What are you working on?

[b-body-bob]

No, read it again, the spindle is new. The washer has a reverse cup (concave) bend to it. It tightens down against the spindle in the center, but then it's bent enough in the direction away from the blade that the blade can wiggle.

I've gotta work on it more yet - on first try today I had the deck cable on the wrong side of a linkage so it wouldn't engage the belt - fixed that but then it started with the blade banging so I thought the worst and also man that was quick, but it looks like a part of the deck has now broken and is free to be sucked right into the blade.

So tomorrow's job is to take the deck off again so I can figure out if there's enough solid metal to weld it back in place.

ETA: also, I'm looking right at the nut when I wiggle it, and it's not moving like it would if the spindle was the cause.

 

[b-body-bob]

Just remembered I did this



That bolt is torqued to 70 lb/ft so if the spindle was moving, the bolt head would be.

The other side with the new spindle is solid as a rock. Until that washer bends.

 

[dodgechargerfan]

im suprised you didnt just flip the hinges to open the other way

That would put the latch on the outside. Can’t do that with a pool in the yard.

The old one was a bit messed up anyway. It fir the opening fairly tightly and the post that it closes against has twisted a lot. So the gate rubbed. I’ve planed things down a couple of times. It never really worked well again.
I made this one about an inch narrower and no issues. The gaps even look okay with the twist.

 

[b-body-bob]

That would put the latch on the outside. Can’t do that with a pool in the yard.

The old one was a bit messed up anyway. It fir the opening fairly tightly and the post that it closes against has twisted a lot. So the gate rubbed. I’ve planed things down a couple of times. It never really worked well again.
I made this one about an inch narrower and no issues. The gaps even look okay with the twist.

The wooden gates here are forever moving around I don't entirely understand it, we just deal with it. The worst one is next door, it's 2' deep and still moves.

 

[b-body-bob]

Well it turned out looking about like hot buttered hell but I didn't have much to start with.



This is the piece that was hitting the blade. Once it broke in the center there was only one bolt so it could swing. Also note the actual deck is broken.

Both halves of the broken part. I think that might have been part of a mulching kit but don't know. I decided it wouldn't hurt to put it back and maybe it would add some strength to the broken deck.


The broken deck

Then some stuff happened and viola, togetherness



I didn't even try to grind that weld out on the top but the other side of it isn't horribly ugly.



The separate bolted on piece ended up kind of welded back together and welded to the deck.

I hope I haven't jinxed myself talking about it before I start it up again. Found other cracks and fixed them too. Tried to not set afire the grass coating on the underside.

Update: it's got 1001 funny noises but I don't think any of them have to do with this repair. It made it through one more week.

 

[dodgechargerfan]

The wooden gates here are forever moving around I don't entirely understand it, we just deal with it. The worst one is next door, it's 2' deep and still moves.

Our posts are pretty solid in the ground. Some of them have just twisted from square.
It’s shit home desperate lumber that’s still wet from the pressure treatment process.
It starts to dry out and the natural tension of the wood is allowed to do it’s thing.

As far as I understand it, there’s only a few ways to avoid this.
Buy the lumber ahead of time and let it dry out before building. The wood may still twist, but you can cull the bad stuff out of the build Or use strategically where the defect doesn’t show or affect the structure. Buy extra wood.

Buy KDAT labelled lumber. Kiln Dried After Treatment. I have yet to find a source for this stuff near me.

Buy some naturally rot-resistant wood, like cedar, that hasn’t been treated, is already dry and less apt to twist, warp and cup. Eat Kraft Dinner for 5 years.

 

[thrashingcows]

That washer is to wide for the blade and is getting hung up on those angled ridges, also looks like the hole for the bolt to pass through is to large....either grind down the washer a bit around the edges and run a smaller tighter washer on top of the larger one, or get hardened washer with a smaller outer and inner diameter.

Just remembered I did this



That bolt is torqued to 70 lb/ft so if the spindle was moving, the bolt head would be.

The other side with the new spindle is solid as a rock. Until that washer bends.

 

[b-body-bob]

I could mess around with it forever and never fix it without the right bolt It's not coming loose so I'm not taking the deck out again.

This is the correct bolt/washer. I've got a couple of parts mowers here and could likely nab one off those, but that's another deck to come off for no good reason.

Gina's going to whack it into something and break it again soon enough anyway. When that happens I expect I'll need to swap the whole deck.

 

[restoman]

Our posts are pretty solid in the ground. Some of them have just twisted from square.
It’s shit home desperate lumber that’s still wet from the pressure treatment process.
It starts to dry out and the natural tension of the wood is allowed to do it’s thing.

