What did you do today?

[Tpt life]

I would suspect a minor seal leak and the evaporation of one of the carriers. 

[pkinneb]

On 5/25/2024 at 10:07 PM, Coop said:

Wow! From the looks of the pic, I would have thought you mixed it with sawdust for it to dry out for disposal. 

i have never heard of doing this  before great idea 

[Tom King]

Here, we mix partial old cans of paint with dirt and it goes out as solid waste.  I've never tried sawdust but expect it would work fine.  Not sure which would be easier.

[Tpt life]

At the paint shop I once labored, we poured onto kitty litter. That litter was clay, so….yeah…dirt. 

[gee-dub]

Holy mackerel I forgot how exhausting 5 kids age 6 and under could be.  I had to hand them off and come in here for a sanity check

[Coop]

Two horseback rides each didn’t help eh? 

[legenddc]

Been a busy few days. Friday after work I got our backyard mulched. Saw a snake in our backyard but it got under our deck before I could see if it was a copperhead or not. Then went out front and saw this guy. 

Saturday morning we started the day bright and early at our local cars and coffee. These cars are probably the farthest apart in age I’ve seen parked next to each other besides a museum. 

Surprised my mom with my brother and his family coming up on Sunday for dinner. We took professional family photos Monday morning. Somehow we also made it to the pool 3 days. 

On 5/27/2024 at 7:09 PM, gee-dub said:

Holy mackerel I forgot how exhausting 5 kids age 6 and under could be.  I had to hand them off and come in here for a sanity check

Lot of energy? Having 2 under 9 full time isn’t super relaxing either. My buddy and I used to joke we go to work to relax. 

[Von]

My father was a big fan of gooseberry pies, so when we bought our current house 13 years ago, I planted some gooseberry bushes. Though my dad has passed, I still enjoy making the annual harvest and taking the results to my mom to turn into pies. Only one of my original bushes is still alive and while I planted some new ones last year, they aren't very prolific yet, so a small crop this year - one pie I think. With the thorns, harvesting the berries is a bit like playing the Operation game.

[treeslayer]

My father was also a fan and so am I, thanks for bringing back some memories 

[Chestnut]

I've never tried a gooseberry pie but it was added to my must try list a couple weeks ago. I wonder if i have a good spot for a couple bushes.

[treeslayer]

Plant several, gooseberry wine 

[gee-dub]

Working on some ideas for pulls for the pair of dressers project.  LOML likes a dark pull on cherry pieces so I will probably go with an oiled Peruvian walnut possibly dyed even darker.  Should have a couple mock ups today out of scrap.

I was getting some odd results on my planer DRO.  Checked the batteries and they were 14 months old. Swapped them and re-calibrated . . . all is well.

[legenddc]

On my way to Home Depot this morning to get jack stands my check engine light came on. I swapped the camshaft sensors and reset it. Hopefully that cures it. 
 

Got 90 minutes in the shop today to mill up some maple boards. 
 

Then went outside to replace my wife’s car rear brakes. My father in law was helping which saved a ton of time. Total was 2 hours including a 45 minute trip to AutoZone when a caliper bolt broke. 
 

Today alone I’ve been to  Autozone three times, Advance Auto and Home Depot. 

[Tom King]

BIL and I went to look at a water pump advertised on FB Marketplace.  I need to get some water on 2 acres or it will take years to get it under nice enough grass to rent it for weddings.  Ended up bringing it home.  It's been stored in a building for ten years.  The building is being sold and they no longer have any use for the pump and needed stuff gone quickly.  

I will be able to water that 2 acres and sometime in the future our pastures.  For now I'll be dumping most of the water back in the lake. 

Chrysler 360 V8 motor.  Pumps 2300 gpm at 1400 rpm.  6" intake and will pressurize the 5" outlet up to 266 psi.

It needs some work, like a carb rebuild and gas tank cleaning I'm sure.  Rebuild kits for the pump not too bad, but even if I have to get the motor rebuilt the price was cheap enough that I'll still come out ahead.  It has straight pipes on it now, but I plan to put the largest quietest mufflers I can find on it.

I also bought 1100 feet of 2-1/2" PVC pipe of FBM that another seller is delivering.  This pump will run five of those lines, but I'm only going to use two on the point.  Each of the two 2-1/2" sprinklers is supposed to cover a 223' radius at 587 gpm.    1/2" on the ground of the whole point and some back in the water in about 20 minutes by the charts.

It will take a while to get it all going.  A self-cleaning intake screen that requires 42gpm of water to drive will be the most expensive part of the whole system.  

Pictures maybe tomorrow.  We didn't take it off the trailer tonight.

One bonus is now I don't have to run a large wire 500 feet down the hill for an electric pump.  Price difference in the wire is by current price $4350 before down to $2200 now without the electric pump load.  I've very glad I hadn't gotten to that yet.  The price difference on the wire alone pays for the pump and over half of the pipe.

[Coop]

Tom, are there fire hydrants in your area? 

[Tom King]

Yes, tied into the county water system.  There is one right out in front of my shop.  Water out of the lake is a lot cheaper.  I sprinkled the point with a couple of water hoses tied into the water line to the rental house.  The water bill went way up and it wasn't enough water to be worth the trouble or cost.

