Second Brine Sprayer

 I told you about a second sidewalk brine sprayer that I was building. That unit needed some plumbing and last week I finished it up. I also added a bumper, fluid level sight tube, wand holder and even a different pump. The first pump shit out for whatever reason and my last extra pump was bolted in place. It doesn't flow as many gallons per minute as the other sprayer but this machine doesn't move as fast so it all works out.

 We had one short test run in the parking lot before it snowed Saturday morning and then put it into action. The plan with this unit is that it can do two jobs at once. That is it can broom walks of snow while applying brine.

 The machine works well but there were a few glitches. I'm told they blew a fuse so I'll have to investigate why that might have happened but I suspect its not related to the sprayer but an issue with a power distribution box in the cab. The engine also died once with no obvious reason why. I guess this has happened in the past. Despite those few problems the crew still sprayed over 200 gallons of salt brine through the machine.
 This is what it looks like after brooming and brine a few hours later.

 You can see where there was snow the brine is still wet and where the lot was dry the brine has dried. Eventually it would all look dry.
 We have a third sidewalk machine that can remove snow with a front attachment and drop salt in the rear. There is still a need for a machine like that for those heavy ice situations but for these light snowfalls this system will work well. I think our experiment with using brine on sidewalks has passed and I don't see giving up on this system.
 With our summer turf spraying equipment I've tried to do at least one thing each new year to improve efficiency. That could be in the sprayers themselves, truck/trailer setups or maybe something on the paperwork end. I want to apply some of that to this brine setup. We'll finish out the season with this equipment but the gears are already turning and I think by next year I'll have a few tweaks and improvements.

Later.

Dang Forest Rats

 Sometimes finding enough material to make two posts a week in this blog can be difficult. Other times it just jumps right out at you as was the case yesterday on the way home from work. I was just tooling along minding my own business, listening to Larry The Cable Guy talk about poop or farts or redneck relatives, when BLAMO! A good sized buck appeared from my right and I hit it dead center with the big ass station wagon. That deer didn't just jump out at me. No this guy must have been running full tilt and I had no warning. The Yukon soaked up the impact pretty well and I didn't even spill the three to-go drinks that were in a tray on the center console. The soft shell tacos and potato wedges didn't do as well because they hit the floor just before, and in the same spot, as my cooler.

 When I said dead center I wasn't kidding. Both headlights are intact and work although their mounting tabs are snapped off. One of the landing lights popped out but still works. Now the bad news. The front valance, grill, ac condenser and drivers side fender are toast. That drivers side headlight is pushed up higher than the hood and the fender is almost touching the door on the bottom edge. I wonder if some of the frame that extends into the front valance may be pushed up. I took the cover off the top of the core support and was able to look down at the space between the radiator and condenser. Near the bottom there is no space. In fact the radiator is quite bent and I'm not sure why its not leaking. Oh, and more bad news. I have a thousand dollar deductible.

 So now I get to play the insurance/estimates game and let the pros tell me what kind of damage I have. I can't help but notice that if I had a beefy winch bumper on here that the damage could have been fixed with a can of spray paint. I'm thinking there may be an opportunity here to fix this myself with an aftermarket front bumper but to be honest, I haven't looked close enough at the frame to know how bad this really is.

Later.

Nothing Interesting-Just The Facts

 I've been  listening to a lot of stand up comedy lately. From Larry the Cable Guy to classic Richard Pryor and everything in between but the funniest thing I heard this week came out of the mouth of a three year old and it happened right in my own dining room. "Excuse me Aunt Stacey, I'm hungry. Could you please stop talking so we can leave and go to dinner?" I'm not saying my wife has a big mouth, it was just funny hearing the little kid politely ask her to shut up. Poor kid was hungry.
 Yesterday my wife and I went bumming. She had heard of a place that sells used furniture and stuff and we were in the market for a big mirror. When we got there we found a big mirror that would work. In fact they had a two fer sale on mirrors but we weren't sure if they would fit in the big ass station wagon because I had all three rows of seats in it yet. We left without the mirrors and stopped at a flea market style store we passed earlier. Lots of cool old stuff but nothing we really needed. The next stop was about thirty miles up the interstate to a small shop we heard about. We picked up a bunch of painting supplies we'll need for our next room remodel. When we left the store I decided to look at the seating in the Yukon and discovered I could arrange the seats so they weren't folded all the way forward. This left a flat area big enough for a sheet of plywood. Back we went to the first shop for mirrors but not before stopping at an Amish store. At the Amish store we noticed something we hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe we just haven't been paying attention but at this store they sell milk in glass bottles that have a deposit.

