Winter's Here

 

We got about 3" of snow on New Year's Day. The nice big flake type of snow.  Winter wonderland in the back yard.

Surly came down yesterday and helped me roll the beads and the offset in the cab sheets for the jitney. They came out looking good. Next step is to temporarily join the two sheets with some Cleco fasteners and then start bending the round bar to fit inside the bead we rolled in. By doing it that way, I should be able to make the bar go all around both sheets without having to splice it. It'll be a lot easier to check the fit on one half at a time than trying to fit it if the sheets are joined together. At least that's the plan.

Surly brought a couple of late arriving Christmas presents down when he came. He and I were discussing Dick Proenneke not too long ago, so Surly found the book and bought it for me. After thumbing through it briefly, it looks like a really good read.

The bottom photo shows a pair of scales of G-carta for making a knife handle. I had never heard of G-carta until recently when Surly sent me a link to the guy who makes this stuff. I've made several knives in the past but they were a little amateurish. I think I could do much better these days. I've got a couple of store-bought blades in house, but not the kind of blades that would suit the G-carta. I might need to make or buy a blade for these.

It's actually winter-time cold now and probably will be for the next two months or so. Hopefully it won't get as cold as it was in Minneapolis the other night for the hockey game - 6 below when they dropped the puck. The cold might slow my progress in the shop a bit but I'm hoping to keep pecking away at the jitney. I got an e-mail about the rear tires about the same time I was expecting the tires. The crux of the matter was no tires, we'll let you know when we find out more. In the meantime, I'll work on the cab sheets and the steering - then get a brake pedal assembly and start fitting the floor and seat.

Lots to do but the year's starting out well, at least for me. Hope it stays that way.