This Sucks

 A couple hours here and there has allowed me to make a lot of progress on the spray booth. I did get a set of sliding patio doors and I have them installed. I also made a trip to the lumber yard for some screws and 2x4's. I still had some stuff left over from the bathroom remodel this past winter so that saved me a few bucks. The wall is up and the means for securing furnace filters above the door is in place.

 Yesterday I worked on the exhaust fan mount and duct. I wanted to use the Jet air filtration system so I had to get creative with mounting it. This is the hole where my air conditioner was.

 The plan was to set the fan unit on its end, vertically so it would be pulling overspray down. This also shortened the wasted space that would have occurred if I mounted it horizontally.

 Basically I have a six inch duct for the air to escape. A close look at the top of those 2 x 6's and you'll see a groove the fan unit sits in to help seal it.

 Some may scrutinize the work here but because I was trying to use up scraps from our bathroom remodel, I just had to make some stuff work. Besides, I'm ok with it so piss off.

 I ran the fan and it seems smooth and draws nice with no excess laboring. I mean, I just didn't know for sure until I built it. I'll know more once I finish the outer wall and seal things up. I also need to build a turn table, hang some hooks, figure out lighting and move that speaker.
 I need to thank my wife for being a good sport. She had every right to blow a gasket, but remained calm, when I started this project in front of another project we had in mind. Thanks Honey!

Later.

Spring

 Update on the spray booth. Progress is slow but ideas and procuring materials is still alive. I was working on the Jet air filtration system mentioned in the last post. I had it sitting on a plastic garbage can in the shop when I gave up on it for the night. When I came out the next morning I discovered the unit had fallen off the can and ruined a 32" lcd tv that was sitting near it. Seems when the shop furnace kicked on it blew heat directly on the plastic can and allowed it to collapse under the weight of the filtration unit. I don't have a time machine so I'll just have to get over it.
 Today I am going to pick up a sliding door for the paint booth. I know nothing about the door but the price seemed right so why not. Yesterday I tried to remove the old air conditioner from the shop wall. It has to come out so I can use the hole for a vent. It's glued in and wont budge. Gonna need a sawzall but I don't own one. I do have an ax, sledge hammer and hi-lift jack so I'm confident I'll get that sucker out of there.
 After raking the beds around the house yesterday, I got the sportster out and went for a ride. Felt good. The bike does need some attention. The amount of rattling from loose or broken pieces ready to fall off overcomes the sound of the exhaust. That's a lot of rattling.
 In other news, We're gonna cut the cable. I ordered an Amazon Fire Stick and have been using it for a few days now. There's a lot of stuff to watch but with no guide to see whats playing, it can be frustrating. I'm sure we'll figure it out. The remote that comes with the firestick has voice activation. Her name is Alexa and she aint too bright or maybe I'm just not asking her nice enough but getting acceptable results from her is frustrating at times. At one point I wanted to throw the remote at the tv but instead gave her the command to "self destruct". This is what her reply was:

 She's a freakin comedian.

Later.

Clean Air

 I'm in parts gathering mode trying to secure everything I need to build a small spray booth in my workshop. This means I need a general idea of what I want to accomplish and I think I have that but a paint booth is something new to me. I toss the idea around with others and pick their brains for things I may have overlooked. In doing so, my dad offered me an air filtration unit he was no longer in need of.

 I think I can make this work but I do need to take a closer look at the motor and make sure I'm not gonna be igniting paint fumes.
 I have an air compressor that will be incorporated with the spray booth but not actually in the room itself. I see they now make plastic air line similar to pex water lines. I need to do some research there but running flexible lines would make life pretty simple.
 Another consideration is the actual small size of my shop and the fact that a 32" or greater door will swing into my bike lift. I'm in search of a rat door. Rat door? Ya, a trashed sliding patio door that still slides decent but may have a cracked pane or other problems. "Gear head on a budget", don't cha know.

 This is where the magic is gonna happen. The room is nine feet wide so the booth will be 9 x 4 feet. I think that will be more than big enough to paint motorcycle and outdoor power equipment parts. I also have an idea to convert a blast cabinet into something I can clean parts with liquid or spray solutions and blow with compressed air. All the while keeping the fumes out of the shop. No more catching a buzz on carb cleaner.

 That's all I have about the spray booth but I wanted to share this pic of a weed wacker muffler. The exhaust was so plugged up with carbon and oil residue that the machine would not run. I went at it with a torch to burn the crud out of it and Al came over and suggested that once the carbon was burning on its own I should turn off the torch flame and just feed it oxygen. Oh boy, that got things heated up. By the time I whipped my phone out for a pic the muffler had cooled down to what you see here. I thought the whole thing was gonna be a puddled of tears on the floor and I was gonna have to replace the muffler but things worked out quite well. The little trimmer runs like new again!

Later.

BSA Stalls Out

 Of course I don't mean I was riding the BSA and it quit. I mean I've been busy and the project has not progressed since last time we talked. Ok, I've not been so busy that I couldn't have worked on it but I'm not sure what I want the bike to be so its hard to make the next move.

 Putting the seat on like this has cleared a few things in my mind and one of them is I don't like the factory fender and tail light. Not so much their style and shape but more the frequency in which they appear on any given Brit bike. Ya I know you can't see them but I remember what they looked like and I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. I'm thinking maybe a subtle mix of new age tech to compliment the classic English bike styling. Maybe a narrow LED tail/brake light strip just under the seat. The low power requirements for LED lighting is also the reason I'm thinking of doing an LED headlight. The Lucas charging system will appreciate it.

Excuse the mess. I'm in spring cleaning mode.

