Breakfast, Carrier and Rain

 

I went to breakfast with the ham radio group yesterday morning. The group meets once a month at different locations and different times, sometimes breakfast, sometimes dinner. The restaurant was located in a small town about 30 miles south of me and a little off the main highway. On my way into town I passed a yard with a collection of Trackmobiles. There were a few more out of the photo on the right side as well. Kind of surprised me, especially since there's no rail siding there.

After getting home from breakfast, I installed the carrier on the Buick. This time everything fit well and has plenty of ground clearance. However, when the carrier is in the vertical position it blocks the license plate, which has the Missus worried. Moving the carrier around is hard on my chest, so I was of the opinion, just leave it on the car. She's not going to be happy with that, so I'm going to rig up a dolly that's the right height so I can slide the carrier in and out of the receiver easily and roll it out of the way for storage. I've got a Harbor Freight dolly with the four casters on the bottom that I can start with - shouldn't take too much to make it happen.

Shortly after getting the carrier on the car a storm came in like a hurricane - lots of rain and wind gusts. It didn't last long but it was a mean one while it did. We were just about ready to head down the basement when it subsided.

Today's job is to make the carrier dolly and get the old mailbox I drug home recently cleaned up and painted and get the dog sled pieces fixed up as well. 

Fuel Injection Optimizer

 

Heard this one in the early morning hours on Radio Garden's Irish Pub Radio from Dublin. It's not all that unusual for me to fall asleep in the recliner in the evening, and when I wake up and go to bed it takes a while for me to fall asleep again. That's a prime time to read a few pages of something or do a little computer time-wasting with musical accompaniment. With Radio Garden the choices of music are pretty much endless, which is great for a guy like me who likes a great variety of musical genres.

The fuel injection optimizer from Hitchcock's came in the other day. It shouldn't take too long to get it installed on the Himalayan.

I finished up the Go-Go carrier but after loading the scooter up on it, with the soft suspension on the little Buick, it sagged down more than I liked it. I moved the hole location by welding up part of the holes and then put the tongue on the mill and bored a new hole that will have the carrier angled up 5 degrees. I haven't tried it yet due to the wet paint, but I was confident enough to paint it without installing it on the car - mostly because the wife was on the road with the car at the time. If it doesn't work this time, might have to cut the tongue apart and weld in a piece of tubing to raise it up and change the angle. Let's hope that doesn't need to be done. I want to move on from this one. 

Stick Out Your Tongue

 I hope all of you Daddy-Os had a nice Father's Day. I was welding on the Go-Go carrier when Surly and the family showed up bearing a gift. I called time out on the welding and we had a nice visit. 

Tacking all the pieces together on the layout lines. The clamp holding the plate to the tube is the Fireball Mantis clamp I bought not too long ago. Perfect application for this job.

After checking the fit on the car and the carrier, I finish welded the tongue and then added fish plates over the tube joints. Actually, as small as they are, they're more like "minnow" plates rather than fish plates. I broke all the sharp edges and then got some paint on it. 

I'll assemble everything today and then see about getting the scooter on the carrier and figure out the best way to tie it down on to the carrier. When I get it all figured out, maybe load up the old girl and take her and the Go-Go to the park for a shake down run. 

Clean up the shop again and then knock out that job for Jimmy's dog sled.

Flag Day, Pokin' Holes and Boxing News

 

I got my flag out early in the morning for Flag Day, even though since I live almost a quarter of a mile off the road no one saw it besides the Missus and I. I've been pledging allegiance to the flag since I was a pup and even though I'm not pleased with the way things are going in the country currently, I take my pledge seriously. At this point in time I don't know what I can do to make things better other than hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

 

I started on the new tongue for the Go-Go carrier. I used the mag-drill for drilling the 5/8" holes. I drilled the first one in the square tube with a hole saw but it walked off the center line. Fortunately, I hadn't cut the tube to length yet, so I switched ends and drug out the mag-drill. The plates in the photo were tacked together so the holes would be sure to line up. Since the photo was taken, both plates were cleaned up and are ready to weld. Next up is to cut the tube pieces and then weld it all together. Shouldn't take long for that.

Two of the boxers Coach Jen and I've been working with fought today - both guys won. Pretty happy with that.

My old boxing coach passed away a few days ago. He had a good amateur carrer and as a pro he even fought at Madison Square Garden. Nice guy, local legend, helped a lot of young men over the years. Rest in peace, Johnny. And thanks.

