Just Swamped!
Geeeze Louise! NINE days since the last time I updated this journal - that's terrible! When I first started, I was updating just about every day. The problem is that I often don't get time to do any updates until late at night, and by that time I'm at home with my poor internet connection and outdated computers that make getting online a pain. The iPhone and iPad versions of the interface are OK with doing quick-checks, but they're not the best things for actually posting larger entries. What I really need to do is get my desk in the bedroom cleared off (I've been saying that for over two years now!) and get my laptop set up there - then I could do a quick entry before bed (at least, that's the theory.)
I went to an auction sale last Saturday that I'd been planning on attending for some time. The auction was held in Morse, a small town about an hour-and-a-half from Shaunavon (eastbound on the Transcanada highway.) The auction was mostly selling off the enormous collection of small-engine materials of the late Jim Weppler, who had owned a small-engine repair shop in Morse for many years. He passed away last August, and his family finally got all the stuff organized enough to hold an auction. I really wish I had known the fellow, he seems to have been a Kindred Spirit - collecting all kinds of engines and bits of peices of machines, and keeping old newspapers and magazines of interest from years and years ago. If only I had a 5-ton cube-van and a place to store more of this kind of stuff! Whole buildings full of parts and materials were being sold off at pennies to the dollar (if that!) and I can take some small solace in that at least it was being purchased by other people who shared the same love and interest, and it wasn't just all going to garbage and scrap. The volume of technical books and materials alone could have filled a small building! I managed to snag an "old" microfiche reader and a large box of microfiche files that contain the technical info for all kinds of small engines! Before fancy computers and PDF documents, this is how we archived data kiddies!
So, Saturday was spent at the auction, Sunday was spent going back to the auction-site to bring home more of the small engines and other parts I picked up, and Monday was spent working at the shop and then going back to auction-site one last time to pick up something I had to wait for. (More on that shortly.) I had planned to leave Shaunavon around 2pm on Monday so that I could get things wrapped up before sundown, but that wasn't to be; I was kept busy at the shop all afternoon and it was 5pm by the time I got away! I wound up finishing up at the auction-site as the sun was going down, and driving home in the dark hauling a large and heavy trailer carrying my grand prize. On all three return trips, I had the cruise-control set for 90kmh to make sure that I made it home safely - don't want to be travelling too fast when one is loaded down so heavily!
As I mentioned, I had a lot of small engines! I was getting deals that I couldn't pass up, with groups of 3, 4, or 5 engines being bundled together at an average of $2 a set! Lots of people bid high prices on the larger stationary engines; I would have liked to have a couple of those too, but I was quickly outbid on them. Hardly anyone was interested in the smaller engines though, which is why I was able to get them so easily and cheaply. Unlike the collection I got a couple of years ago, most of these engines are in good shape, and should run once they're cleaned up a bit. Big difference here is that the guy collecting them was a small-engine mechanic, so he knew what he was doing and his stuff worked. Even a "stuck" engine is valuable though - the individual parts that can be removed can add up to big $$$ when they're sold off bit-by-bit instead of the whole engine at once. I've got to get more shelves put up both at the farm-shop and at Iron Pony to store these things properly. I also need to catalog everything and create sales-lists for parts and/or complete engines. Maybe a good Winter project...
The heat all through the weekend and the week itself was incredible; Hot, and mostly dry, temperatures just soared! The thermometer on the outside of the shop was pegged past its limit of 50°c! Of course, the air-temperture wasn't quite that high, but that's how hot it was against the side of the building in the full sun! Inside, the shop was sitting at about 28°c, making work a horribly unpleasant task due to having to don coveralls for most of it. I didn't get a lot of mechanical work done for a couple of days due to the extreme heat - I just couldn't force myself to put on the coveralls and do things. When I finally did on Thursday afternoon, sweat was pouring off me in rivers! I'm thankful for the plumbed-in water-cooler I have in the shop, though the nasty charlie-horse I woke up with the next morning was a reminder that I need to get more Gatorade to help keep my electrolytes better balanced when I'm working and sweating that much!
