What did YOU do today?

[racsan]

Busy day, up at 4:00a to shoot some paint on the tractor hood, went & got some straw in the escape (you can fit 4 bales in there!) got a tarp on the top of the little chickens kennel, up to 7 dozen eggs so I put the ranger trailer with the mini fridge out by the road. Tomorrow I hope to put the hood parts together, but its sunday so who knows. maybe.

 

[Bill]

I sold stuff at the ham radio swap meet this morning.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I got to drill out two broken lug nuts by drilling out the stud. Also destroyed a $30 drill bit (the lug studs are 10.9 hardness rating). Still one more to drill out (friends car). Also got to take said Mazda 3 turbo AWD around the block and it’s got some zip to it for sure… green Ranger gonna need some go-fast mods…

 

[scotts90ranger]

Was a busy weekend, friends daughter turned 21 so there were some shenanigans and hanging out. Yesterday when I was at home between festivities (I took my camper to his house so the wife could have fun too, 45 minute drive is annoying late at night, no need to be sketchy) I went home to dispose of the previous camper mattress disposal event (you pay a $22 tax when you buy a mattress in Oregon now apparently so I'm taking advantage of it...) then got oil and filter for the Ford 2000 tractor. I still need to take the injector pump apart again on that for it to run.

Today after I got home I went to get the big trailer from my brothers so we can go camping/wheeling next weekend. Then I got my generator running so I can take it with. I thought about working on the tractor but ended up making a receiver piece for a old GM 14 bolt brake drum so I can have a stand for my post mount shop tools like grinder, small vise, arbor press, etc... All was fine, plasma cutter doesn't care what metal it cuts but the sheet of 1/4" I found was apparently HARD, drill bits were cranky, I got as far as pilot holes and couldn't get to 1/2" so I used the plasma again... not pretty but doesn't matter

 

[Rick W]

I think, if you’re trying to drill high carbon steel, hard steel, if you take a torch and get the spot cherry red, it will alter the crystallin structure and make it softer.

And/or, use a sharp drill bit and try to drill it while it is still cooling down from being cherry red.

Finally, I have a whole bunch of 2 or 3 inch long pretty big drill bits where I gaulded them trying to drill something hard, and they got too hot. I simply grind them down, dipping in water constantly, so I don’t change the hardness of the drill bit. They never cut as good as new, but they still cut ok and I have $15 in my pocket.

Just a couple thoughts

 

[scotts90ranger]

I think, if you’re trying to drill high carbon steel, hard steel, if you take a torch and get the spot cherry red, it will alter the crystallin structure and make it softer.

And/or, use a sharp drill bit and try to drill it while it is still cooling down from being cherry red.

Finally, I have a whole bunch of 2 or 3 inch long pretty big drill bits where I gaulded them trying to drill something hard, and they got too hot. I simply grind them down, dipping in water constantly, so I don’t change the hardness of the drill bit. They never cut as good as new, but they still cut ok and I have $15 in my pocket.

Just a couple thoughts

Believe me it did occur to me, that would have taken out my center punch marks... but the plasma cutter was literally hooked up (other than the air line, I'd coiled it up by then). I'd already re sharpened the drill bits a half dozen times by then, sometimes it would work but others I'd work harden the metal more, there were choice words spoken loudly... I made the correct choice for the quality of work needed to be done. Conveniently my welds even looks fantastic! Sure would have been better if I'd used MIG instead of flux core but I'm about out of gas so I took the easy route and picked another welder that was good to go...

 

[Rick W]

Believe me it did occur to me, that would have taken out my center punch marks... but the plasma cutter was literally hooked up (other than the air line, I'd coiled it up by then). I'd already re sharpened the drill bits a half dozen times by then, sometimes it would work but others I'd work harden the metal more, there were choice words spoken loudly... I made the correct choice for the quality of work needed to be done. Conveniently my welds even looks fantastic! Sure would have been better if I'd used MIG instead of flux core but I'm about out of gas so I took the easy route and picked another welder that was good to go...

Understood. I am never aiming to be an armchair quarterback. You have to trust the man on the line at the time to use the best tools, best knowledge and best sense and best ability AVAILABLE AT THE TIME for the best results possible. And it’s always function before form, it has to work for the desired use first and foremost.

On a different note, perhaps a more spiritual level, if you use rustoleum, it won’t rust and it will look great for a long time. You can also use an alternate color as a pinstripe or create a graphic or an emblem to draw the eye away from an imperfect weld or dent.

Just a couple more thoughts

 

[scotts90ranger]

Conveniently I wasn't too bad at cutting out the bolt holes, the jagged edges are covered with the bolt heads... I'm not even going to paint it, at least not yet. On the circumference cut I didn't really grind that down either, took the top edge off, good enough.

 

["Risky Bizness"]

Bought solid Lug-Nuts for our new F-150, and sold raffle tickets for the cancer foundation that I set on the board for.

