Sharing My Love For The USPS

 

I ordered a pound of aluminum TIG filler rod. Since the closest welding supply is at least two gallons worth from me, it's pretty much a break-even proposition to order and have it sent to the house. Except this is what you get from the USPS once in a while. Nice job on that one. The filler rods were taped together nicely, so no damage there, but the Postal Service is not my friend since they lost the brake shoes for the trials bike project.

I bought a new battery for the welder. They didn't have the exact replacement, so I ended up with one that's a little better. It's a common size for lawn tractors and didn't surprise me when the price turned out to be $53.00 minus $9.00 core charge. The new battery for the wife's car set me back $160.00 recently. The welder battery is the same size as I use on my camping trailer to power my interior lights. I'm hoping to get it out and go camping this fall. I haven't had it out in over ten years. There's a state park not too far from me that has a gun range and some nice hiking trails. I can go in the middle of the week after the kids go back to school when it's not too crowded, spend an afternoon hiking, shoot a bit at the range the next morning and then head on home.

When I was at the auto parts store Tuesday getting the battery, I looked for some Gumout liquid to clean up the carb on the welder. Nothing there, so I tried Tractor Supply and another auto parts store, no luck there either. I like the Gumout, you can put a shot glass worth in the tank of a small engine and it keeps the jets clean and stabilizes the fuel. It also works as advertised for cleaning carbs if you have to take one apart. Sta-Bil has a product called Fast Fix that's supposed to clean the carb while the engine's running. I ordered a small bottle from Amazon that should be here today. $6.99 and free shipping, hard to beat that. I probably went through that much in gas yesterday hitting the various stores looking for the Gumout. I checked the Gumout website and it looks like they don't offer the liquid stuff anymore. They do have a product called Regane which is probably the same stuff only in an aerosol can.

The weather here, like a lot of places, was hot yesterday and will be for a couple more days. Monday is supposed to be cooler, so I'll try and get the welder loaded up and get the job done then. In the meantime, cut some more grass, do some odd jobs and work on the jitney.