What did you do today?

[Ed Kennell 38,176]

19 hours ago, 8ntruck said:

 

The blue box store has some 27 ton wood splitters in front of the store.  The Craftsman machine had a Kohler 6.5hp engine for power, the off brand had a B&S engine for power.  Other than the engines, paint, and decals, the machines appeared to be identical.  Price was $600.  TSC had 20 ton splitters for $1,000 +/- in front of their store.  I wonder what is up with the price difference?  The splitters at TSC look like they could be towed on the road behind a car.  The splitters at the blue box store had hitches, but the running gear didn't look like it would be road worthy.

I bought this 22T Huskee at TSC about 25 years ago for $999.      It splits around 5 cord/ year with no issues and it trailers OK at low speeds.

Only issue was I had to retorque the motor mount bolts.

 

Could that Assembled in the USA decal be the difference in price?

 

Edited January 5 by Ed Kennell

[ebinmaine 67,502]

Is this kinda like a farm type "Happy meal"?

 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,560]

Got snow machine out and ran it around the hood. All good. Might get .0002" of snow this weekend so gotta be ready...

 

 

The E-141 doesn't need warming up for some reason. It's just ready... 

 

 

[Tractorhead 9,064]

Woke up 7:00 this morning....

 

 

 

....time to go play outside....😎😂🤫

[ohiofarmer 3,276]

I decided to see what is what with this old saw. She's a 20AV Stihl made from 1972 to 1979. I would put it to the early part simply because the entire thing is metal. All the guards and even the gas tank and handle. " Made in West Germany"  I took my time and split it apart and the thing has good compression once I sprayed penetrating oil on the cylinder. The bore is chrome lined with very slight marking.

   It's very easy to access the coil and components. I think the starting rope is to large a diameter . First step is check for spark and tend to the pull rope.. It does need an air filter cover but I can probably make something for that.

   No chain brake on one this early.

  It has a tillotson carburetor with a 2 the only number on it. I wonder why that carb on a German engine?

[8ntruck 7,004]

The FIRST Robotics 2024 game reveal was yesterday.  The high school robotics season has started.  My mentoring duties have started.  In this afternoon's meeting, we got an agreement on the general layout of the robot.  Tomorrow, prototyping of the various sub systems start.  

 

7 weeks until the first of three regional competitions.  Sounds like a long time, but designing, manufacturing, assembling, and debugging/development of the robot will make it go quickly.

[wallfish 17,000]

26 minutes ago, 8ntruck said:

The FIRST Robotics 2024 game reveal was yesterday.  The high school robotics season has started.  My mentoring duties have started.  In this afternoon's meeting, we got an agreement on the general layout of the robot.  Tomorrow, prototyping of the various sub systems start.  

 

7 weeks until the first of three regional competitions.  Sounds like a long time, but designing, manufacturing, assembling, and debugging/development of the robot will make it go quickly.

Interesting. What's the competition criteria?

[8ntruck 7,004]

2 hours ago, wallfish said:

Interesting. What's the competition criteria?

This year, the game involves picking up and placing 14" diameter foam rings in 3 types of 'goals'.  Two of the goals are taller than the allowed robot height, the third goal is within the allowed robot size envelope.  We are planning on tossing the ring into the tallest goal, and hooking onto a slack, nominally horizontal chain to lift the robot high enough to place a ring in the third type of goal.  During the first 15 seconds of the match, the robots operate in autonomous mode.  The rest of the 3 minute match, the robots are under remote control of a 2 person drive team.

 

Matches during the competition have 2 alliances of 3 robots each.  Each alliance must work together maximize scoring, the alliance scoring the most being the winner.

 

The rule book for the game is about 150 pages long.  It all aspects of the game - playing field, scoring rules, officiating, robot inspection, robot design, robot construction, etc.  Introducing a newcomer to and explaining a FIRST competition is kind of like explaining the rules of baseball (things like the infield fly rule) to a foreigner.

 

FIRST Robotics is a worldwide organization that promotes sience, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the educational system through activities that apply those processes.  They run programs aimed at all levels of education from elementary to high school.  Leadership, communication, respect and sportsmanship are strongly encouraged.

 

The local program I am mentoring in has 50 students.  We field 2 competition teams, split roughly by grade level.  The freshman and sophomore team is more of a student development program, being more heavily guided by the mentors.  The upperclass team is more focused on competition and has less input from the mentors.

 

Last season, the upperclass team was ranked  #39 out of about 3400 teams worldwide.  The lowerclass team also had a pretty good year being ranked # 254.

Edited January 8 by 8ntruck

[Ed Kennell 38,176]

7 hours ago, 8ntruck said:

 

FIRST Robotics is a worldwide organization that promotes sience, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Some good experiences when two of my grandsons were members of the  York, Pa.  Tech Fire 225 Team that made it to the nationals.

About FIRST (techfire225.com)

BTW, my one Grandson, Reed, graduated from Penn State with Astro Physics and Astro Engineering degrees, worked a couple years at Hershey Medical Center Lab, and is now at Lehigh University working as an assistant professor while earning his Astro Physics PHD.