 

[racsan]

Another day of work, came home & bolted the fuel tank into the tractor hood. Its rained half the day & is really humid.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Not a whole lot of go left in me when I got home but got some little stuff done that's been in my way. Fixed two pairs of vise grips, a pair of welding vise grips and my "hose stretcher" pliers I made a couple years ago that I broke a week ago...

 

[sgtsandman]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I did more panel painting yesterday. The one side of the vertical dividers got some paint. Since it is cooler today, I will have to evaluate if the paint has cured enough to flip them and paint the other side. If they are, that completes the one half and I can start working on the other.

 

[holyford86]

Took yesterday off to run a new main electrical feed into my garage, that part went well. Discovered after when I went to hook everything up that the wiring in the walls was far more terrifying than I anticipated, so started rewiring all of that. Was hoping to weld my floor pan in today but have 2 more circuits to wire first. At least my garage won't burn down from bad wiring now.

I figure I should say what terrifying is, the whole garage being run off of a 20 amp circut that also happened to run a couple rooms in the front of my house. It was run off of a single piece of 10/2 romex direct buried under the concrete slab of my breezeway. This ran to a 40 amp fuse box with a knife switch in it and out to all of the outlets and lights in the garage. All of this I already knew... Upon looking at it further, the outlets were all fed with 14 gauge with one of them run off of a piece of extension cord buried in the wall. The lights are run with 12/2 MC cable with no ground, which I fixed as well as I could and left. All of the outlet wiring was disconnected and capped in the boxes with the outlets removed. It has all been verified as dead as well.

So far I've added a 100 amp breaker to my main disconnect panel, run 2 guage 4 conductor wire out to a new 12 position main lug panel, which contains two circuts for outlets, one for lights, one for a welder, and one that runs my air compressor. All the new wire is 12/2 (except welder) and all of the horizontal runs are along the ceiling to prevent grinding/ welding debris from sitting on it and melting holes. The whole garage is insulated with blown in insulation so its all surface mounted because that's a can of worms I didnt feel like opening.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Took yesterday off to run a new main electrical feed into my garage, that part went well. Discovered after when I went to hook everything up that the wiring in the walls was far more terrifying than I anticipated, so started rewiring all of that. Was hoping to weld my floor pan in today but have 2 more circuits to wire first. At least my garage won't burn down from bad wiring now.

I figure I should say what terrifying is, the whole garage being run off of a 20 amp circut that also happened to run a couple rooms in the front of my house. It was run off of a single piece of 10/2 romex direct buried under the concrete slab of my breezeway. This ran to a 40 amp fuse box with a knife switch in it and out to all of the outlets and lights in the garage. All of this I already knew... Upon looking at it further, the outlets were all fed with 14 gauge with one of them run off of a piece of extension cord buried in the wall. The lights are run with 12/2 MC cable with no ground, which I fixed as well as I could and left. All of the outlet wiring was disconnected and capped in the boxes with the outlets removed. It has all been verified as dead as well.

So far I've added a 100 amp breaker to my main disconnect panel, run 2 guage 4 conductor wire out to a new 12 position main lug panel, which contains two circuts for outlets, one for lights, one for a welder, and one that runs my air compressor. All the new wire is 12/2 (except welder) and all of the horizontal runs are along the ceiling to prevent grinding/ welding debris from sitting on it and melting holes. The whole garage is insulated with blown in insulation so its all surface mounted because that's a can of worms I didnt feel like opening.

I’ve taken to running MC in spaces where it’s exposed like a garage that you can’t really get in the walls. For code, exposed wire runs have to be MC or conduit. MC is faster and cheaper to run.

Also, a lot of old 2 wire MC used the outer casing as a ground, so as long as it was properly clamped in metal boxes it’s acceptable but not ideal. Definitely better to redo everything properly though. Hack job electrical is a fire hazard waiting to happen and I’ll never understand why so many people hack it together.

 

[holyford86]

I’ve taken to running MC in spaces where it’s exposed like a garage that you can’t really get in the walls. For code, exposed wire runs have to be MC or conduit. MC is faster and cheaper to run.

Also, a lot of old 2 wire MC used the outer casing as a ground, so as long as it was properly clamped in metal boxes it’s acceptable but not ideal. Definitely better to redo everything properly though. Hack job electrical is a fire hazard waiting to happen and I’ll never understand why so many people hack it together.

I know MC would have been ideal but this is what I've got, which i know isn't a great excuse, haha. The MC in the walls is not properly grounded to the boxes by any stretch of the imagination. Eventually I'll likely rip out all the insulation and replace it and the wall covering with better things than reversed wall paneling scraps... the way I've run all of this will be easy to run inside the walls when that time comes though, so there's that.

I've come to believe that the previous owner didn't really know he was doing wrong, because a bunch of the hackery was done in such a way that it seems that they were trying to do right with what they had at hand. Still doesnt make it right but it helps me sleep better at night.