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Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Oh, snap, you’re coming up? Give me a date and I might be able to play tour guide (if you want).

I was thinking the truck nuts might go on the Bobcat but I haven’t quite worked out where. I’m thinking about on the boom so every time it comes up or down there’s nuts in my face :balldo:

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cursedshitbox
May 20, 2012

Your rear-end wont survive my hammering.



Fun Shoe
Put it next to the coolant drain

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)


I can vouch for that trail mix being drat good, it's my favorite one from HEB. They sell it in a multipack (bunch of snack size bags) and an 18 oz bag.

MrOnBicycle
Jan 18, 2008
Wait wat?
Nevermind! Nice Bobcat buy!

MrOnBicycle fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Dec 29, 2023

Mustache Ride
Sep 11, 2001



The dogs continue to love the fish, it's their favorite toy now.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


I said I would do an update on my FIL’s 1951 Chevy 3100 and yet here it is, mid-January, and I haven’t.

The truck is in about the same spot as the model of it I got him for Christmas last year:



Rolling chassis is done (the real one needs the engine dropped back in) and the cab is getting assembled before installation:



We were actually supposed to help install the cab while we were there but ten feet of snow followed by -17*F temps kept that from happening.

He’s decided to keep all the vacuum accessories, and even has an aftermarket vacuum-powered fan to help clear the windshield. To help keep the vacuum as constant as possible he made a vacuum accumulator out of a propane tank and has it mounted behind the dash:



Not much else relevant to report about our Christmas trip other than my parents’ Grand Cherokee continuing to throw the dumbest error codes - when the parking sensors ice over it flashes the cluster and says ‘check 4wd system’. Very useful error.

Said Grand Cherokee also appears to have some flex in the chassis around the passenger side of the firewall; you could feel it going over bumps and the windshield is not faring well. I continue to be unimpressed with Jeep.

Now, coming back home, you might be asking whether I’ve been doing much snow removal yet. The answer is yes!



I spent six hours yesterday clearing our driveway. We had a storm dump nearly three feet of wet snow and it was falling almost as fast as I could clear it. Here’s where the pile stands as of last night:



Back in the fall I ordered tire chains in case I might need them - well, I need them. Of course, because I am an idiot, I assumed they would be easy peasy like regular vehicle chains. That is not the case and I had to make do without yesterday when I discovered they were oversized and you have to cut to fit. That was today’s project:



I just came back in from doing some test donuts for science. I am happy to report traction is much improved and also that my iphone didn’t fall off the back where I left it.

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

Tell me that's all piled up in front of a neighbor's driveway. The one the entire neighborhood hates. :v:

That's something I would have done with a couple of neighbors I've had over the years....

That old propane tank behind the dash is genius. I'm used to Ford's glorified large coffee can, but that truck only had vacuum operated HVAC (the 27 year newer Crown Vic did too).

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


randomidiot posted:

Tell me that's all piled up in front of a neighbor's driveway. The one the entire neighborhood hates. :v:

That guy lives at the entrance to our street; he and his brother subdivided a homestead to make our neighborhood. They took the two best lots for themselves; I’m in his brother’s house way at the back.

When he put covenants on the lots he excluded himself. The covenants don’t include an HOA and don’t have any real enforcement mechanism; they say they can only be enforced by the people covered by the covenants. So, hilariously, he is the only one who cares about enforcement but has zero say. He also has dogs that have drawn blood on every other dog in the neighborhood and even killed one of The Neighbor Who Is Way Too Nice To Us’ dogs.

Anyways, this snow was too much for his pickup plow to backdrag so it looks like he ended up plowing it all under his porch so the driveway is clear. His garage and lower front door are completely blocked. I saw someone trying to move that entire self-inflicted berm by hand but :lol: it will be there until spring.

randomidiot
May 12, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

Why the hell am I cackling so hard at this?

:perfect:

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


randomidiot posted:

Why the hell am I cackling so hard at this?

:perfect:

Schadenfreude is a thing.
I'd also like to note that I somehow spelled that correctly without the spell-checker's help.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


The last week has been rough, weather-wise. We’ve gone from below-average snow to way above average.



Thankfully, being a State slob, I’ve been given the last 2.5 days off due to weather. This morning one of my neighbors tried to get to work on time but failed to escape their driveway:



I’ve been spending my ‘time off’ plowing our driveway over and over again, plus venturing out to earn some Karma when I can. This is a fire hydrant, as evidenced by the flag sticking up about 6 feet so you can find it in the snow:



Can’t see the flag? Neither could I. Good thing I know where it’s at!

