A little cooler today, 48F on rising, going to 81F this afternoon. A low pressure system is working its way down from Alaska over the next couple of days, and that could bring us some showers tomorrow and Friday.
Eric, congratulations on your Superman rescue of the lamb, and your doctoring afterwards. You're a man of many talents. Don't give up on that cell phone until it's spent a few days on the dash of a car in the sun. I had one that took a week of that before it worked, but only after I'd fully charged the battery. First thing the water does is short out the battery, so it's liable to be completely flat. DAMHIKT And if it doesn't revive, perhaps the collie owner would sponsor a replacement?
I was also surprised with how well a 4 1/2" grinder with that diamond blade cut not just slate, but granite and porcelain tile as well. If it would reach all the way through from one side of that slate slab you've got, I wouldn't hesitate to just do the job with that and not have any rough edges to worry about. And you'd be amazed what the same tool will do to steel with an abrasive cutoff wheel, or with a knotted wire brush on rust.
Farmer, sounds like you're making good progress on the coops, and are over the worst at the dentist.
Yesterday I turned a piece of scrap bar stock down to fit the newly bored holes in the side plates to check alignment. One piece slipped through nicely with the 0.003" clearance between the parts, the other had about 0.010" of offset from side to side. Looking closely at the two sides, they've been bent out of alignment. A little persuasion from the hydraulic press and machinist's jack got them a little closer, and another dose of persuasion with a dead blow hammer got the pin fully seated. The pin doesn't pivot in those bores, so an interference fit like this may actually be a good thing.
Spent the rest of the afternoon working on the bushings, two at just over 3", the other four a bit longer than an inch. The bore on the D.O.M. tube I purchased is just a few thousandths under the nominal 0.125" I'd like to use for the pins, it's oval, and it just barely cleaned up at 0.127". Not great, but I can cheat a bit on over sizing the pins. Had more trouble holding the OD dimension, and wasn't able to get a consistent 0.001" of interference. In fact I got no interference at all. I suspect that the tool holder is just a bit low and is being pulled into the work resulting in inconsistent amounts being taken off for the same amount of tool advance. The stuff also isn't the best machining material in the world as it tends to tear instead of cut cleanly. So I'll be reading up a bit this morning in hopes of finding some speeds'n'feeds that'll give better results.
Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone. Around here it's a good idea to stay inside and dodge the celebratory gunshots into the sky. What goes up, must come down, somewhere...