The plan is, with five hours to turn the house around between renters, I can drop a half inch of water on it to start with in 20 minutes.  By the time I cut the grass not on the point that's well established, that will be done and I can cut that in the last hour.

The plan in my head is two of these sprinklers.  One on a fixed pole over on the right edge a couple of hundred feet from the end of the point covering a half circle, and the other on a pipe up above and right beside the outer gable end of the little bathroom house covering a full circle.  I'll have to rig up some temporary setups to see exactly what they cover.  The point is a bit over 600 feet long and not over 150 feet wide, so some of the coverage will be dropped back in the lake.  Still a lot cheaper than a bunch of golf course sprinklers for the exactly right coverage.

This is where we are right now.  Too slow waiting on rain.  Needs a Lot of water.

 

 

The plan includes one of these mounted under the dock on the left side of the point with a 6" intake pipe up to the outer end of the bathroom house where I'll park the pump. 

https://sure-flo.com/strainers/self-cleaning-strainers/   Specifically the 10XL one up to 2500 gpm.

One reason the pump came so cheap was that someone had stolen the hand pump primer off of it.  I wasn't planning to use a hand pump anyway.  There is a water hose right there to fill the intake line with.  A check valve will be next to the self cleaning intake screen and a 1" drain down ball valve right above the check valve over a foot under water so it can be drained in freezing weather.

[Mark J]

12 hours ago, Tom King said:

Chrysler 360 V8 motor. 

I had to read this 3 times.  You have a water pump powered by a 360 cubic inch V8 engine!  When you said pump I was thinkin' something like a pressure washer.  Wow. 

[Coop]

I thought maybe if you didn’t have fire hydrants in the area, having the pump might lower your insurance. 

[Tom King]

I doubt my insurance company could think that clearly.  

[Tom King]

On 6/2/2024 at 10:03 AM, Mark J said:

I had to read this 3 times.  You have a water pump powered by a 360 cubic inch V8 engine!  When you said pump I was thinkin' something like a pressure washer.  Wow. 

Yes, but it's just a two barrel carb version.  I probably won't need over 1500 rpm though.  On the chart it takes 50 hp to move 2300 gpm at 1400 rpm.  The motor is straight coupled to the pump with a couple of u-joints in a drive shaft.  I'm going to have to limit the rpms some sort of way.  The gasketed PVC pipe joints are only rated for 200 psi.

Picture is right after we took it off the trailer.  I pressure washed the dust off of it and put a tongue jack on it.  That's probably all it will get for a while.  6" inlet and 5" out.

The pump is a lot newer than the motor.  Looks like it started life as a fire pump.  The motor looks original to the way it was mounted, but there has been a lot of work to the frame and the pump was changed just a year before the seller stopped using it according to him.  It's a pretty big thing.  Tires outside to outside is 75".

 

 

[Botch]

Today I visited a Burger King for the very last time.  I don't usually do fast food but I tweaked my lower back badly four days ago, and it still hurts to stand upright more than a few minutes so it hurts to even make a sammich (I can sit, even in a truck, okay).

Speaker: "Welcome to Burger King; what can I get you?"
Me:  "Whopper Combo w/iced tea"
Speaker:  "Medium or Large?"
I glance at the board, M is a $1.40 upcharge and the L $2-something.  
Me:  "Just the Small, thank you"
Speaker:  "We only sell M or L, which will it be?"
Me:  "You have a Whopper Combo on your sign out here advertised for $8.99; that's what I want, please"
Speaker:  "We only sell M or L, which would you prefer?"
Me:  "Why are you advertising an $8.99 Combo if you're not selling it?"
Speaker:   
Me:  (drives off)  

I'm getting so, so tired of the money grubbers.  I quit flying commercially years ago, just dropped amazoid prime, refuse to watch EweTube directly anymore (there's this cool, free app called "Swizztube" on the App Store, but you didn't hear it from me ), quit attending any TicketBastard concerts, dropped my dental insurance and am considering dropping medical, etc etc.  I'm not cheap, I'll still pay top "earned dollar" amounts for merch like LLBean, Nikon, Lie-Nielsen,  Veritas, (and I should probably unsubscribe from the Blue Spruce Toolworks emails [/drool]); but damn these blatant money-grabs by the billionaires is getting old.  How much is enough???

(Moderators, please delete if I got too close to the third rail)  

[legenddc]

You should have told them you wanted the $8.99 one. Reminds me of when my grandfather ordered someone from an infomercial. He kept insisting he only wanted one, didn't want the second for the extra $2.99. They finally let him order one. He was shipped two. 

[Botch]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:30 AM, legenddc said:

You should have told them you wanted the $8.99 one. Reminds me of when my grandfather ordered someone from an infomercial. He kept insisting he only wanted one, didn't want the second for the extra $2.99. They finally let him order one. He was shipped two. 

That was my exact experience the one time I called an infomercial.  For 15 minutes they kept trying to sell me additional stuff, and I finally just hung up.  

[Coop]

Chick-Fil-A hired the best of the best and trained them very well. Everyone else is left with the rest. 

[Chet]

On 6/3/2024 at 10:48 AM, Coop said:

Chick-Fil-A hired the best of the best and trained them very well

In And Out Burger, which I don't think is in Texas yet, is the same way and they pay their employees well.  My grandson worked for them for three years while he did all his HVAC certificates.  He was making over $23 an hour when he left.