Good morning!!!!

[txdon]

Good morning! 70˚F 98% humidity after a .15" evening shower yesterday and a chance of rain again this afternoon. High only in the mid 80s.

I was rewarded with a flat truck tire after the tractor work in the garden. My Ranger dash was flashing "LOW TIRE PRESSURE" (hard to miss) after 2 hours in the heat at the gardens. I could seen the nail in the tire that had 22PSI while the other had 15 psi more. I decided to take a chance and drive home to change it. I scrolled down the menu and put the tire pressure display on the dash. The pressure held and, took the tire off and threw it in the back of the Stinger and took the tire to Discount Tire in town. They repaired it free with a plug and a patch and it was back on the truck just 1.5 hours after finding it. A little hick-up but a good day.

Today is lawn day.

Nice parade pics Ron.

 

[wngsprd]

Flash flood watch today...the storm track has moved west enough to come over our part of the state.

Kyle, thank for the great info! I don't have a router, but may look at them...always like to learn a new tool. Copperheads are beautiful snakes, but can't be tolerated near people.

BEF, didn't realize it's already been 2 years...you're seeming to be doing very well...I'd probably be no good on an 1800+ mile trip like yours. Today is the 100th "birthday" of the Appalachian Trail. I got my walking mileage up to 3 miles yesterday, but no AT for 3 more weeks.

 

[daugen]

that flash flood watch has been posted here too, I'm just happy it saves me literally hours of watering new plants and trees.

not so fond memories of my grandfather beating a snake to death near the tractor shed. Pile of rocks there, part of a small retaining wall and snakes liked to sun
themselves there. Now I'm reasonably sure some innocent garter snake gave up its life to that cane, but my grandfather was protecting the little ones.
Later on in life I learned there were good snakes, like black snakes, and like many of you, learned to live with some resident black/chicken/? snakes in my barn.
Living with geckos was really nice but wonder if they were bait for the snake if they weren't attentive. RNG will confirm you can have a very nice relationship with
the little lizards who often visited me while working on machinery.
Watcha doing buddy?
Why, are you going to help?

Now that I know the JD mower is going to show up, and therefore I have to have a way of taking off blades.
So I ordered the medium size Makita cordless impact gun, and a set of metric/SAE impact sockets made by Neiko.
Almost ordered the smaller tool but for only 30 dollars more and a slightly larger case, foot pounds went from 400 to 700.
The big one does 1100 pounds, but I have no use for that, like truck wheels, etc. Plus it's way too heavy for me.
700 is what I had before and it worked just fine.

I would sure like a impact gun where you could dial in the tightening torque desired and have it be accurate to within 5 percent.
I guess I have to buy another torque wrench too since you just can't sit on the mower blade bolt going ratta tatta tat for ten seconds.
Snap. Been there done that.

 

[Popgadget]

These are what you want Drew-

1/2 In. Torque Limiting Extension Bar Set, 10 Piece

Amazing deals on this 1/2In Drive Torque Extension Bar Set 10Pc at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning
It’s 75 going to 85 with likely rain and thunderstorms.

Yesterday was spent avoiding the heat by working in the shop all day.

Today will be a repeat only I’ll be hiding from thunderstorms.
While I’m sure there are snakes around here, I haven’t seen one In quite a while. Not sure if I’ve ever seen a venomous one.

 

[daugen]

These are what you want Drew-

1/2 In. Torque Limiting Extension Bar Set, 10 Piece

Amazing deals on this 1/2In Drive Torque Extension Bar Set 10Pc at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

Thanks. They look like magic sticks...what makes them work? What actually limits the torque? I can't figure out how they work, they look like passive devices that I assume are good for more
than one use.

I also saw this:

ACDelco ARM602-4A 1/2” (25 to 250 ft-lbs.) Heavy Duty Digital Torque Adapter with Buzzer and LED Flash Notification – ISO 6789 Standards with Certificate of Calibration - - Amazon.com

ACDelco ARM602-4A 1/2” (25 to 250 ft-lbs.) Heavy Duty Digital Torque Adapter with Buzzer and LED Flash Notification – ISO 6789 Standards with Certificate of Calibration - - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Now I looked up the JD mower blade bolt spec and it's only 50 pounds for that retention nut. Sure would be easy to overtighten.
I really like the idea of a digital readout so I'm not squinting at some tiny line

 

[Popgadget]

The different diameter shafts simply twist and absorb the impact, only transmitting the rated amount of torque, nothing to look at, feel or hear. Couldn’t be simpler or more good proof.

 

[daugen]

magic sticks

 

[LouNY]

I've had a set of torque sticks for many years,
about once a year I'll mount a bolt in my vise and run a nut on with my impact and the various torque sticks
then verify what it takes to break them loose with my nice torque wrench.
It is amazing how well they come out.

 

[Eric Salop]

Good afternoon. A muggy day here, I was drenched in sweat this morning by the time we got the second lot of lambs away to market.

No water shortage here, had some really heavy downpours yesterday on the way home from visiting my sister. The anti-collision system had long since declared itself useless and turned off when it came down even harder, giving the frantic wipers a hopeless task. What I needed was a Genie to grant me a wish -if not to stop the rain then at least to clear away other traffic from the road. My wish came true thanks to a European footballing competition in which England usually fail miserably but this year stood a chance of making it through the semi finals. As if by magic, all but a handful of vehicles vanished from the road as kick-off time approached.

And here's one for Eric and his pond monster...
If you have a pond with an algae problem, ducks are the solution!