  For a long time I thought this bike would get more of a stripped down look, maybe a battery elimination and see through mid section. That was until yesterday when I strapped this side cover to the frame. I most likely will use the stock oil tank and it would block that see through effect so I'm drifting away from that idea. Maybe its just because the side panels are another place to add acres of more black paint. If you haven't been paying attention, I like black bikes and I can not lie.
 One thing is for sure, the fuel tank is in worse shape than I remember. Gotta get that paint booth finished. It's funny I wrote that. I need to get this shop clean, remove the shelf system and start building the paint booth.

Later.

Puter Problems

 It may not look any different from your view but from here things are fresh, clean, vivid and exciting. What am I talking about? I bought a new laptop. I'm not excited about having to make the purchase but there is something exciting about unboxing a new gizmo and getting that first whiff of new plastic. That smell means to me that nobody else has screwed things up yet and that task is fully on my shoulders. I don't necessarily like the smell of plastic but it's better than the smell of rotting food crumbs jammed in the cracks of a keyboard or whatever residue the cats leave behind when they rub their junk on my monitor.

 I was feverishly trying to get my old laptop up and running again when my wife made me an offer. Get rid of all the old computer crap laying around and buy yourself something new.  This did kinda fit into the spring cleaning theme going on around here so I took her up on the deal.
 Normally I would research the shit out of a new puter purchase but this time I did something different. I went on amazon, looked for a "best buy" with high ratings, made sure it had some minimum capabilities I needed and added it to my cart. Done. Three days later its waiting for me at home.

 Back in the day when you bought a new computer it came with an assload of paperwork. Directions, warranty cards and owners manuals and other trash can filler for every piece screwed to the motherboard. This laptop had two pieces of paper and one of them was just a screen protector. The other was a quick start guide that basically said I should plug the laptop into a power source before turning it on. Alrighty then.

 So I'm back online with my new shop computer. It won't help make this blog any better or your experience here worthwhile but it should keep me happy.

Later.

Ya I Don't Know

 Sometimes I write these blogs in advance and they just sit in my draft folder until I'm ready to post them. Right now I have fourteen different drafts in there and not one of them is worth a crap. Oh sure maybe they could be doctored up a bit and made post worthy but I'm trying to keep this blog non-fiction. I'll probably just harvest the pics and scrap the rest. Why am I telling you this? Because I'm writing this in advance and it's gonna be crap too.
 Lets see, where did I leave off? The bent back blade wing is still bent. It's the end of the plowing season and there really isn't gonna be any rush to fix it till the weatherliars predict another storm. We should be able to flatten it by running it over with something heavy, scabbing a brace on it and then just one pin and bolt to mount it. Run what ya brung.
 I've been giving a lot of thought to the spring cleaning purge and right now I'm not having any trouble throwing stuff away. Well what I meant was I have no problems with the idea of throwing stuff away. In reality not much has hit the trash yet. My mind says toss it so you can build the paint booth you want, then another voice jumps in and says maybe you could use this stuff for a future project. One trick the hoarder half of my brain has been caught doing is moving items out of the heated shop and into the garage. I'll deal with it later. So, what gets tossed out?

 These tail lights from an old version of my sportster could hang on the wall I suppose but thats not really a purge if stuff just moves from a shelf to a wall. I mentioned them to a guy at work and he took them. Gone. Out of my life and not my problem anymore.

 Everything in this box-o-crap went in the shit can. I found a lot of boxes like this that seemed easy to toss out.

 Not everything was easy to throw away and this electric actuator/ram thingy is still on the shelf. I'm thinking an automatic center stand deployment device or some similar nonsense. Despite keeping the actuator thingy, I was picking up momentum on the cleanup but kept getting slowed down by the memories each item was bringing. Why did I have this item to begin with and what was that project like? Then I came across a box of pics. Many of these were scanned and featured in this blog years ago. Reminiscing wasted another hour or so. 

 Lets see...my old Willys truck, a wedding photo, some crashed and yet to be crashed bikes. Ahhh, the good old days.

Later.

Another Back Blade Update

 The GoPro camera that I monster trucked while trying to get some Back Blade footage has been replaced with a Gopro Hero 5 Black edition. This camera is a bit different than the version I had before. There is now a video touch screen that makes changing settings a breeze and allows for instant playback. I'm not sure if the case/mount is as nice but it hasn't failed yet so I shouldn't complain.
 I put together some footage to show what the back blade can do. You'll notice in some of the scenes that the blade has down pressure and can really lift that hard packed snow without gouging the gravel lot. Well, check it out for yourself...

 I wanted to get a few more angles and a full width view in daylight but when I got to work I discovered that wouldn't be possible.

 It seems the night shift had an encounter with an immovable object. The outer edge of the wing took a direct hit that made it buckle. This was the only way it could have bent without busting the shear bolt. Shit happens and we'll fix it. The good news is that my welds on the plow mount all held. Gotta be happy about that.
 Does this change the way I feel about these back blades? Hell no. That wing is built heavy enough for what it was intended to do. If it were stronger the rest of the plow mount may have bent.
 The other day when it snowed throughout the day it was my mission to keep a certain large factory clear of snow and ice so trucks and forklifts could keep moving and employees could safely get in and out of the lots. When I've done this in the past with just a front blade I always struggled to keep up. Not with the back blade. The wider path and down pressure to scrape cleaner make a big difference.
 I know this blade isn't for everyone. I don't do residential drives on my route but I can see how the down pressure would be helpful. Then again you can add down pressure to some front blades. In fact the kit came in to convert my front blade to have down pressure. This will help in certain back dragging situations for sure. I look at it like this. If you have a toolbox, you don't just put a leatherman in the top drawer and hope for the best. You fill the box with tools you may need for different jobs. A full box doesn't make a professional but a professional doesn't just carry a leatherman.

Later.