Not today, but over the weekend: stripped, cleaned and reassembled the carbs on my bike; still wouldn't start because (I'm guessing) of low compression, it had sat for so long all the oil was drained down. So I pulled out the plugs and dropped a teaspoon of oil in each cylinder, put it all back together and she fired up no problem (bit smoky at first ).
The day before I'd opened the pool; got everything cleaned out and running, only to find a big pool of water on the floor the next day; pump was leaking, a worn shaft seal. Sourced the part for $20 and took that thing apart and had the seal replaced in less than an hour - the parts guy at the store had helpfully offered to do the job for $120.
Sometimes in the middle of doing these kind of tasks I'll think to myself it's not such a big deal, it's not rocket surgery. But then I think of my partner at work who wanted to put up a new set of blinds at home and had to call his brother-in-law because he doesn't even own a drill...
Yesterday, I was driving in the countryside with my Dacia when a plastic part of the wheelhouse got loose and touched the tyre. I could temporarily fix it using adhesive tape.
I usually travel with a pocket knife and tape, it's useful in so many situations.
(03-26-2017 07:26 AM)Fortis Wrote: I have been feeling stagnant in the game and I've been forcing myself to do shit to rattle my cage and push my comfort zone.
Today I brought a girl with me the gym and this other chinese girl there had one of the best asses I've seen in weeks.
The girl I was with was even like, "wow, she has a great butt!"
So as we were leaving the gym the girl i was with was like, "you should get her wechat" and sorta laughed thinking I wouldn't do it.
So I went and cold approached and got the other girl's wechat right in front of her. She came over and she even winged the interaction for me.
Afterwards she's like, "I've never seen a guy do that."
Banged this girl last night. We're fucking in y bed and i'm going deep and I suddenly hear the wood break underneath us and the bed collapses.
I finish up, fix up the bed and we go to sleep.
The next day I'm waking up and I stand up and the bed collapses again.
Busted my 14 year old son's chops... and he gave it right back to me.
Last year he and I and my daughters paid attention to the election, watched the primary and presidential debates, and by default Trump's ascension. The kids were on board as soon as they found out Trump wanted to get rid of Common Core.
Yesterday we're all getting ready to go out, and my son is putting a hoodie on and somewhat struggling. As he pulls the bottom down around his waist, the hood is still engulfing his head. Off the cuff I say, "Nice hoodie, Jeb."
Him: "Who's Jeb ?"
"Jeb Bush ?"
He gives me a quizzical look..
"He was the guy with the glasses that debated Donald Trump."
"The tall guy that looks like the guy from that show (Chevy Chase in Community) ?"
"Yeah, that guy."
"Oh yeah."
Silence for a minute, and as I'm putting my shoes on he says, "Dad ?"
"Yeah ?"
I look over and he's standing there holding his hands together, and says..
Picked out 8 guns to part with today, at least two of which will be sorely missed.
The state and federal governments here seem to have picked out a certain number of guns that ranks as "too many" and have instituted a raft of measures to make life difficult for anyone who wants to own that many or more.
Coupled with a somewhat diminished sense of trust in Trump's leadership on the world stage I've made the decision to be less of a collector and more of a gunman.
Most missed will be my World War Two Enfield, but there are much better options to fill its role. Besides that, three handguns, several rimfire rifles and a mid caliber hunting rifle will all go, and sadly I'll not get much more than peanuts for them in the current market. When all's said and done I'll be down to five guns, three of them having to be purpose-acquired new, and none of them are going to stay cold for long at a stretch. A pain in the ass but that's life. I get the creeping sense that the time to give peace a chance is drawing to a close.
Finally had the time and warm weather to finish up reorganizing the garage, which I started a couple months back when I got a new car and had to make room (and didn't, quite, until today). Ladder hangers and the mount for the string trimmer put up, a bunch of boxes stored in the attic, tools put away.
Then I tore out all the bare-bulb ceiling lights and installed four big LED shoplights. Because who doesn't want Sahara noon in their garage at the flick of a switch?
