Quality Assurance

 I'd thought about that plate and collar for a few days and nights...  Made sense to me.

Dropped the bundle off to the friend, and he said, "What is this stuff."

So, I drew a picture...  

"um.... you need to stop by, bud."

So, I essplained meself, and he liked what he saw.

 

Finished product.  

I love it when a plan comes together.  And most especially when the customer is happy.

Thanks for stopping by the shop.

Yeah!

Wednesday, 19 Aug - Nice thunderboomer is rolling past, good cool outflow.  Friend needed some work done, and it's not too hot to do it!!  WOW.  It's still August, and I didn't drown in sweat out in the shop!  Win.

An old tractor needs a new plate for water temp guage.

Friend got the plate made, and wondered if I could help with the threaded part.  Oh boy.

Drilled a scrap to 9/16, next is bore to .588, then try and thread it to 5/8x18...  Only need 3/8 of an inch of threads....  Fingers crossed...  First try was toast.  Not gonna work.  I couldn't be sure if I was using leaded steel or not, and that don't weld so good.

I can still hear the music and the announcer...

 

I remembered watching a "How It's Made", manufacturing air tanks for truck brake systems.  They had this little part, with pipe threads in it...  Hmmmm....  Found out it's name is thread-o-let. 

I was down in the oil patch, so I stopped by a valve supply house, and they had some.  Manger GAVE me one that is a 1/4 NPT and caked with dust.  So, I'm a customer for life.... 

Okay, let's go.

Saturday 22 Aug - Outside is tapered, can't grip that. It took 90 minutes to make the mandrel to hold this thing.  No tooling I needed was close to the lathe, and I'm rusty as a neglected tap wrench.  Finally got this thing done, threaded 10-32  on the end, and starting turning the bevel-o-let into a cylinder.  Missed my size by 2 thou, and that came back to haunt me.

Howie Man-drel

 

I have some 5C collets (not a complete set) and a collet block because of a gracious benefactor and mentor.  I missed sizing this for the one collet I had that was close, so it would be a booger to thread, but not a major problem.  

Temp sensor has a 5/8-18 thread, and, amazingly, I have a tap that size from the same benefactor / mentor.  Blew a 9/16 hole-o-let, cleaning out the old threads, and the proper size for where I'm going is 37/64"  Now, really....  What are the odds of having that....

I shoulda bought a lottery ticket too...

Thanks again to Mr. S.  I owe that man a lot.  He has invested a lot in me and in my shop.  Thank you.  I wouldn't be near where I am today without you.

Got the threaded collar done, and was thinking about it last night as I'm drifting off...  There is a bevel seal on the sending unit, and the collar needs to be centered over it.  Hmmmmm.....  Ordering up a centering plug.  

Got that turned down today, and ready.  Just need to grind the screws to length, and it's done.

Plug dimensions follow.  And I did get pretty close to hitting them all.  The plug needed a bit of polish to slide into the hole and collar.  

Went with a 10-24 screw instead of the 8-32...  Spec change in the field, no change order needed...  heh.

Man, is it ever good to be in the shop.  And with a cool front moving south and bringing rain twice in a week lowering the temps into the mid 90's....  Feels like Christmas in August. 

What a pain in the .... shoulder

 So, somehow, my old right should took it on the chin.  From Mike Tyson.  For a few weeks it's been hurting like a sum!@#%^&*....  Started radiating down my arm past my elbow.  So I thought, what is the worst I can do, make it hurt more?

Ask YT for senior stretching, and this vision of loveliness popped up and said, I'm here to help.

Gentlemen...

My arm feels so much better, I can sleep at night after just the second time. Yes, I am standing up and following along with what she is doing. I'm telling you, it made all the difference.  And she's easy on the eyes, too when I'm not hanging upside down and swaying like a "pendulum".   You are most welcome.

2nd Shift work

The Rusty Wrench Depot is actually a young man that started up a welding shop.  I've been getting under foot after hours.  He's got a lot of cutting to do, and I got to help him with his second hand band saw.  It cuts a lot straighter now, and I have a friend.  A friend who has a ton of rusty crap to paw through at some point.  Gotta help Phil out doncha know.