Thursday Musical

Another Sly and the Family Stone - only seems fitting since it was a hot one yesterday.

It didn't actually make it to 100 plus, but it did hit 90. You always have to take in account the thermometer is in the direct sun. I was doing some outside stuff and worked up a pretty good sweat all the same. It always takes me a while to get acclimated to the heat and it looks like I'm going to get my chance. They're forecasting temps in the mid to high eighties for the next week or so.

Brian Wilson passed away. Like Sly Stone, he too was 82. I never really gave it any thought as to the age of the musicians of my youth. Both of these guys were only 6 years older than me and I was listening to their music when I was in high school.

The Rooftop Singers were basically a one hit wonder. I hadn't heard this one in quite a while, but I did hear the original 1929 version the other day. I definitely like The Rooftop Singers version better.

Surly came by the house the other night while on a shake-down run after doing some upgrades on the bike. Good looking bike. And, keeping with the theme, this scoot makes some beautiful music. While he was here he got the new toilet out of the truck and into the house for me. Saved me calling someone for help or tackling the job myself and hurting the chest muscles again. Nice to have people.

Boomshakalaka

Sly Stone dead at 82. Not a bad run and left behind a lot of good music. 

I found my anvil the other day. I looked for it when I was cutting up the railroad rail but couldn't remember where I put it during the cleaning frenzy. I cleaned it up with the wire wheel and then primed and painted it. There's some overspray on the top but I'm planning on sanding that off with a fine grit disc and then putting a light coating of grease on it.

The anvil is a Vulcan #4, meaning it's a 40 pounder. Since it's a small anvil, I figured it wasn't worth much. However, a quick internet search turns up ridiculous prices for small anvils. I didn't see a #4 but a #3 has asking prices $200 - $300. Ain't no way I'd pay that kind of money for an anvil of limited usefulness due to its small size.

The cone was kind of rusty, so as long as I was slinging rust dust around, I polished it up and put some primer on it while I was at it. The cone is actually made up of weld metal deposited on a 1" piece of bar stock. That's not the normal procedure, but if you're a welding instructor with access to a machine shop, why not?

Likewise, I'd consider making an anvil from scratch out of steel plate. If I had access to some 1" plate scrap, I could laminate a nice body, cut it to shape and then hardface the top surface with some Ni-Mang rod or something similar. 

One of these antique anvil-vises would be nice for light duty blacksmithing, especially if it was mounted on a post so you could work all around it. I don't have room for anything like that, but I'd be willing to bet an enterprising welder/fabricator could buy a cheap vise and anvil and put one of these together without much trouble. Make some tooling to clamp in the vise jaws or weld a socket to the side of it if the anvil didn't have a hardy hole and that setup would be handy as a pocket on a shirt.

More this & that on the agenda today.

EMP Pulse Prep

 Today's ride your motorcycle to work day - I'm a little late on the notification. Probably should have posted this last week or yesterday at the minimum. Since I'm no longer punching a clock, it doesn't apply to me. However, I did get out on the Himalayan over the weekend. I didn't go far but it was a nice ride.

A snapshot of some of the hitch hardware. The most interesting things are the wires with the spiral wound on one end. You wind the wire on the bolt, insert the wire through the plate, the access hole in the frame and the hole for the bolt. Insert the plate through the access hole, then pull the wire snug and it pulls the plate and the bolt into position. When you lift the hitch into position, you insert the wire into the bolt hole and pull the bolt down. Put the nut on and there you go. Someone was thinking when they came up with those wires. 

I drew the layout for the new tongue on the Go-Go carrier Sunday and picked up the material yesterday. I ran some other errands and cut some grass, so that was as far as I got on that project. 

I'm going to the college today to get a copy of my transcript, even though I'll probably never need it and then going to buy a new toilet. Cut some grass after that. I do lead an exciting life.

I went to the ham radio club meeting last evening. They put on a presentation about a dark sky event. This could be caused by a variety of things - natural or man-made disaster, or an EMP. I think I'm fairly well prepared for most events except an EMP which is capable of knocking out all electronics. I bought a small Faraday bag a couple of years ago for my little transistor radio, but I need to look into EMP preparedness a bit deeper. I imagine my whole house generator will be disabled, so my portable welder will be pressed into service. I keep the battery charged up on that, but I should run it every couple of months or mothball it. I should make sure one of my old motorcycles would be operational as well - something with just points and condenser ignition rather than electronic. Regardless of what happens in the future, I'll probably be better prepared the average guy, but I think I can do a little better without much effort.