Life goes on - Winter 2024

tcholton717 · January 17, 2025, 1:22am

I think this was meant to be a joke. Too accurate to be very funny.

The king wanted to go fishing, and he asked the royal weather forecaster the forecast for the next few hours.
The palace meteorologist assured him that there was no chance of rain.
So the king and the queen went fishing.
On the way he met a man with a fishing pole riding on a donkey, and he asked the man if the fish were biting.
The fisherman said, “Your Majesty, you should return to the palace!”
In just a short time I expect a huge rain storm."
The king replied: “I hold the palace meteorologist in high regard.
He is an educated and experienced professional. Besides, I pay him very high wages. He gave me a very different forecast.
I trust him.”
So the king continued on his way however, in a short time a torrential rain fell from the sky.
The King and Queen were totally soaked.
Furious, the king returned to the palace and gave the order to fire the meteorologist.
Then he summoned the fisherman and offered him the prestigious position of royal forecaster.
The fisherman said, “Your Majesty, I do not know anything about forecasting. I obtain my information from my donkey.
If I see my donkey’s ears drooping, it means with certainty that…it will rain."
So the king hired the donkey.
And thus began the practice of hiring dumb asses to work in influential positions of government.
The practice is unbroken to this date.

BillSchiller · January 17, 2025, 2:24pm

Today we get a January thaw and by the time I wake up in the morning, it’ll be be subzero.
This is about a 40⁰ swing. It doesn’t happen often and it’s a bit of an adjustment.
For those across the pond and our northern neighbors it’s 1C to -20⁰C

JO_Olsson · January 17, 2025, 6:17pm

Bill, we’ve had quite a few of those swings this winter. Driveways are wet ice rinks right now. A week ago we had -17C. Annoying when perfectly snowy roads suddenly become icy washing boards.

On another note - I accidently found one of wife’s summer videos I didn’t know (or forget) about on YT. Me trimming down our Lindens next to the road. Can’t wait getting into summer season.

giorgio · January 18, 2025, 9:57am

yesterday we did the same…some fuel harvesting…sunny day without wind was ideal…

SteveUnruh · January 18, 2025, 6:19pm

We are having ~15 of my relatives over for a mid-winter visit. We’d all had to go separate ways to various in-laws for actually Christmas and New Years.
Some have dust and molds allergies so I’d saved back some old dry stored wooden furniture for wood heating:

A family table. Two chairs. A desk of drawers with the six drawers. And one side/end table.
I’ve already burn up the obvious noticeable arms and legs. They had the majority of the shellacs and vanishes so the greater smells burning.

All of this was eastern North Americans old furniture’s grade woods. Soft woods. And near-hardwoods.
Certainly smells, burn-rate and coals differently than our PNW native woods.
Steve Unruh

Woodrunner · January 19, 2025, 11:00am

Need to share this, how it happens when a chaotic mind works
Well, i needed to bend some pipes, heavy duty, seamless hydraulic tubing, nice to bend, but hard!

So, i slapped together this bending rig, tested with sand-filled aluminum pipes, fail, they cracked.
Next, the hydraulic tubing, VERY hard, tried heating with my big propane torch, AND a blowtorch at the same time, the workplace became hot as a sauna, and as i mowed the flame just a little, the red part immediately started cool off…
Then i remembered: Tone or Kristijan, or maybe Giorgio? had showed here a smart forge for long pieces, so i slapped one together…

Built out of scrap square tubing. The lowest tube welded shut in both ends, a cut slot along the bottom, and air from my compressor through a reducing valve in in one end, worked perfectly!

Until:… In the bottom i welded a “leg” that i in turn welded to a big old heavy flywheel, as a foot, to get it steady, and good working height.
When pipe was (almost) heated enough this “leg” broke from the flywheel, everything collapsed, throwing glowing charcoal everywhere! As a bonus some charcoal set the air supply hose on fire, the now free pressurized air spread sparks and pieces of glowing charcoal over a big area, as the air hose started “snaking”… me? I managed to catch the red hot pipe in the fall, rushing to the bending jig, to atleast get the pipe done.
After cleaning up the mess, putting out the fires, and collect charcoal from the ground (in the hurry i stomped on the bag with charcoal, breaking it)
I decided to use the old forge instead.

Worked, but much more cumbersome.
Im going to rebuild the “long-forge” in the future.

I use to check in the pipes to estimate how the heat is going, without disturbing the char.
As i did this i noticed a blueish ring of fire taking place in the pipe, this started travel against me, i looked at it, somewhat hypnotized, when it suddenly accelerated to the speed of sound, and i got hit in the face by a fire vortex, with a popping sound.
It trimmed my left eyebrow some (it could have trimmed the other one also, due to wifes opinion)

Next chaos: when firing up my forge (which is in the basement shop) the charcoal smoked- extremely! Thick, white smoke, the ventilator couldn’t keep up, my idea was to set the smoke on fire, it worked, but the flame tripped the ventilators overheat protection, which has to be re-set through the inlet channel

The smoking charcoal.

I found the culprit of the smoke, this old chainsaw has been standing in the charcoal-bucket for a while, seeping out bar oil…
Maybe placed there by me, so it shouldnt leak on the floor…?

JO_Olsson · January 19, 2025, 3:31pm

Göran, I hope you don’t mind - but your story gave me a good chuckle. I wish you had your camera rolling. A video like that could have made you a fortune on YT

JohanM · January 19, 2025, 4:23pm

Oh, it was one of Those days, the best things about them is that afterwards you can laugh about it and it also makes a fun story. Not so fun when you’re in the middle of it.
Thanks for sharing Göran

Woodrunner · January 19, 2025, 4:49pm

Yes, that is why i like to share my stupidness
Then it is not wasted, and could give others a warning. (To not be close to me when i work?)