So, not much time to blog.  But I'm sleeping better.  Working basically IT from 0800 to 1700 and welder's irritant from 1730 to 2000...  I'll post more as I can. 

I have a new project.  Learned a new word, too.  Thread-o-let.  More to follow.

 And I got my scissor lift certification renewed for another three years.  yay me.

 Even small victories are sweet.  I'll take what I can get.

Thanks for stopping by the shop.  

Thanks Phil, and Irish for all the traffic.  You may not know how much I appreciate it this side of heaven.  But someday you will.

The Year of Reversals

To Do List:

Current projects on the languish:   The Three Tumico Terrors

    It's been blazing hot in the shop, and I don't have the heat tolerance I used to.

Future projects on the to do list:   

free for the asking.  mmmmmm, iron oxide....

I have seen those tap handles go for pretty nice coin.  Plan is to clean these up and put them up for sale.  I gotta get some cash flow in the positive direction.  I have everything I need to do it.  Just need to break the cheek weld with the chair, and get to it.

Status Update

This year has been nothing but a  good news / bad news joke.  And I'm the punchline.

Lots of sand in the air at work, and I finally decided to check again on the how and when of the pension at work.  I ran the numbers a while back and it showed about 2500 per month at the normal age of retirement.

Well, the numbers that I ran this week show it's closer to 25% of that number...  I'm at a loss.  So calls will be made next week to see if I'm mistaken or I spent 20 plus years in a gilded cage.

I was lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut last night.  I woke up at 0400 with this crushing weight of lost youth and wage potential.... 

It hit me like a brick, that this is like a betrayal.  And that is the worst.  In my mind, betrayal means the present relationship is undefined because you didn't understand the other party even though you thought you did.  The past is wasted, it was not what it seemed.  The planned future is gone, and what kind of boob am I that I didn't see this for what it is.  It is the destruction of reality as I understand it.  I guess there wasn't as much virgin ground to rip up as I have gone through this once already this year after the head injury.  That took about three months to come to terms with.  I'm sure there is more un-tilled soil in my field, but, God spare me that, please.

Then, I remembered that other men have been zeroed out later in life than this and done well for themselves.... 

"What Are You Prepared To Do?"

It takes industriousness and mental change to get over this.  I'm not wired to mope, or sit in the dark...  My mind started working out how do I turn this around?  What is holding me here?  Why is staying a good idea?  What is the best solution to what I see here?  What about me needs to change to harness this and sling shot off it?  What short term, medium term and long term goals need to happen?  What do I need to prune to do what needs doing?  Basically, a reordering of my entire life.  Overwhelming?   Yes, but necessary.

The plan is, throughout this weekend, to brainstorm what is positive about this position I find myself in.  What options do I see?  I've got to quit limiting the view, get on top of this, stand on my toes and look out to the horizon.

I ordered a couple books off my goto book site.  They'll be here in a couple weeks.  Nice cheap used books, from the Rich Dad series.  I need a fresh view from that perspective.  It's been on my list for quite a while, but I just never did it.  My previous forays into entrepreneurship foundered on the rocks...  And caused a crop of grief.  But I should have different issues now.  I learned some good lessons from the past.  I hope.  My goal is to leverage the info in the book to make smaller mistakes by aiming better. "Aim small, miss small."

I don't believe "the way is shut".  I think it's I'm not used to seeing this kind of situation as a positive place.  But I am seeing glimmers of that now.  I don't know if the head injury was a reboot into a new way of life, but things have gotten very different after that happened.  The world seems to look brighter and quite different than at anytime before.  The previous post was a glimmer of the change I'm seeing.

Postlude

I don't know if you even care to read about the status updates.  If not, I don't blame you.  There is enough heart ache out there to overload everyone.  Consider the status update title an exit ramp if you aren't interested. But I feel a bit of responsibility to keep you apprised of why I haven't posted like I had planned and where my head is at.  You have invested some time reading what I post, and I appreciate it.  

If you can take a warning from this, Great!  If you can take encouragement, Excellent!  If it kicks you off high center into a change, it was worth the time to write it up.  If you just laugh and point, then it was good entertainment.

I got work to do, thanks for stopping by.