Crop Duster

Since it's been hot and rainy of late, haven't been getting much done but I was outside when the crop duster came over to hit the field behind me. Man, that dude can fly a plane!. There are trees on the south and east side of the field, and there's and island of trees that juts out into the middle of the field on the east side as well. He works it like a champ, however. This year he did the field twice. I'm assuming the rain washed the spray away, so he came back and did it again. Different plane the second time. Don't know if it was the same pilot, but regardless, it's fun to watch.

This is probably the worst photo I've ever put up on the blog here but the blurry rendering is of a blade guide roller for the bandsaw at the college. The bearing seized up and the lab tech was going to swap it out. He had a spare bearing in stock but it was pressed on pretty tight. I took the torch to the bearing and cut it apart leaving just the inner race on the shaft. Usually that will heat up the inner race enough to expand it so it will come off easily. Not so on this one, however. I left the lab tech on his own to slice the inner race with a cut-off wheel but the shaft looked like the victim of an ax murder when he got done. Not much left to do at that point other than make a new one. That would be it on the right with the bearing installed. 

There's an older guy taking a machine tool course this summer in the lab where I work. He's putting together a tool kit for doing automotive/motorcycle sheet metal work. He's making some Tee dollies that I'm going to weld together for him. I don't know if he's planning on taking any more classes, but if he is, it would be nice if we could collaborate on a louver press.  

The is the Williams Low Buck Tools Metal Machine. It's got several different heads that bolt onto the frame. Doesn't look like it would be too tough to knock out the dies, especially if you had access to a fancy CNC milling machine. He wants an English Wheel as well. He might want to go a similar route as this. Just make two sets of louver dies and I'll handle the fabricating. Seems reasonable to me. Surly was working on a design for the dies. I'll have to check with him and see what he came up with. I'm going to have some time on my hands between classes at the college this fall semester. Might be nice to have a project to keep me busy while I'm there.

I did get some outside work done around the shack and some training miles in on the bike the last few days in spite of the heat. Going to try and get back on the VW in earnest this week - I did get the quarter panel tacked on at least. This is the last week of the summer session at the college and then I've got three weeks off. I've got nothing planned other than nibbling around the edges of the To-Do list. I'll see what speaks to me.