Thanks RNG. We have free range swans, but even they turn their beaks up at the tought of munching any of the Australian swamp-stonecrop. Does anything in Australia eat this stuff ?

Who knew squirrels liked trampolines?

Ken, I took a baby squirrel pic this morning and was about to delete it, then seeing your post realised you have started a great competition to see who can make Ron shake his head most in dismay at our lack of camera skills. Do you think we need a higher mag lens, or should we just feed the squirrels up with a lot more nuts?

Sorry, no time to add a blue circle - just keep looking

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I've had a set of torque sticks for many years,
about once a year I'll mount a bolt in my vise and run a nut on with my impact and the various torque sticks
then verify what it takes to break them loose with my nice torque wrench.

I don't know about that, Lou. I was taught to never use a torque wrench to break loose a fastener. The jolt when it lets go is hard on the mechanism. Maybe it doesn't matter with a digital wrench, but I wouldn't do it with a clicker or a beam.

A long time ago, I had a Snap-On salesman refuse to sell me a set of torque stix after I told him I'd be using them with an impact gun. He never did explain why. Maybe it was because he'd rather sell me one of the $$$$$$$ digital torque wrenches? He gave up his franchise a few months later, people don't seem to stay in that job more than a year or so. I still don't have a set of torque stix, but I do have a range of digital torque wrenches...

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 73F @ 6:45AM. Sunny. High 104F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Another warm one yesterday, more of the same on tap for today.

Got the 1" waterline in the trench yesterday, and the smaller size was a lot easier to deal with. I had time before it got too hot to assemble all the galvanized pipe fittings into what will be the hydrant, with not too many pieces left over. Seems like it'll be pretty sturdy once it's screwed to the pump house wall.

Pole saw buyer isn't returning phone calls, but have another party who is local that has expressed interest. We'll see. Money talks, BS walks.

Put together a list of PVC fittings to finish off the plumbing project, or at least get closer to finishing. Off to town today, and the plumbing supply house will be one of the stops. Several others to make, too, including groceries.

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

 

[kenmbz]

Mornin all, another bridge walk and the humidity is really bad, not used to having temps at about 100 day after day.
Did get the 2nd coat of varnish on the planks, need a little bit of sanding and some more coats, may need another quart, we'll see.

Kyle-snake is just resting right

Saw a mouse in the detached garage, time to purge them.

Need to do some weed wacking and hedge trimming and etc. everything is growing in leaps and bounds with this heat and rain mix.
Did get my son an Ikea cube for his vinyl, so funny how he likes records over CD/stream. We go to used record stores in Doylestown and Princeton.

Stay safe and be well, and no more fuzzy squirrels

This is the first time many flowers have had a chance to bloom since the deer usually eat them. First time seeing these bloom , both by the pool and in the main garden.
Deer off is working pretty well.

 

[RoyJackson]

Roy, I have the same model. Annoying and not consumer friendly to require a smart phone and separate app just to adjust headphones.
It's like modern cars with no knobs and you have to constantly drill down in menus. I guess on-off knobs have gone out of fashion.

If you still can, send it back

I was going to post a review about these headphones...looks like Amazon stopped any further reviews.
This may be because I'd already put in for a return, however..so maybe it was just me that was blocked (because of the return request)

 

[RoyJackson]

I don't know about that, Lou. I was taught to never use a torque wrench to break loose a fastener. The jolt when it lets go is hard on the mechanism. Maybe it doesn't matter with a digital wrench, but I wouldn't do it with a clicker or a beam.

Same here...torque wrenches are to ensure correct torque...they're not breaker bars

 

[check]

I

I have JBL headphones. I don't use them a lot but only charge them every 2 -3 months at most. They were part of the deal when I got my Samsung tablet. Bluetooth range is great. I can walk all through the house and outside with them when listening to music.

Me too. They work fine, and I use them to listen to music while driving my tractor. (The BX25 is quite a noisy tractor, and the JBLs dampen the noise quite nicely.)

 

[PJSprog]

73°F and partly cloudy this morning, going up to 86° today.

One of our supervisors at work is pretending he has no idea how to set up cold saws for parts we've been making for years. So, the company president asked me to do it for him to avoid the impending drama. I worried about this happening when I had to set up and run the mill last week, and now this guy is milking it. I'm not having to run the parts through the saw, but I am having to babysit the operator (new guy, who should be supervised by his supervisor) for this very picky customer. I have little patience for workplace drama, and that supervisor will probably like me much less before the day is over.

Honestly, Mostly_, I do miss playing live. I don't however, miss any of the BS that goes with it on the business side of music. I keep telling myself I might get back into it, but then most of my friends post their trials and tribulations on Facebook every week and remind me why I gave it up.

 

[sodamo]

68°F and 0 rain.

I’ll be mixing the bag of Quikcrete this morning, get that task out of the way.

Now that oven is functional I’m on the hook to make garlic and cheddar biscuits to go with our spaghetti and meatballs for H&F this afternoon. Hopefully, softer than the quikcrete. My 1st attempt at the biscuits.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[kenmbz]

Just found out my FILs old house in Yardley, PA is on the DIY show Stone House Revival. This week and next.

 

[rswyan]

67F with light rain @ 15:00, calling for a high of 77F. Line of thunderstorms just came through producing a torrential downpour. Accumulation currently shows 0.44" since midnight, but that may update further here in a bit.

Definitely an inside day.

More work on paperwork.

Probably get The Woman to give me a haircut later.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable, productive, and safe day.