And all went good after all, only a small blister on my left wrist, good thing i seem to not feel burns anymore, often i notice the smell of burning flesh before i feel something is too hot to handle

Maybe a advantage for a woodgasser to have burned-out pain receptors?

Woodrunner · January 19, 2025, 4:52pm

Is there anyone more than me that feels you got more stuff done at “one of THOSE days”?

SteveUnruh · January 19, 2025, 4:55pm

For times like these Goren I now re-watch the children’s movie Angry Birds.
There is a skit of the bird with the anger problem having to go to a mandated anger management class.
Frustrated he smacks the made of springs mannequin. It smacks back. He attacks it harder. Result: it springs back harder yet. Of course the only energy is that which he puts into the situation.

Here is a too cute saying:
“The only Fate is the Fate that you make.”
Sometimes it is best to just for a day set aside a task and go watch the sunset. Give a day for the bad-moon-arising, to evolve, change.
S.U.

JohanM · January 19, 2025, 5:16pm

Could it be that more stuff gets done because of the added stuff needing to be fixed after things went sideways?
Regardless of that, it does give you a good ’well done’ -feeling afterwards and that is a nice feeling.

madflower69 · January 20, 2025, 2:24am

Apparently Chinese scientists have bacteria that turn co2 into acetate then that is covered by other bacteria into protein.

madflower69 · January 20, 2025, 2:42am

Here is an electric motor from Sweden that looks good.

Norman89 · January 20, 2025, 5:45am

Ya those days stick out like a sore thumb in memory, my own most recent last Wednesday. Have the geo needing all around brakes and a wheel bearing, suburban sitting next to it needing front brakes. Stopped and got all available parts Tuesday night to do both, it’s just brakes? Hardly a days work right? Right.

I tear into the geo first, driver front as it needs the wheel bearings replaced. Tore it down to find the spindle damaged and chewed down, new bearing falls on and off when it should be a press fit

Scavenge through the parts pile of the brown car I got last summer, trying not to rob parts off the twin silver one I just replaced the sheet metal on and haven’t had time to finish. Find a spindle in decent shape, swap it out all is good slam rotor and pads and work my way to the driver rear. Wheel cylinder blew its guts out and puked fluid everywhere, tear it down clean up the backing plates swap out wheel cylinder and shoes go to slide the drum on, it doesn’t fit. What the hell, disassemble it and reassembled, pushed the shoes around, compress the wheel cylinder, back off the e brake, measure the drum all the standard things that could possible be wrong that all mechanics have seen

2 hours of fiddling later I threw my hands up in frustration. Went to the suburban, tear down the driver front, crap. Wheel bearing on it is junk on it too.

Go to the parts store get bearings races and seals, come back with a cooler head and try the geo again with a fine tooth comb

The new wheel cylinder fully compressed is .050 longer then the stock one, the shoes physically cannot compress far enough for the drum to fit over. Stupid Chinese junk parts. I filed the break shoe tips enough to make everything clear. It’s dark and below freezing at this point, back to the burban

Drive out and replace the races, pack the new bearings put the seal in, go to drive the wheel studs through the rotor into the hub assembly, and they bottom out leaving the rotor “floating” not clamped tight

Tear it back apart. Break out the micrometer again. The new rotors are machined incorrectly and out of spec on the rotor face, to thin

By .050 of an inch

Twice in one day out of spec parts bit me back to back.

I was so hot when I came in the house I could have spit fireballs to light the wood stove

tcholton717 · January 20, 2025, 12:21pm

Uncle Tony has been ranting about that very thing for a couple of years now. Are there even OEM parts still available?

Marty · January 20, 2025, 12:35pm

Bad parts are a pain and/or dangerous. Years ago I worked on my girlfriend’s car after it had been to the mechanics for a brake job (new front rotors). After the job it was having a thumping noise and shudder that vibrated the car when she braked. She took it back and the mechanic resurfaced the rotors. It got worse to the point where a wheel stud broke. When I examined it, I found a crack in the cooling fins between one of the rotor faces. On every revolution with the calipers pressing on the rotor, it compressed the crack and then jammed up when hitting the good part of the rotor. Told her to never go back to that mechanic again. I’m just glad she didn’t lose a wheel at speed.

Norman89 · January 20, 2025, 3:12pm

My hoard of stashed parts is about to start growing again I promise you

SteveUnruh · January 20, 2025, 3:16pm

20F/-7C COLD here this early clear-sky morning. A bit of a warm-up condition to some of you true Arctic bunnies. Not for us. We are cloudy sky; rains enduring, woosies (weaklings) here.

The for-guests furniture wood is all gone, used up now.
Back to old, half deteriorated, former deck tear-off nails laden wood:

Sawsall length cut. Hand split; then crib stacked for final in-house drying/conditioning.
The gone cold mornings metals harvest from the ashes piled on the lower pictured left hand side.

All of these factors learned and daily reinforced are why I say you will only really learn to use woods for fuels by DOING!! And this is quickest easiest done in a true airtight, controllable, glass fronted wood stove.
Yes. How rude of me. But it is true.

Ha! Ha! Two of the house guests I found later had been messing with my crib stacked playing Jenga with it.
Regards
Steve Unruh

Norman89 · January 20, 2025, 6:08pm

I hate my china wood stove more by the day, it doesn’t like the slightest punky wood even when coupled with good maple and alder hardwood coal beds. It will get an upgrade.

18f at my house today been below freezing for a week and another week forecast to go, quail duck chicken and rabbit water freezing temps, more morning chores added