 Anyway, we didn't buy any milk and continued on back to buy the mirrors. This place gets old hotel furniture to stock their store. Ya a lot of it looks out dated but most of it is very durable stuff and things like mirrors only look old if the person doing the looking is old. I'll let you think about that for a minute.
 We left with four mirrors. The big ones have a boring frame but beveled edges and are over six feet tall and three feet wide. The smaller ones have nicer frames, beveled edges and are about three by fourish. We paid less for these four mirrors than the smaller one we bought for our last bathroom remodel. Schwiiiiing! On a side note, these mirrors look older than they feel.
 Later that evening we went out for dinner at a nicer area restaurant. Good thing we went early cuz the place filled up fast. As usual, a good time was had by all.

Later.

Yet Another Sprayer

 Our experiences with using salt brine on sidewalks have been positive ones and its clear we will be using this method looking forward. Because we don't want to rely on just one machine to do this work we decided to tool up another one of the rigs with a spray system. The first sprayer I put together works good for pre-treating but that unit has no means of clearing snow. This is a Steiner tractor we put a broom, blower or blade on to clear walks and we'll be able to spray at the same time we are clearing snow. Right now that barrel on back holds 400 pounds of salt that is applied by hand. We have a different rig with a drop spreader for salting walks also.

 The plan was simple. Keep the existing rack and make a system that is self contained and easily removed. What I came up with disconnects with just four bolts and one wiring connector. You gotta start somewhere so after removing the old salt tub I bolted on a few rails.

 From there its just a matter of mocking things up then going back and welding it all together. This is the frame I made that everything will mount to.

 The unit isn't done at this time. I'm waiting on a few parts yet.

  Like everything else built in this brine adventure, we used as much stuff as we could that was just lying around the shop. The tank is a take off from a vibrating roller machine. The pump was a spare and the hose reel was hiding under Als bench. Al pointed out that he had planned on using the hose reel in his bay. Ooops.
 So all the basics are there. The wiring is done, the pump, tank, and reel are all in place. The nozzles are mounted underneath and all thats left is the plumbing. I'm thinking about making a protective rack around the unit but I'm afraid it will just offer a place for the crew to haul bags of salt. There's enough weight back there already.

Later.

High 40's Plus Three

 Wow we had some nice weather yesterday. I worked half the day and when I got home there was an hour of Honey-Do list that had to be accomplished but after that I was outside. The weather was so nice that I was comfortable in just a short sleeve shirt, in January! First on the agenda was an oil change for the big ass station wagon. After that I rolled around on a creeper with a flashlight looking at the underside, checking for loose bolts on the lift kit install and any other visual problems. I knew about a torn cv shaft boot and there is still some grease left in it that hasn't been flung all over the underside of the truck. I knew there was a very slow brake fluid leak and found some moisture on the front left brake caliper. Gonna have to pick one of those up soon.
 While creeping around I noticed a wire loom hanging down and rubbing on the front drive shaft.

 The plastic loom was rubbed through and one wire had the insulation worn off. This means that wire was grounding on the drive shaft. The repair was simple but I wonder what that wire does? Never had any running issues but now that I'm writing this I remember having a code for a heater switch or something. I need to go back and look but I wonder if this loom runs to the rear heating controls.
 Once I rolled to the back of the truck I could see the fuel tank vent hanging down. When I say it was hanging low I mean it looked like it could have started a siphon and drained the tank. This also explains why I couldn't completely fill the tank the last few times at the pump. A drill bit and some zip ties got me back into "like new" condition. The lesson here is that all those little clues mean something.

 I write this blog twice a week. Some new readers arrive here via a link I post on facebook. That means they see that post and only see older material if they go out of their way to investigate. Personally I don't see that happening so I'll take this opportunity to do kind of a 2018 year end wrap up that links to a few of my favorites. I think one year I did a top ten list from the previous year but I won't put you through that much bullshit. I picked these three from last year mainly because they aren't the regular motorcycle or work related stuff I usually post.

