, I haven't seen a new unit with larger then a 10" wheel in quite awhile.

 

[sodamo]

This would have been a great day to load up the ZT and take it to the lot and mow. But I would have had to be half way there by now, so looks like a Costco run instead

Thinking about a shed at the lot to keep one of the small tractors in, probably the BX. When I look at shed prices I think I can build one for 1/4 the cost. So considering building it in sections here, and hauling down on trailer to do final assembly there. It’s only time and money.

When a kid, pre High School, my parents bought a lake lot that previous owner had already installed sonotube type concrete posts. Lot was about hour drive so somewhat inconvenient. My Dad designed the cottage based on using 4x8 plywood, 36x24 as I recall. During the week he (with our help) would precut all the structural members, load onto the pickup, and drive them up early Sat morning and we would assemble. No electricity and no generator.