Late to the party, but it has been a busy and blessed week. 2 of my student workers are graduating. 1 will stay near and work on his masters, 1 has a job offer about 100 miles away. Both were worried about passing this one tough class that has a relatively high failure rate. They both passed. They were on a senior capstone team who's project got awarded the top prize in the whole College of Engineering. Over 115 other teams competed. Judges were faculty, outside business people too. They won a $2500 award. They had a lot of drama due to having to change from an AC motor drive to a mechanical spring system. Their project was a portable golf club tester. A faculty professor shut them down on Nov 13th when he found out their AC motor was needing 36 volts. Said that that was not allowed in a student project. I was mad. Nothing I could do. They talked with a guy who had done something with springs before and they got cracking. It was a miracle they finished with anything. They need custom springs to get better results. But it was good to see them come back together after wanting to tear each others hair out at one point.
We had a graduation brunch for our department. And 1 of my student workers won a Service award in our program. It is so great to get to meet the parents, and see how proud they are.
The Aggie girls beat Pitt last night in volleyball.
A young man in our engineering department won The Voice overall competition.
A young lady (on the above Capstone team) won a spot in the Forbes "30 under 30", for her company. She's a jewel.
I tell the grads, "We have only given you a foundation, now you have to go out and keep learning in the real world. Work towards doing something good for society."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTION: The Church exterior doors were previously stained and then lacquered. The stain that I've bought for the doors are as good a match, colour wise, as available. It is a stain with oil.
Do I actually need to lacquer or varnish after that?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I vote with the UV blocker, polyurethane based marine grade varnish.
All the work is in the prep.
Good Morning
60° outside, that should be the high for the day. We have gotten an inch of rain so far, supposed to get some kick ass winds as the front passes us and the temperatures head back below freezing.
Yesterday was mostly in the shop, the alpaca survived the vet’s visit. The interesting project of the day was removing the ignition switch from the steering column on a friend’s Honda Civic. It was installed with bolts that have the heads break off after installation, making removal interesting.
Turns out after fighting with a sharp chisel , and deciding to drill them out, that they are LH thread, and when the drill bit grabbed, it spun them right out. No wonder the chisel didn’t work!
Did a little 3D modeling, adding to my collection of shapes and techniques. I have a long way to go, but I’m getting the basics down.
Day ended with joining a group of friends for dinner and conversation at a local pub. We have been getting together on the Thursday before Christmas for a long time. We were trying to figure it out, but we think it’s been 56 years. Sadly the group is getting smaller as you would expect.
Not much planned for today, I probably could take the carryall down to the woodshed for a load of firewood if the weather allows. Nothing else planned, but it’s always interesting to see what the day brings.
Wow that is tricky for Honda to do that.
Here are some threaded inserts that you can use in your plastic endeavors to take you to the next level. We use them all the time, but not for keeping airplanes flying. They hold decent, but still just plastic behind them.
I don't know which brand we use, but here is a link to something similar. You might shop around or read reviews.
Amazon.com
Hope the alpaca is ok.
Billy, glad Della ok. Sounds like she ate something.
My son is suffering from his own mistakes of missing too much school. He's having to take all his mid term high school finals instead of being exempt. Maybe that will motivate him. He's missed school 6 days from early August to now. 3 of which he had fever, but 3 were stay home and finish assignments because of procrastinating. He's still got all A's, but his Spanish might be a B he said.
Hope I haven't missed any major issues.
Y'all stay warm somehow. It is really cold. -21F at International Falls. WOW. I don't know how any wildlife can survive that.
Prayers for our team, our nation and for peace in the world.
www.nbcnews.com
