Keeping Busy

 I've been staying busy the last few days - the nice weather helping my motivation quite a bit. 

I assembled all the parts of the drill press except the head. The base has 4, 10mm threaded holes to fasten the column to but the threads were pretty rough. Fortunately, I have a pretty good selection of metric taps, so I chased the threads and then put a little thread locker on the bolts when I bolted the column down.

My sister-in-law gave me a small refrigerator that her father had in his shop prior to his passing. It was in need of a good cleaning and a place to call home. I cleaned it up inside and out, blew the works out with the air hose and made a shelf for it so I could put it beneath the metal table next to the mill. Seems to work well, but I need to get a power strip to plug it in under there. 

I got the pieces for the weight rack laid out. It was going to be a slow process trying to weld it together with the TIG, so it was time to break out the MIG welder. I haven't used it in years but I had a new roll of wire in a sealed package, so I blew the dust off everything, installed the new roll of wire, plugged it in, and pulled the trigger. Success! Since it had been a while since I had used it, and it had a different size wire on it last time, it took me a couple of times of twisting the knobs to get it dialed in, but it's set to go now.

I also worked on the muffler inserts for the Sportster. They're just a bit too large but the other sizes would be either too large or too small. I worked them over a bit with a hammer and they'll go in now but they're a tap fit. I made a quickie attachment for my slide hammer so I can get them back out again if I so choose. I need to pull the pipes off and drill a hole in them to keep the insert in place and that job will be done.

The electronic ignition was supposed to come yesterday but it was a no show. Hopefully it'll show up today. I want to get it installed and timed so I'll be ready for the birthday shake-down ride.

I've been out on the bicycle for my morning rides again since the weather has been so nice. The swelling has gone down on the wrist from the yellow jacket stings. It was still itching a bit yesterday though. I sprayed what I thought was the nest in the woodpile but I'm planning on doing it again today.

More nice weather on tap for the long weekend. Yippie-skippy!