Friday night was the Elk's fundraiser BBQ, and once again I volunteered to man the grill (with some help of course, the grill they use is huge!!) This was my first BBQ of 2012 - our own BBQ at the farm hasn't been used yet this year because there just hasn't been any time to use it! Since I was doing the grilling, I was able to select my own steak and cook it exactly the way I wanted it: A beautiful Medium, nicely browned on the outside with just a hint of pink on the inside! Had I been doing these at home, I would have soaked them in a marinade overnight to infuse them with even more flavour. Brent Hoffarth made an incredible multi-layed "Fruit Mousse" that was... well... Incredible! Jason Huss prepared a Ceasar Salad, blending in two variations of Lighthouse-brand Ceasar Salad dressing to create perfect blend that resulted in the best Ceasar Salad I've had in years! Baked potatoes cooked to perfection rounded out the meal, and I've got enough left-over baked potatoes to make piles of hash-browns and potato-salad!
I have managed to get a few more machines done at the shop: A couple of mowers, and three 42" Sears riding-mower decks. Last week I ordered three spindle-towers for these decks so that I'd have a couple of extras in stock (I knew that I needed one for a job) but I wound up needing all of them within 24 hours of each other! I've got two more on order again, but now they're back-ordered at the warehouse too! Here's hoping I won't be needing them too soon! The owner of one of the mower-decks has been quite a pain in the butt; She kept calling every hour or so to ask how it was coming. Geeeeze lady - did you not see all the machines in front of you? I am doing you a huge favour by getting the deck done ahead of the backlog, but it's still going to take time! I've done three decks in the last 24 hours, and hers was by far the worst! It was supposed to just get one spindle replaced, but closer examination has revealed that the other spindle-tower was also cracked, a pulley was badly warped, mounting-screws were mangled (which in combination lead to the major failure of the first spindle) and then I discovered a crack that ran completely through the main lift-support arm on the right side of the deck! Once I found that, I called her and told her that it wouldn't be ready until sometime on Monday as I'd have to take it over to Andy's shop to get him to weld it for me. I do have a good Hobart AC/DC welder at the shop, but 1) I don't know how to weld (yet) and 2) I don't have a 50-Amp 220-Volt connection for it (yet.) Funfunfun...
This afternoon, the owner of the first of the three decks came in to pick his up, and to purchase of the Dolmar string-trimmers! That makes for a nice big cheque to deposit in the back, which will certainly help pay a few bills for the shop. We're going to be doing a "Dolmar Demo Day" next Saturday as well, making it part of the Boomtown Days events here. I'm hoping that doing it during Boomtown Days will mean that there will be more people in town, and we'll get a bigger turn-out. The only catch is, I now have less than a week to get the shop uncluttered, make everything nice and neat, and get this beastie ready for the parade on Saturday:
This is the "prize" I was alluding to earlier! It's a custom-built machine, using nine Briggs & Stratton 5HP engines, all linked together! Add a 4-speed transmission from a 1946 Ford, a Dodge differential, and a hodge-podge of parts from Chevrolet, Cockshutt, and Mercury, and you've got one heck of an attention-getter! I'm planning to deck it (and a trailer that it will pull) with B&S banners and signs, loading the trailer with examples of the products I sell and service. The biggest catch right now is that I need to make sure all of the engines are tuned-up and running properly, AND I have to learn how to drive it! Of course, Jim didn't leave any instructions for it; He knew how it worked, but he never bothered to write anything down or show anyone else (that I was able to find) how it all worked. I need to figure out the gear-shift pattern, and figure out the clutch (it doesn't seem to work quite right, but I might be doing something wrong.) Less than a week to get it all done... Nothing like a little pressure to make me perform! %)
Also last week, I discovered that a Spanner-Wrench is a real thing, and not just a made-up bit of Steam-Punk Sci-Fi like in the fantabulous Girl Genius web-comic by Phil & Kaja Foglio. Of course, I discovered this because it turns out I need one, but I don't have one. Could have picked one up in Calgary the week before, had I known. None of the stores around here have one; In fact, none of them even knew what a Spanner-Wrench was. :/ I also leaned what a Bearing-Separator is, and how to use it; Many thanks to Andy for that bit of knowledge! Now I need to get a set of those as well! One of the frustrating things about this kind of work is discovering how much you don't know, though having people like Andy and Jack around to learn from sure makes it easier. I'm also pushing myself out of my comfort-zone when it comes to power-tools; I have a good set of air-tools that I rarely use, and other tools like angle-grinders that I also rarely use mostly because I'm unfamiliar with them, and to be honest they kinda scare me as a result. I have made use of air-powered impact-wrench in the past, and it certainly came in handy this afternoon trying to remove a really tough nut that just wasn't going to come loose with a regular breaker-bar and socket. Yeah, Power-tools (air or otherwise) can be great time-savers and a lot of fun once you get past the "scary" aspect!