As far as I understand it, there’s only a few ways to avoid this.
Buy the lumber ahead of time and let it dry out before building. The wood may still twist, but you can cull the bad stuff out of the build Or use strategically where the defect doesn’t show or affect the structure. Buy extra wood.

Buy KDAT labelled lumber. Kiln Dried After Treatment. I have yet to find a source for this stuff near me.

Buy some naturally rot-resistant wood, like cedar, that hasn’t been treated, is already dry and less apt to twist, warp and cup. Eat Kraft Dinner for 5 years.

I bought some PT lumber for a neighbour's gate two weeks ago.
We picked through the piles ourselves, to get the best we could find, but it's still all slightly better than garbage.
Very pricey garbage.

 

[69.5CUDA]

so a friend of mine had the house put up for sale out from under him, had to do a bunch of ren work on it...as he will get a % of the sale, but...the realtor had issue with his solar setup, wanted it inspected and a whole bunch of other stuff done that wasnt needed by code or otherwise...he deemed it simplest just to delete it soooo i ended up with it
the whole setup was installed on his place by me mostly and hasnt even seen a full year of use....now its on my place but will come down next year when the new roof goes on at which time ill double the setup to bigger or more inverters and add 3 more batterys and 7-14 more panels...and these arnt your garden varaity home panels, they are BIG panels, at 41x81 inches

current setup generates about 50-75% of the house from around 8am till 5pm before taper off for the night and running the battery for a few hours..looking like its going to cut the power bill by about 200ish a month its a 6000kv setup ie about 60 amps highest generation ive seen so far was around 4000 or so averaging around 2000


the breaker boxes are still open and being adjusted daily to maximize the useage and have a balanced load, getting closer to "done"

 

[b-body-bob]

We're probably in need of a new roof here, discussed solar yesterday and decided at our age it would mostly be a waste of money. At one point we had Solar Holler come out and do a survey and were surprised to find out that even though at mid day the yard feels like the surface of the sun, that we didn't really have a good line on sunlight so our return wasn't as great as we had hoped for.

 

[69.5CUDA]

yeah solar can be truely hit n miss depending on what direction your roof faces, but the real disaster in it is that the installers mark everything up to insanity levels and then mark up the install even further, this kit ran new around 12k and would pay itself off quickly

ive been told by solar companys that our roof location isnt worth solar, however...i spent a few mins every hour of the day checking our roof and angle of sun over the course of a month and noted its not perfect but its above the good line, thing isthey tend to look at the overhead shots and see all the trees and think theres no good line

idealy you just need a roof that has sun rise and sun set crossing it

after seeing this setup in action as well as understanding the simplicity of the install..i fully intend to drop 10k or so to upgrade it next year along with the roof

whats truely amazing is overcast days..they gennerate less peak power but generate power for more hours overall makeing them BETTER

 

[restoman]

Whoa!
Put some box connectors around those yellow wires going into the panels!

 

[69.5CUDA]

Whoa!
Put some box connectors around those yellow wires going into the panels!

im going to, this is still the initial rough in and verifying what circuits can even be on solar

the big issue i have found with solar is load balancing and watching to see what devices "spike"..ive got a window ac for example that spikes 23amps but only draws 5, belive it or not fridge startups are not "violent" and a non issue....initialy i was running 10 cuircuts but with the hard AC spikes i had to cut that back to 6 to keep the load down to something "tame" even when the hard spikes all hit at the same time

this is the first day where i think im at a point where i can remove what im not going to use and button it up till i add more battery/panels/inveters. and finish out all the little things

all said tho from sun up till around 5pm were generating what were using on the system with 50% before 10am going to the battery, with not a whole lot not hooked up to the system, had to remove 1 ac unit the fridge, pop machine, 1 server and a bedroom and primary kitchen wall(tryed to keep the most steady and heaviest load on the solar)....i now know the amp draw on every run in the house and with 3/4 of that running off the solar its allready making a nice dent in the power bill

 

[71ChargerRT]

Going through the garage, enclosed trailer and shed to make room for stuff that has been in a storage unit for a year. Purging a lot of stuff I have lying around that I'm sure I'll never use. I found a bunch of carburetors, along with other misc parts, once I figure out what I have I'll throw it all out there.
Also picked up a window unit A/C-heater combo in 240V to make life more comfortable, so I need to make a hole and move the plug.

 

[Stretch]

Holy shit! After 9 years it's done. And it's good! Oh so good!

 

[dodgechargerfan]

Amazing work!

Thats a beautiful car.

 

[71ChargerRT]

Installed my heat/AC unit. Garage is still a mess, but more comfortable to work.

 

[71ChargerRT]

After the HVAC I took my wife hunting, she took a nice buck, first ever deer. Good size for Texas free range.

 

[Dr.Jass]

Congratulations, Trish! That'll make a really nice mount.