Then I tried out my big new router. Built a jig and cut a 1.5" wide bevel on the front edge of a new oak top for my sit-stand desk. Unlike my smaller router, the new one purrs.
Now it's off to lift and do a half hour on the heavy bag with Bas.
Did a manual transmission drain & fill plus changed out all 6 spark plugs on my car.
Getting better at how fast I complete car work.
Total time start to finish for both jobs was roughly 55 minutes.
Started making ash flatbow / recurve bow. I was whole afternoon in the woods making firewood and I was too tired to do some major work on bow.
What I did is removal of bark, cutting to 68" length and drawing basic bow layout. Tomorrow I will do some wood removal and I hope to get bow near the drawn dimensions.
Most of the upper limb and handle area. Bow has rigid handle.
Here you can see interesting knots on the upper limb and "island" around them that follows grain in order to prevent breaking.
(05-03-2017 11:36 AM)sterling_archer Wrote: Started making ash flatbow / recurve bow. I was whole afternoon in the woods making firewood and I was too tired to do some major work on bow.
What I did is removal of bark, cutting to 68" length and drawing basic bow layout. Tomorrow I will do some wood removal and I hope to get bow near the drawn dimensions.
Most of the upper limb and handle area. Bow has rigid handle.
Here you can see interesting knots on the upper limb and "island" around them that follows grain in order to prevent breaking.
I like wood-crafting and I am interested in result of your work, post your progress later.
This is the best method for fast wood removal if you don't have band saw. Cut wood perpendicular to bow layout every couple of inches. Then you use hatchet and hammer to remove each wood section. I use chisel and hammer to remove small portions of wood left untouched by hatchet.
This is result. Now its time for draw knife and careful wood removal to get to drawn lines.
I took draw knife and removed wood until I got to the marked lines.
I mark thickness taper marks on the sides. You must always follow the grain while keeping constant taper. It seems complicated to do as you don't use rulers, but its actually pretty easy when you get hang of it.
Large quantity of wood needs to be removed so I use same method as I did for the sides of the bow. I cut incisions and remove them with hatchet and hammer.
This is the result. Now I must again use draw knife and carefully remove wood until I hit marked thickness lines. Belly of the bow must be smooth.
Here is bow ready for final drying. It will be clamped to a aluminum profile and left to dry until middle of June or so. Then I will proceed on tillering.
Next thing: finish sword blades (see previous page of this thread)
(05-06-2017 10:59 AM)sterling_archer Wrote: Here is bow ready for final drying. It will be clamped to a aluminum profile and left to dry until middle of June or so. Then I will proceed on tillering.
Next thing: finish sword blades (see previous page of this thread)
I was into archery once so I appreciate the effort. I 'll wait for progress.
I plan to make sometime a detailed bow building datasheet. I am sure some guys here will be interested as bow building is connected to both hunting and whole survival shtick and its actually very addictive hobby.
This will happen when I decide to make new bow from the scratch and in this datasheet I will cover everything one needs to know to make their first bow. I will actually photograph in woods suitable trees, talk about good bow woods and than progress to actual shaping shown in these photos above.
Btw, few things regarding this bow above. Ash is very hygroscopic wood and it needs to be around or even below 10% of humidity. This ash on pictures above felt dry but its actually a trap. As soon as I would put it on tillering tree and start to manipulate with limbs, they would got "set". Set is effect when you subject wet tree to excessive bending force. Wood does not break but it isn't springy anymore. That is reason why all these survival green wood bows made on youtube are actually bad choice. That is why I must basically make him roast under the attic roof, so it loses most of the water particles.
Not related to it, this bow shows a couple of red alerts and I am not 100% confident it will come out as I wanted in the end. But this thing is normal in bow building. Sometimes weird things happen such as when you get "perfect" piece of wood and its impossible to work with and in other times you get ugly and knotty stick and it produces most amazing looking bow.