So, that's what my life has been like for the last nine days, here's hoping for continued fun and progress!
I went to an auction sale last Saturday that I'd been planning on attending for some time. The auction was held in Morse, a small town about an hour-and-a-half from Shaunavon (eastbound on the Transcanada highway.) The auction was mostly selling off the enormous collection of small-engine materials of the late Jim Weppler, who had owned a small-engine repair shop in Morse for many years. He passed away last August, and his family finally got all the stuff organized enough to hold an auction. I really wish I had known the fellow, he seems to have been a Kindred Spirit - collecting all kinds of engines and bits of peices of machines, and keeping old newspapers and magazines of interest from years and years ago. If only I had a 5-ton cube-van and a place to store more of this kind of stuff! Whole buildings full of parts and materials were being sold off at pennies to the dollar (if that!) and I can take some small solace in that at least it was being purchased by other people who shared the same love and interest, and it wasn't just all going to garbage and scrap. The volume of technical books and materials alone could have filled a small building! I managed to snag an "old" microfiche reader and a large box of microfiche files that contain the technical info for all kinds of small engines! Before fancy computers and PDF documents, this is how we archived data kiddies!
So, Saturday was spent at the auction, Sunday was spent going back to the auction-site to bring home more of the small engines and other parts I picked up, and Monday was spent working at the shop and then going back to auction-site one last time to pick up something I had to wait for. (More on that shortly.) I had planned to leave Shaunavon around 2pm on Monday so that I could get things wrapped up before sundown, but that wasn't to be; I was kept busy at the shop all afternoon and it was 5pm by the time I got away! I wound up finishing up at the auction-site as the sun was going down, and driving home in the dark hauling a large and heavy trailer carrying my grand prize. On all three return trips, I had the cruise-control set for 90kmh to make sure that I made it home safely - don't want to be travelling too fast when one is loaded down so heavily!
As I mentioned, I had a lot of small engines! I was getting deals that I couldn't pass up, with groups of 3, 4, or 5 engines being bundled together at an average of $2 a set! Lots of people bid high prices on the larger stationary engines; I would have liked to have a couple of those too, but I was quickly outbid on them. Hardly anyone was interested in the smaller engines though, which is why I was able to get them so easily and cheaply. Unlike the collection I got a couple of years ago, most of these engines are in good shape, and should run once they're cleaned up a bit. Big difference here is that the guy collecting them was a small-engine mechanic, so he knew what he was doing and his stuff worked. Even a "stuck" engine is valuable though - the individual parts that can be removed can add up to big $$$ when they're sold off bit-by-bit instead of the whole engine at once. I've got to get more shelves put up both at the farm-shop and at Iron Pony to store these things properly. I also need to catalog everything and create sales-lists for parts and/or complete engines. Maybe a good Winter project...
The heat all through the weekend and the week itself was incredible; Hot, and mostly dry, temperatures just soared! The thermometer on the outside of the shop was pegged past its limit of 50°c! Of course, the air-temperture wasn't quite that high, but that's how hot it was against the side of the building in the full sun! Inside, the shop was sitting at about 28°c, making work a horribly unpleasant task due to having to don coveralls for most of it. I didn't get a lot of mechanical work done for a couple of days due to the extreme heat - I just couldn't force myself to put on the coveralls and do things. When I finally did on Thursday afternoon, sweat was pouring off me in rivers! I'm thankful for the plumbed-in water-cooler I have in the shop, though the nasty charlie-horse I woke up with the next morning was a reminder that I need to get more Gatorade to help keep my electrolytes better balanced when I'm working and sweating that much!
Friday night was the Elk's fundraiser BBQ, and once again I volunteered to man the grill (with some help of course, the grill they use is huge!!) This was my first BBQ of 2012 - our own BBQ at the farm hasn't been used yet this year because there just hasn't been any time to use it! Since I was doing the grilling, I was able to select my own steak and cook it exactly the way I wanted it: A beautiful Medium, nicely browned on the outside with just a hint of pink on the inside! Had I been doing these at home, I would have soaked them in a marinade overnight to infuse them with even more flavour. Brent Hoffarth made an incredible multi-layed "Fruit Mousse" that was... well... Incredible! Jason Huss prepared a Ceasar Salad, blending in two variations of Lighthouse-brand Ceasar Salad dressing to create perfect blend that resulted in the best Ceasar Salad I've had in years! Baked potatoes cooked to perfection rounded out the meal, and I've got enough left-over baked potatoes to make piles of hash-browns and potato-salad!
