More This & That

 

The Missus and I went to the next town up and over for an authentic Polish dinner. The hours were advertised as 4-7. We got there about 4:20 and they were already sold out unless you had purchased a ticket in advance. I was looking forward to a good Polish dinner prepared by the church ladies, but we ended up eating American food at the Greek restaurant. Not a bad dinner but wasn't what I was hoping for. I did manage to snap the above photo while walking back to the car at the church. Pretty little spot with the snowflakes coming down.

The laundry room storm door had a gap along the top that changed with the seasons. I've adjusted the metal trim on the outside several times but if I adjusted it any more, I'd end up with a gap along the top. With the new trim piece I made on the inside, the door can float in the jamb and it will still seal against the weatherstrip on the back side of it. Should help quite a bit with the heat loss as well as keeping the bugs out next year.

I fixed the broken tine on the rake and the little wire weeder for the veggie place yesterday as well. The wheel chock for the trailer project showed up also. The weather wasn't the best for working on the trailer outside, so I was happy fixing things inside. First thing I did was get the doors closed between the front and back part of the shop, and got the heater turned on for the initial firing of the season. It wasn't all that cold out there, but I wanted to make sure everything was a go. It's supposed to be in the twenties is all tomorrow. 

Got back on the jitney project yesterday, finally. I welded the couplings to the flanges for the temporary axle. If you look closely you can see the alignment tool I made for just such an operation. I welded two pieces of angle to a round plate that I faced in the lathe so it would be 90 degrees to the angles, then split the piece into two halves. I milled a flat on the peak of the angle so there's a clamping surface. It works really well and the flanges or whatever you're welding on to the pipe or rod come out square.

Finished job looks like it should work. You can see the tool for welding the flange on in the foreground.

Not sure what I'm going to tackle today - something on either the trailer or the car. I bought a couple of post lights for the balcony of the new barn. Those showed up last evening, so probably get those installed. I still need to make a railing around the balcony. While I'm working on all sorts of odd jobs, probably should throw that one on the list.