"Headlight Adjustment" is a story from January about some issues I had at a car dealer.
"Runaway Lemonade!" is a story about my first visit to an Arbys restaurant.
"House Rules" is just a lousy set of rules I posted when our niece Stefany moved in with us.

Later.

What Day Is It?

 I don't know how retired guys keep track of the days. Throw in a holiday or two, a weekend and a snow event on a day I should have had off and I'm lost. I asked my phone and the voice on the other end says its Wednesday.  I'm thinking by next Monday I'll be back on track...unless it snows over the weekend and I have to go out plowing.
 I took another shot at laying out some flames on my practice tank. I felt things were starting out ok...

 If you remember I said I wanted to keep the pattern a bit more open and leave more of the base black paint exposed through the flames. I know the above pic looks goofy but that base layer gets buried quick so it seems I don't have to be very detailed in a pattern. Or at least thats what I'm trying here.

 The red candy and orange candy layers are on at this point and while I hate the way it looks, I like a couple of things I did like trying to weave patterns and colors in and out of each other. I was also able to create highlights by not saturating the candy layer. I left a little base layer show through in spots and thats the lighter look around some of the edges. That concluded what I wanted to see in this practice session and the next practice session went on right over the top.

 I like traditional hot rod flames and have this idea that if I start at the flame tip end of the tank and just keep weaving and overlapping flames, working towards the front of the tank, they don't really need a starting point. Two things learned...I need more stencils despite having cut four more just for this attempt and that stencils get wet and can transfer paint to the project when flipped. That seems like a no brainer but once you get rolling those things can be forgotten.

 I also tried painting individual flames in multiple candy colors but that didn't work well. Probably because I didn't seal each color with clear before moving to the next. I don't know what the hell I'm doing so I'm gonna try that one again.

 What I found out from last week was that combining real fire and hot rod flames yields questionable results. At some point I need to decide what style I'm after. Real fire, hot rod style or just some mishmash like in the above pic.

Later.

Back Into The Fire

 I had some time to kill on Saturday so took the opportunity to get back to practicing painting flames. These flames are supposed to be "true fire" but I'm a long way away from getting that effect. This session was on an old yamaha tank that I've been messing around with and will help me practice what I want to ultimately do. That is paint horizontal flames, not camp fires.

 So my thought was to have a broader open flame on the leading edge of the tank and then have the flames stretch out more to points. You know, the way it would look if I were on fire and hauling ass. This first coat is white with a drop of red and two or three drops of yellow along with reducer. Thats the greyish looking paint in the above pic. I took this pic after starting to apply the candy red.

 After the red was added it was clear coated. So far it looks ok. The next step is to add another layer of flames over the top and color those in with candy orange, followed by a layer of clear as seen in the pic below.

 The next step is to do the same thing in a lighter color such as yellow. This is where things went bad.

 I got bored with the process and started changing techniques which just doesn't work. In the future I need to choose one method and stick with it.

 So I learned a lot. First thing is I need to wear some bitch mittens cuz this paint is tough to get off my hands.

 Another thing I learned was to clean the air brush better afterwards. It took me almost as much time to get the brush ready as it did to do the actual painting. It was worth it though because I never got any splatter like I did in past sessions. Anything that looks like splatter is underneath. I just keep squirting black over this tank without any sanding or prep.
 A keen eye will also notice the same four stencils repeat themselves either in the same orientation or flipped. I need to buy or make more stencils. I have found that for me stencils look best and freehand is good just for highlights and blending stuff together.

 I know in past practice runs I was able to get more depth and the next time out I'm gonna aim for more of the base black to show through. I'm just so early into this and don't have a technique down yet. Here's another thing that has occurred to me. If I can't make it look like true fire then maybe I skip the "true" part and use different colors like blues and greens. It might look ok. On the other hand, I'm only using white, yellow and red base paints and three candy colors. Maybe more oranges are needed?

Sooo, I just went back and looked at the tank. Parts of it are better than I originally felt. If this were at a bike show I'm sure I'd spend ten minutes with my nose only a foot away whilst checking it out. I tried different lighting and angles and these pics still don't do it justice as far as depth goes.

 No matter. it will get covered up and I'll try again. More practice needed!

Later.