I have managed to get a few more machines done at the shop: A couple of mowers, and three 42" Sears riding-mower decks. Last week I ordered three spindle-towers for these decks so that I'd have a couple of extras in stock (I knew that I needed one for a job) but I wound up needing all of them within 24 hours of each other! I've got two more on order again, but now they're back-ordered at the warehouse too! Here's hoping I won't be needing them too soon! The owner of one of the mower-decks has been quite a pain in the butt; She kept calling every hour or so to ask how it was coming. Geeeeze lady - did you not see all the machines in front of you? I am doing you a huge favour by getting the deck done ahead of the backlog, but it's still going to take time! I've done three decks in the last 24 hours, and hers was by far the worst! It was supposed to just get one spindle replaced, but closer examination has revealed that the other spindle-tower was also cracked, a pulley was badly warped, mounting-screws were mangled (which in combination lead to the major failure of the first spindle) and then I discovered a crack that ran completely through the main lift-support arm on the right side of the deck! Once I found that, I called her and told her that it wouldn't be ready until sometime on Monday as I'd have to take it over to Andy's shop to get him to weld it for me. I do have a good Hobart AC/DC welder at the shop, but 1) I don't know how to weld (yet) and 2) I don't have a 50-Amp 220-Volt connection for it (yet.) Funfunfun...
This afternoon, the owner of the first of the three decks came in to pick his up, and to purchase of the Dolmar string-trimmers! That makes for a nice big cheque to deposit in the back, which will certainly help pay a few bills for the shop. We're going to be doing a "Dolmar Demo Day" next Saturday as well, making it part of the Boomtown Days events here. I'm hoping that doing it during Boomtown Days will mean that there will be more people in town, and we'll get a bigger turn-out. The only catch is, I now have less than a week to get the shop uncluttered, make everything nice and neat, and get this beastie ready for the parade on Saturday:
This is the "prize" I was alluding to earlier! It's a custom-built machine, using nine Briggs & Stratton 5HP engines, all linked together! Add a 4-speed transmission from a 1946 Ford, a Dodge differential, and a hodge-podge of parts from Chevrolet, Cockshutt, and Mercury, and you've got one heck of an attention-getter! I'm planning to deck it (and a trailer that it will pull) with B&S banners and signs, loading the trailer with examples of the products I sell and service. The biggest catch right now is that I need to make sure all of the engines are tuned-up and running properly, AND I have to learn how to drive it! Of course, Jim didn't leave any instructions for it; He knew how it worked, but he never bothered to write anything down or show anyone else (that I was able to find) how it all worked. I need to figure out the gear-shift pattern, and figure out the clutch (it doesn't seem to work quite right, but I might be doing something wrong.) Less than a week to get it all done... Nothing like a little pressure to make me perform! %)
Also last week, I discovered that a Spanner-Wrench is a real thing, and not just a made-up bit of Steam-Punk Sci-Fi like in the fantabulous Girl Genius web-comic by Phil & Kaja Foglio. Of course, I discovered this because it turns out I need one, but I don't have one. Could have picked one up in Calgary the week before, had I known. None of the stores around here have one; In fact, none of them even knew what a Spanner-Wrench was. :/ I also leaned what a Bearing-Separator is, and how to use it; Many thanks to Andy for that bit of knowledge! Now I need to get a set of those as well! One of the frustrating things about this kind of work is discovering how much you don't know, though having people like Andy and Jack around to learn from sure makes it easier. I'm also pushing myself out of my comfort-zone when it comes to power-tools; I have a good set of air-tools that I rarely use, and other tools like angle-grinders that I also rarely use mostly because I'm unfamiliar with them, and to be honest they kinda scare me as a result. I have made use of air-powered impact-wrench in the past, and it certainly came in handy this afternoon trying to remove a really tough nut that just wasn't going to come loose with a regular breaker-bar and socket. Yeah, Power-tools (air or otherwise) can be great time-savers and a lot of fun once you get past the "scary" aspect!
So, that's what my life has been like for the last nine days, here's hoping for continued fun and progress!