That Bobcat has been my best purchase in a very long time.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


What’s up SA, on this week’s post in Advent’s thread of way too many projects, an abandoned boom lift stuck in a snowbank for a year! Will it start?!



/clickbait

One of our biggest projects over the last two years has been getting a new roof on our house. I’ve mostly tried to keep that project off the internet because it has been an absolute shitshow and we’ve retained a lawyer due to the terrible job the roofers did that will need to be entirely removed and redone again. I had hoped we’d get one winter out of the new roof but that has not come to pass.

It’s warmed up a lot outside so I did some quick checking yesterday in daylight. I found something very bad:



Yep, that’s a broken sewer vent pipe, leaving a 3” hole directly through our roof. It broke off down below the sheathing because the roofers didn’t install an appropriate fence above it.

Since I don’t trust them for anything I’m not going to call to get it warranted. For now I’m going to try to get a temporary repair done myself - but that isn’t a spot you can reach by ladder. I made some phone calls and both equipment rental shops in town were closed for the weekend, which is sub-optimal when the forecast is calling for 2+ inches of rain per day for the foreseeable future. So I called The Neighbor Who Is Way Too Nice To Us.

Their lift was at his sister’s house, parked way in the back yard a year ago. She tried to start it in the fall and failed, called their dad, he didn’t get it running, and so they parked a dump truck beside it to catch any small trees that would likely fall over the winter. She plowed up to it and my job was to get it running while she went and dug out a truck and trailer.

My neighbor had told me the whole process he uses to get this thing going, which includes cleaning all the rust out of the gas tank and fuel lines. He’ll start it on propane and then run it on gasoline. “Why can’t I just run it on propane?” “Well, you could, but I don’t know how much is left in the tank.” “…I can buy more propane. I’ll just do that.”

Long story short, it didn’t even fire off when I gave it a shot of Start Ya Bastard. That made me think of another idea, so I broke out the shovel and dug my way to the basket. Sure enough, the e-stop had been pressed. After that it fired right up, no problems. It just had no power at all.

I went looking by the carburetor and found a disconnected wire. I connected it and immediately the engine revved WAY up - too much. Way too much! Come to find out that’s a problem this thing has so instead you have to jam something into the throttle linkage. I used a screwdriver.



At this point I started wondering where the neighbor’s sister had gone off to. I found her at their parents’ house, digging out a truck and trailer that had been buried since December. Even when fully dug-out it wouldn’t budge and needed help on the ice:



Finally got the truck out, went back to her house, pulled the lift out of the snowbank, and went to load it on the trailer. It was two inches too wide.



At this point we went to their construction company’s lot and tried to dig out their Kenworth tractor - but it, too, wouldn’t start. Thankfully their White/GMC dump truck with a big cam Cummins fired up and we dug out a bigger trailer for the lift. When trying to pull the trailer out it turned out the combination of ice in the hitch plus upforce from pulling over a snowbank popped the hitch free:



At this point they it became a task of getting their zoom boom started, which thankfully only complained a little, and that got the trailer back onto the truck. Back to her house, got the lift loaded, and finally to my house - except there’s too much snow on my street to turn around. Their dad had to do an Austin Powers turn with the dump truck and trailer in my neighbors driveway that took a full hour.

At that point the lift finally got unloaded and I drove it home. Dug out beside the house using the Bobcat and finally got to go up for a look at 9pm. That repair is going to end up being a whole lot more involved than I hoped so for right now I’ve fixed it in the most half-rear end way we can think of:



Nailed it.

A huge, huge, HUGE thank-you to my neighbor’s family whom he basically put on the spot for me. His sister and dad spent over eight hours of their weekend helping me out and loaning me the lift.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


My next door neighbor decided his pickup plow wasn’t enough for this winter so today he bought something a bit bigger.



How am I supposed to keep up with that?!

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


Hmmm. Don’t know if you could go bigger, but maybe something with treads would be enough of a one up?

the spyder
Feb 18, 2011
Man I want a skidsteer. And a boom lift. Some day.

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


the spyder posted:

Man I want a skidsteer. And a boom lift. Some day.

Oh, same, totally. Once I have somewhere to keep them and an actual need.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


the spyder posted:

Man I want a skidsteer. And a boom lift. Some day.

I highly recommend a skid steer or loader-equipped tractor if you have any use for them. It’s crazy how useful they are.

The boom lift…That’s probably better to know somebody with one. This thing takes up a LOT of space.

Darchangel posted:

Hmmm. Don’t know if you could go bigger, but maybe something with treads would be enough of a one up?

I don’t want to speak too soon, but I’m working through the approvals process with my CFO for a mini excavator. The cheap auction ones are going for less than it would cost me to rent one for a couple weeks. Richie Bros has a few dozen available at the 3/28 Chehalis auction.

