Good morning!!!!

[buckeyefarmer]

Upstairs in a double decker wait to leave

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have heard horror stories about how much it takes to cut a tree down $500 to $1500 per tree

Dad got a really high quote a few yrs back. Ended up finding a guy who did it on the side. Guy climbs to take them down.

 

[daugen]

do you have a home safe with a biometric reader?
may not be so foolproof

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/20/us/fortress-gun-safes-recall/index.html

 

[rswyan]

56F and cloudy @ 15:00, high was 59.4F earlier. Rainfall so far is 0.83", yesterday we got 0.23", day before that 0.01" ... so things are "well-watered" at the moment.

Amazon dropped off a case of canned cat food today along with treats a little bit ago.

Finished trimming and fertilizing the strawberries planted in the ground yesterday.

Also moved more of the starts from runners onto the top shelf where they could get watered from the rain before it came in last evening. If I can get out there today before it starts raining again, I'll water the ones remaining on the lower shelf.

After dinner last night I went downstairs and brought up some of the parts from the softener and rinsed them, then worked on them with a wire brush and some 320 grit sandpaper to clean up the mating surfaces.

It's cleaning up fairly decent:

Also placed an order for some stainless steel bore and end brushes which should be here tomorrow.

Probably back to work on the rest of the softener parts here in a bit.

Hope everyone is having a decent Friday ...

 

[KilroyJC]

Paul, you have more talent in your pinky than I have overall, amazed at what you accomplish and create.
in the perfect post apocalyptic world where steam punk tractors make everything work,
I want to be stuck there with you, Kyle and a handful of others.
Strong engineering and electrical talent here. For sure Phil to build all our furniture.
and Sodamo has to be there since he has perfected living off grid.
Of course David is already exactly where he wants to be...
Don and I are driving the tractors.

hmmm steam tractors
guess I'll have to go back to my brief power plant steam turbine days and restudy enthalpy and entropy.
Enthalpy is the amount of internal energy contained in a compound
whereas entropy is the amount of intrinsic disorder within the compound.
H= E + PV

Enthalpy equals internal energy plus pressure times volume and is a unit of measurement describing total heat available
more heat, more hp....and clearly we need more pressure for the formula to work

	=	enthalpy
	=	internal energy
	=	pressure
	=	volume

Steam punk tractor of the future maybe a little like running a fire truck pump?
not my genre
more enthalpy
avoid entropy
heat energy flows from hot to cold, 2nd law of thermodynamics
entropy can be explained by someone else, hard to put in common words

I really enjoyed visits to power plants. Those giant steam turbines were the largest machinery I've ever seen
Just a big heater making a turbine spin a generator
but it all starts with enthalpy.

unless you are a GE or Westinghouse combustion gas turbine, which I'm pretty sure are in every system for at least peaking,
they just want fuel and air

Entropy: Things Get Progressively Worse…

 

[KilroyJC]

One solution to the traction problem would be to tow the van up the hill with the tractor. But it would have to be a one man job. Pretty sure I could safely rig a tow chain, but would the van follow the tractor around corners, or does someone have to be inside steering?

i recall discussing weight-distributing hitches here a while back— would that help with FWD unloading?

 

[KilroyJC]

Kilroy used to do myself now too weak got 30 plus trees to take down all jack pines. Shared video with son Chris he our son a very good piano player and owns music by that gentleman as well as others big fan of Frank Sinatra sp

Now, if we could just get primer cord without all that annoying paperwork. . . tree work could be much easier AND entertaining!

 

[KilroyJC]

Steam turbines are impressive but not well suited for varying load traction type work. They require superheated dry steam as water droplets will cause awesome destruction upon blade impingement.

So go with piston drives and nice wet saturated steam.
Large enough bore and stroke yields lots of torque with low pressures.

MilSurp units are still available from some sources…

 

[ronjhall]

I really enjoyed visits to power plants. Those giant steam turbines were the largest machinery I've ever seen
Just a big heater making a turbine spin a generator
but it all starts with enthalpy.

unless you are a GE or Westinghouse combustion gas turbine, which I'm pretty sure are in every system for at least peaking,
they just want fuel and air

Like you, I like tours of power plants. Visited the power plants near Niagara Falls when I was about 12. Do not remember much about that visit.

When I fished Lake Ontario did tour of Pickering Nuclear power plant. I fished the waters in front of the plant. Thankfully none of the fish glowed. Plant is still operating. provides about 16% of Canadas electric power.

Johnday a TBN member organized a tour of the coal powered generator plant in Monroe, MI. Great tour. Got to visit areas of the plant visitors never get to see because John worked there. I thought they just put coal in a furnace and boiled water. Nope, coal is ground into a powder like talcum power. Then it is injected into furnace like a fuel oil furnace. Even with all that powder around plant was supper clean. Plant is still running. May shut down in 2032. You drove by this plant on your way north.

 

[daugen]

I've been to Niagara Falls but not the power plants.
My grandfather went there on his honeymoon in the "last" teens.

successful afternoon, I think.
installed a 3/4" sound deadening pad under the rv water pump and then installed a small pressure tank.
Much quieter, job made tougher since new Pex tool and crimps could not be used because oem was vinyl hose.
Back downtown I went to the same hardware store and got some more ss clamps. Got it all put together and of course it leaked, but
towel was there. Tightened it up more and it was fine. Born to break, come loose, leak.

of course after putting everything away, headed back indoors there was amazon package with 50 feet of pex water hose, all kinds of brass fittings
and now I have everything I need to rip it all out, including the hodge podge near the rv toilet with a properly constructed pex piping.
That pex crimper size makes it a pain in tight places for sure.

I use a Bosch mini driver with a very small socket sized for the set screw in the clamp and that tightens them up nicely.
you just can't trust a single clamp, never did on my boats. Rvs something else, you aren't going to sink...

I think it's a terrible idea to run a lot of plumbing in the compartment with the ac/dc panel, water and electricity
sure don't do well together