What did you do today?


new2woodwrk

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I'm pretty sure that whole building was shipped from somewhere else.  The sapwood looks too plain to be SYP.  Those cabinets are all sap wood.

I also expect the mortises were cut with a machine like a Makita chainsaw mortiser, so probably too much extra work to cut them anything but square to the face.  It's many times easier to cut a tenon to fit, and also easier to assemble the frame.

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Had a couple of hours to spare to work on the tractor this afternoon.  I took out both clutches, and disassembled the forward clutch pack.  Very fortunate that all of the large, expensive parts are just fine.  I'm going to replace every moving part, including springs, before putting it all back together.  

People wonder why I do this stuff myself.  The short part of the long story about the last time I had the dealer rebuild the clutch, I found out today that they had left out a seal.  There has always been a hydraulic leakdown since that work.  That doesn't include such things as propping the loader up on the hood with a 4x4 across the hood, which pushed the hood all the way down to the motor, buggering up the tachometer cable so the tach didn't work, and other stuff.......

Total cost for all moving parts in both the main, and forward clutch pack is $364 before taxes.  I have about four or five hours so far in the splitting, and disassembly.  It should go back together a lot faster.   The dealer wanted "between 1500, and 10,000".  I always figure that if my time doing mechanic work is worth a hundred bucks an hour, that I will do it myself.  I don't think it's ever not been Way over that.  The time I had the dealer rebuild the clutch, it cost 1,100 in 2009, but then there was a big hydraulic leak, so I carried it the hour one way back, and it cost me another $800 to get the tractor back.  It's never been quite right, but I used it like it was for some years.  

I found the hydraulic press in the woods, so it looks rough, but does its job fine.  I needed something to go around the 2-3/4" spindle, to push the disk springs down, so i could get that large snap ring off.  That puller ended up being the perfect thing, without having to make something.

It's really nice having the authentic technical manual, that shows all the steps in drawings, pictures, and order.  I also have a complete parts book that has exploded views of everything.  John Deere also has the parts book online, with prices if you specify a dealer.

 

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I couldn't copy and paste the picture from the parts page, but if you're interested, here's a link to the page.  It might show up with the stuff I added to the list, but some of that, like the main case, was just to check the price.  If I had to replace that main case you see on the press, it would have been $1865.

https://partscatalog.deere.com/jdrc/sidebyside/equipment/79943/referrer/navigation/pgId/211137

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I've done some mechanic work and even doing things slower than the professional mechanics would get things done I still generally paid myself $50 an hour in savings. Things like brake pads and rotors are super easy and yield the most savings. I recently helped a friend replace his. His quote was $1,500 and we did it in 3 hours with $$300 in parts. That put it at $200/hr for both for each of us.

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And here it is with the light green airbrushed on, then with the tape removed.

Some might ask, why not paint the whole thing light green then tape it off for just the dark? Um, that’s one way to do it, but it affects the color so I opted not to do that on this project. 
Hey at least I didn’t wait two weeks to make progress! :) 

F5E4A098-2BA6-4E35-B0BC-3AB7DE8031A3.jpeg

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I told Mike, as we were heading home, that if I won the lottery, I'd probably just buy stuff to work with.

My rental place has only recently started renting these towable lifts.  Before, they only had the self-propelled ones that you needed to pay for a low-boy delivery on too.  It was hard to justify those for small jobs like this.

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8 hours ago, Tom King said:

Picture is not from today, as this thread asks about, but from day before yesterday. 

My clients that own this house have several years worth of work on my waiting list.   They want a Cypress Shingle roof, as it had originally.  I didn't put this roof on it, but have needed to fix it several times.  The edge of these steel shingles were blown up in a previous, moderately strong storm.  Knowing that a much more severe storm was on the way, there was little to do but include this in several days of preparation.

Not having time to set up scaffolding, I rented this lift.   I want one.   Park it, turn a key, get in the cage, push some buttons, and you're up where you need to work.  The clients are talking about buying one now.

It only took me a couple of hours to fix this problem, so I took it down on our point, and did some limbing with my little Makita battery powered chainsaw.  I could probably make a living with nothing more than the lift, and little chainsaw.

New, these are about 32k.  Rental is $210 a day, but I have to drive 45 minutes, one way, to get it.   Platform height is supposed to be up to 45 feet.  I think that's with the feet on tiptoes, and the extension of the arm out.  You can see the shiny metal where that part is telescoped out a little in the picture.  These soffits are 27 feet off the ground.

We had some wind damage on our place from the extreme winds, but the two pieces of tin blown off the mechanic shop were blown off after the rain had gone through, so no real damage to anything inside.  I have the new tin ready to go back on tomorrow, after the wind calms down some.

Mike took the photo, and as you can see, he makes no claim to be a photographer.

 

 

 

Tom, what's going on with their chimney? Looks like there is a pretty big space between the roof and chimney.

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