On a side note, apparently I’ve been living the last three weeks with a partially dislocated shoulder (shoulder subluxation). My left shoulder has been giving me extra hell for several weeks and the other night while rolling over in my sleep I was jolted awake by a loud POP. I had thought the decrease in range of motion plus extra pain were a possible rotator cuff tear but now that it’s working again (though still a trashed shoulder, hence the skid steer purchase in the first place) I googled ‘partial dislocation’ and it turns out that’s a thing. I think it happened on January 11 when we went camping and I felt it tweak a bit putting on my backpack.

SpeedFreek
Jan 10, 2008
And Im Lobster Jesus!
Mini ex is a good idea, it will pay for itself with small jobs if you have a trailer for it. Also gently caress digging by hand when you don't have to.

Good luck with the shoulder, I hosed mine up sleeping somehow.

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


SpeedFreek posted:

Mini ex is a good idea, it will pay for itself with small jobs if you have a trailer for it. Also gently caress digging by hand when you don't have to.

Good luck with the shoulder, I hosed mine up sleeping somehow.

Don't you love getting old? Injuries from just, you know, doing normal daily stuff top my list of "gently caress you."

SpeedFreek
Jan 10, 2008
And Im Lobster Jesus!
I want to go back to being invincible and healing instantly.

Now getting back to the construction equipment arms race have you seen any d10 dozers at auction lately?

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Big thanks to Kastein for suggesting a pipe fitting reamer to salvage my sewer vent line. I had purchased $142 worth of ABS fittings at Home Depot and was preparing to tear out two walls and a ceiling to get at the broken part from the inside when he linked me to one; I ended up rushing it from Grainger for $134. That worked, I took the fittings back, and it saved me a shitload of home renovation work.

I had to take an afternoon off to be able to see what I was doing, but it went quickly, so I had a little fun with the lift:



Don’t judge me for the Christmas decorations, 2024 has been a year already. Even more than I’ve complained about here.

The tent is where we plan to eventually put a picnic shelter; the footings are in and it’s an out-of-the-way spot so it went there during the roofing fiasco. The nice FJ62 is in there for the winter and we need to be diligent about clearing off snow. Work smarter not harder:



I was working on a sewing machine and had to assemble this unholy abomination of bits:



In actual vehicle projects I took an opportunity of the car being inside for a full day to top up the Freon:



Remember that the Leaf uses AC for heat and that means it’s been working for all 10.5 years and 130,000 miles. I put in a can a couple years ago but I knew at the time it wasn’t enough; in the past couple months the compressor had been making a ton of noise again. Two cans were about perfect this time but it does mean the system is losing refrigerant faster than it should. If it’s just a can or two a year I’m tempted to be lazy (famous last words).

We head out for vacation on Saturday so I won’t be up to much mechanically for a couple weeks at least. We’re flying into Santa Barbara and this is what the airport looked like Monday afternoon:

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Hello from California! Hooray, vacation! Boo, rain!

We’re down here, officially, because my wife’s grandmother turned 101 on Tuesday. She’s already announced that she hopes to make 102.

Her husband was a self-employed plumber. When he retired back in 1987 he sold the business and the guy who bought it has been close with the family ever since. He stopped by to wish a happy birthday and brought out his fun truck - one of the old plumbing shop trucks that he tracked down, purchased, and restored. My FIL learned to drive in this truck:




There are even magnetic signs for the doors with the shop name when he wants to show it off.

After our time in Santa Barbara county we drove up to the Bay Area (where I am writing this), but we of course had to do some sight-seeing along the way. Who knows why this place is significant?



It’s the world’s first motel! Or, more correctly, what’s left of it:



Afterwards we drove up to Paso Robles, where we took a detour to see a famous intersection that’s finally being fixed:



You can see construction equipment in the background; this is the spot where Jimmy Dean (the non-porn actor) died in 1955. I actually have a cousin named after him.

There’s also a memorial at a much safer stopping point nearby:



Caltrans has not provided good access during construction, though.

Afterwards we stopped to see Sensorio, which is freaking amazing. I could do a post on that alone but it would be waaay off topic, but while we were there I noticed a couple airplanes flying overhead and it really looked to me like an F-117 following a tanker.



Yesterday we had to cancel our plans to visit Pinnacles National Park due to weather; as someone who lives in a rainforest I want to say that this California rain is something else entirely. I wish the wipers on our rental (they upgraded me to a 2024 Mustang!) went faster, and they’re not slow.

Today we visited the Computer History Museum, a couple goons came along, and I got the full ‘self-driving car’ experience:

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Picking up where I left off, the following day we drove up to San Francisco - we actually drove over the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito and Big Taint took us out for a boat ride on the bay - thanks again!

