Welding Coupons & National Disgrace

 

Welding coupons from my cert test. The lighting in the welding booth is not the best for taking photos of shiny reflective surfaces, but it's obvious that the coupons bent like they were supposed to. Paperwork gets done this morning.

I finished the job for Jimmy yesterday. I had trouble drilling the 1/2" holes in the 1/8" wall tubing. I had drilled a pilot hole and the bit wanted to grab and then stall out the motor on the drill press when drilling the 1/2" holes. The drill runs way too fast for drilling steel. I'm seriously considering spending my teaching income on buying a new drill press. However, that's one of the reasons I bought the mag drill a while back. The annular cutters make it easy to drill large holes. In this case I used the drill chuck that came with it and finished the job. The mag drill also runs a little fast for the twist bit but the job's done and I didn't burn up the bit. 

And now, several more reasons Joe Biden and the knuckleheads in Washington have pissed me off. First off, the pardon Joe granted his son after repeatedly saying he wouldn't. Hunter was forgiven a lot of sins, not only for his past, but what's coming up as well. Not really a surprise, though. We all should have known what was coming when he told the hard hat guy a few years back: "I don't work for you." That's for damn sure.

And then we have more money and arms being sent to Ukraine. The amount having been sent already is up into the billions of our tax dollars. That's a whole lot of blood money - the last figure I saw 600,000 people have been killed in that conflict. I don't like any of my money supporting that.

And then we have probably the greatest insult to the American people in my lifetime. It's bad enough the feds sent all of the FEMA money overseas, but now Slow Joe has promised one billion dollars in relief funding to African nations while the people in Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina are living in tents freezing their asses off. When the severity of his dementia became obvious, they should have just given him his blankie and some pudding and kept him in his room. Instead, with less than two months remaining in his term, they send him off to the "dark continent" to pledge a billion of our dollars while the hurricane victims were pledged $750. If they qualified and could figure out a way to apply since the power and mail service was down, that is. Helluva way to run a railroad, as they say.

Weld Test

Those were the days, indeed - war, riots - lots of similarity to what's going on these days. However, the mood of the country seems to be changing a bit. Only time will tell if things get better or it truly is the end of the empire.

One nice thing this week is the Medicare enrollment period ends in four days. No more annoying commercials on the television and phone calls from hooligans whose number shows up from all over the United States, including one from US Steel yesterday. Like I'm going to buy a Medicare supplement from some knucklehead who isn't honest enough to list his real number on caller ID. 

Photos of the face and root of the "open root" weld test I took yesterday. For some reason the phone didn't want to cooperate with the downloading of the photos, so I didn't post a photo of the results of the bend test. Plus, I was writing this at 11:00 last night and I was ready to hit the sack. I've got some paperwork to fill out now and then we'll have everything necessary to administer open root certification tests. This is all part of working toward becoming an AWS approved testing facility. I don't have any idea when or if that will ever come to pass, but I've only got three more days, so I doubt it will have any effect on me.

 

Finished Two

 

The log splitter is up and running - works like a champ. I ran a half dozen small logs through it and it didn't even grunt. 27 tons of splitting force and plenty of horsepower.

The chin-up bar is ready to ship. While I was finishing up the log splitter, I had the heater running in the shop so it was warm enough to paint - cold yesterday again. I rounded off the sharp edges, welded the end brackets to the bar and then got some paint on it. 

While all that was going on, Jimmy dropped off a couple of pieces of 1x2" tubing that need to be cut in half and have some holes drilled in them. Nothing to that one, just one more thing. Seems there's always one more thing, though. I'll knock that one out and then get busy on the sled for the "Jen-nasium". Lots of holes to be drilled for that one.

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy. Dentist and doctor appointments, a couple of dinners, some shopping, and finishing up the class at the college. 

5K & Log Splitter

 

The temperature when the 5K kicked off yesterday was about 15 degrees. There were 5 of us in my group that showed up to brave the elements - myself, Surly, a grandson, Coach Jen, and an Indiana Golden Gloves champ. Coach Jen had a bad back, so I walked with her. My slowest time on record, but Surly came in as the second place overall male winner. The grandson and the boxer both ran with unremarkable results. However, I wouldn't consider running 3.1 miles in 15-degree weather unremarkable myself. 

After the race we rendezvoused at the shack to get the beam for the log splitter out of the truck. The four of us were able to make short work of it. Not much left to do now - hook up the hoses and bolt a couple of other pieces on. The hose running from the tank to the pump was really stiff in the cold weather, so I'm going to get the heat gun out and warm it up to allow it to bend easier. TSC had hydraulic oil on sale Friday, so I bought a 5-gallon bucket of it. I've got gas and motor oil here, so I should be able to split wood real soon. We lit off the wood burner for the first time this season Thursday evening. With temperatures in the teens, I'm going to need wood.

I got a call from Jimmy at the boxing gym and he needs a little metal work done. He'll be bringing the job by this afternoon. I'm going to try and finish the chin-up bar and maybe do a little on the log splitter while the shop is warming up.

On the political front, I ran across an article stating Trump is planning on reinstating the Schedule F allowing him to get rid of "permanent" government employees. Biden tossed it out as soon as he took office. If you're not familiar with this, you might want to look into it. This could have a big effect on the size of the federal government in the future.