I'm sure  FIRST Robotics helped to keep him focused during his High School years.

 

           Thank You for all you do.           

 

 

[Pullstart 62,882]

It might not look like it, but I’m making huge progress at the never ending task of cleaning the shop (and organizing project priorities).  I found parts of my floor I haven’t seen in 6 or 7 years!  The 1-1/2 yard dumpster is almost full too!

 

 

[Ed Kennell 38,176]

25 minutes ago, Pullstart said:

I found parts of my floor

On my to do list this winter.  I'll have to stack some buckets.    

[elcamino/wheelhorse 9,297]

@Pullstart Not picking on you flip flop but isn't this a rerun of a story that you wrote a few years ago.

[ebinmaine 67,502]

4 minutes ago, elcamino/wheelhorse said:

@Pullstart Not picking on you flip flop but isn't this a rerun of a story that you wrote a few years ago.

Maybe but at least he's consistent

[SylvanLakeWH 25,560]

@Pullstart I think Mrs. P sent her revised list out to RS by accident... heads up:

 

 

[Pullstart 62,882]

5 hours ago, elcamino/wheelhorse said:

@Pullstart Not picking on you flip flop but isn't this a rerun of a story that you wrote a few years ago.

It’s a constant battle… 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,560]

Literally, skied through the trees... 

For years when we skied with the kids I would ski ahead and ski through a tree... it was great fun until they got old enough to figure it out... I still do it to amuse Mrs Sylvan... 

 

[Ed Kennell 38,176]

19 minutes ago, SylvanLakeWH said:

skied through the trees.

I might try that with my snow shoe trek tomorrow.

[Mickwhitt 4,624]

Well, with all the storms and cold weather here at the moment I decided to extend the home Central heating circuit down into my attached garage worksop. 

I thought a single radiator would do but for the sake of it I fitted two similar sized units on the internal wall, just in case.

Got it all piped up this afternoon and it's lovely and toasty down there now.

Can't imagine why I didn't do it sooner, I thought it would be a pain to link into the system but it was really easy.

I've just bought an Armortek model kit to build and I wanted to be comfortable in the workshop when I get started.

 

 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,560]

21 hours ago, Ed Kennell said:

I might try that with my snow shoe trek tomorrow.

 

Got pics...? 

[ebinmaine 67,502]

2 hours ago, Mickwhitt said:

Armortek model kit

Of? 

[wallfish 17,000]

Man is it cold outside! Since work has been a little slow recently, I've taken some time to rebuild little 2 stroke O&R engines. These can be done right in my upstairs office on the desk. Citrus cleaner is used so the house doesn't stink. 4 engines done so far. I was lucky enough to find a big stash of NOS parts a long time ago so having those plus a good amount of parts engines, I can make them like new. Just started another today for a Tiny Tiger generator. One of the finished engines will go on that and then rebuild the one that was removed from the gen head. Most of the tool engines are already been done. Think there's about 50-60 tools in the collection and probably still need to do about 10 more. These things were like Franks Hot sauce, they put them on everything.

 

 

 

 

[Beap52 811]

This is playin' with model railroad season.  I've been working on a model of our house to add to the train set.  The house is made from dollar store card stock and lighting is from unused LED Christmas lights.  Trees are  small twigs I cut from bushes and glue quilt batting then using hair spray sprinkle home made "leaves" that I make from sawdust and ground foam. I've worked on this project about 2 1/2 weeks part time,  The "rock wall" is made from blue Styrofoam  used in housing construction,  I cut "mortar joints"  with a piece of bailing wire wrapped around soldering iron.  After that I paint each rock.  I really ought to be using the shop to prepare the mowers (four of them) for next season but I'm not in the mood yet.

[Mickwhitt 4,624]

7 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

Of? 

Hi Eric,

I built a centurion tank a few years ago, huge undertaking for me. Took three years to build and detail. She who must be obeyed talked me into selling it a few years ago and I wish I hadn't. 

I decided to go for their smallest available kit which is a 1/6 scale series 1 four x four car. For reasons of copyright etc they have to call it that, but in reality it's a Land rover.

It's one of the early Series 1 80 inch wheelbase models. Supposedly based on some American dohickey called a Willy's Jeep? Because Armortek do military vehicles many of the kits will end up in some shade of green with all manner of military modifications. I'm just researching the civilian types that Land rover factory produced, like fire engines and welding plants and I may go down that route. 

This is the prototype of the model to show its construction without paint.

Apparently folk who have already built them have said they had to seriously mistreat the beautiful metal panels to properly represent the poor fit and finish of the original vehicles built by hand in 1948.

If you like I will do a build thread of the process.  

 

[Ed Kennell 38,176]

8 hours ago, SylvanLakeWH said:

 

Got pics...? 

It didn't happen today.  I'm still in the planning mode.  Not sure I can do it without an assistant.   Unless I could hop on one snow shoe forward and backwards.  

[ebinmaine 67,502]

4 hours ago, Mickwhitt said:

build thread

Absolutely!