Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

Yes! Been thinking about making something and found this cheap from a friend.

 

My "new" welding light is looking promising after a scrounge around. All I needed was an "L" bracket cut from a piece of scrap and some plastic feet. Since it doesn't have to withstand 60 kph winds, I cut the legs off to a manageable length.




My old design using a discarded dingy paddle just didn't cut it.

A good friend works at a local university, they throw out tons of good stuff, some of which comes my way. These parts are from trade show type banners that probably weren't woke enough and had to be replaced.

 

One of these doesn’t look like the others. Can you pick it out?






A truck hit them, I’ve got one left to fix.

 

Amazon continues to poop the bed. Got this email last night regarding the pulley I ordered for the zero turn that never arrived.

The best part.... I immediately reordered it.

Should be here Monday.

 

With their track record, there might be two arrive for the cost of one

 

Got Cole to help me.

 

This will be fun. Fix the missing and broken tabs for the trigger on two of these.

 

What are these for?

 

I'd like an odometer reading off of those.

 

Finally got around to running this slice of wood thru the planer to clean off the chainsaw marks. It came home from Costa Rica with us last fall after a funny incident. One morning behind the air BNB we stayed, at the owner had a guy sawing a tree into boards with a chainsaw. It was beautifully grained purplish wood that I'd never seen anything like, so I asked the guy in my non-existent Spanish if I could have a small piece (thinking slab) to take home as a souvenir. I'm thinking charcuterie board. He gave me a thumbs up and we left to escape the noise. When we came back this slice, complete with a big bite out of it, was on our back patio. I looked at it, showed it to the boss, then frisbeed it into the jungle behind us, because we were hoping for a piece of board. Later that evening I got a text from the owner, saying he heard about the wood I had gotten and he was very excited that I would want to take it home, and do something with it. He asked me to send him a picture of the finished product. We both felt bad about chucking it, and I didn't want to lie to the guy, so I dug around and found it, and here it is.

It cracked at the edge over the winter and I broke some out while I was putting it thru the planer across the grain. I didn't know what to do about that, so I just cut it out with a hole saw.

I guess we'll set pots on it and have a funny story to tell.

 

I wonder if people frisbee gifts from the prize warehouse into the woods?

 

If you are in for the long haul it is actually better if the market tanks every now and again. When the market is lower your money buys more shares and when those shares grow in value you have more money. I never played the "guessing game" of trying to judge when to move money around in anticipation of what the market might do. If I could get that timing right then I would have a different job and a different income.

 

Absolutely not!

 

Well, doesn't this bring back memories, blazing hot out in the forecourt of the garage.



Last week I put new bearings in the deck of the ZT as one loudly turned in it's notice.

It still made whirly marks in the lawns and got much worse.

Seems the blades are slightly misaligned.
I was hoping I had put one on upside down...



They are farther out than my thumb is wide.



Investigation found one of the 4 spindle to deck bolts had snapped off the deck had fatigue cracked on the opposite side of the spindle allowing the whole assembly to tip.



I did a "done is better than perfect" repair on the broken bolt side and adjusted it with a pry bar.

Here is a before and after, it held together for 7 lawns - huge thunder started just as I was putting the mower in the shed.



Let's hope the power is on when I get home.

I'm knackered.

 

Only if they win the prize..

 

I'm not liking this.

 

Just another day in the life of an (unpaid) semi-commercial lawn guy.

I was thankful that a quicky repair got it mowing.
This deck has been fixed up many times in 17 years.

The deck leaning in the background is from the much lower hour parts mower, I can swap the parts to it, weld this one up -- or cross my fingers and do nothing.

 

The only day you want a high stock market is the day you cash in.