No good pictures of that, so instead I present the USS Pampanito, which you may recall played the USS Stingray in the movie Down Periscope. Good movie, you should watch it.



We stayed on Nob Hill in San Francisco just so we could play tourists and ride the cable cars all the freaking time. With a transit pass we did not hesitate to ride them just a block down for dinner (or breakfast). We rode dozens of times over the week.

That also meant we got to see some things that are usually hidden - such as a broken cable car being towed by a truck:



Another time we sat for a while and had the full ‘how to operate a cable car’ discussion while we waited for the fire department to clear a building from a false alarm:



On Friday, my birthday, we went across the bridge again to hike in Muir Woods and also out to Point Bonita light house. While we were there I stopped to watch a ship go under the bridge; it really is amazing how big modern container ships are. I’m really glad the Golden Gate has tons of clearance…



On Saturday we were meeting my wife’s cousin for coffee when I spotted this. Anybody know anything about it?




Definitely an odd looking BMW.

I don’t think I mentioned earlier, but our chariot for the two-week trip was this majestic stallion:



A 2024 ecoboost Mustang. It had 2500 miles when we picked it up and 3400 when I dropped it off :getin:

That’s all the relevant transportation insanity from the last trip; I have another one coming up shortly because I was the high bidder in this auction today:



I couldn’t get any shippers to pick it up at Ritchie Bros so I’m just going to fly down, rent a truck, and do it myself.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Currently on my Ritchie Bros weekend trip, and this drill press is really classing up my hotel room.



It’s a 1965 Rockwell VS6. Variable speed with a 6” stroke; the original owner was a machinist at the Hanford Site and I bought it from his son. It looks like it has barely ever been used.

This was the top of the line 15” for Delta/Rockwell; what makes it cool is that it has a CVT. With the installed motor it will do any speed between 300-3100rpm.



(That’s duct tape residue on the top, not scratches)

I know just where to put this in my shop.

Thanks again to kastein who happened to be driving by at exactly the right time to help lift this heavy beast into my rental truck.

NitroSpazzz
Dec 9, 2006

You don't need style when you've got strength!


Odd BMW is an older E21 3-series with a body kit. Looks like tow truck driver didn't give a single gently caress and crunched the front air dam pretty bad.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
gently caress USAA all my homies hate USAA

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


So, as kastein said above, I had a bad start last Monday partially because of USAA.

I had a reservation for a flatbed truck from Home Depot, to be picked up at 6am Monday morning. Kastein woke up early as well and got on the ferry so I could pick him up as soon as it landed.

After taking the 5am train and hoofing it to Home Depot they announced that I needed my car insurance card to get the truck. I looked back and they had not said that before; multiple times their reminder was “Don’t forget to bring ID!” USAA was absolutely not helpful at 6am, either online or over the phone. Heck, I couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone. I called my wife, and it turned out the card in the car was outdated too - whoops. She couldn’t get to the current info from USAA either.

Side note, the one time we ever put in a claim they never actually denied it but also never paid out. So gently caress USAA. As a further aside, I later pulled up my Hagerty app and they put the cards front and center.

I started panicking at this point but thankfully there was a UHaul location half a mile away. I walked there while trying to figure things out in the app - eventually determining that a) that location wouldn’t open until 8am and b) they wouldn’t have what I need. The main location in Duwamish, however, opens at 7am and would take an immediate reservation. I hit the button and called for a Lyft.

Showed up at UHaul and that place was really a class act. I mean that. Clean, organized, good equipment, friendly - I highly recommend them for your truck needs. They put me into a brand new Chevy:



Truck with trailer in tow, I caught kastein after he’d walked 2.1 miles and up several hundred feet from sea level. He was also cold AF. The truck smelled cab smelled like fresh paint burning off new components. Things are starting to get back to a level of poo poo we can handle.

After stopping at the hotel for a crapload of ratchet straps we boogied down to Ritchie Bros and made it only a few minutes after my pick-up appointment. They got us loaded up quickly and that was a nice contrast to the 2+ hours everyone online says. We spent a lot more time getting the excavator secured than waiting but we were ready to go before lunch. I *almost* forgot to say the magic words before we left.



Half an hour down the road we stopped at Punjabi Boy Indian Restaurant to re-tighten and grab lunch. Kastein was clearly not fully awake because he forgot it was family style and was a little confused that I was reaching for his food :chef:

Hit the road again, stopped back at the hotel for the drill press, and got to the barge dock in time to throughly annoy the forklift operator wearing a ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ hat. Whatever, bro. Got that done, dropped kastein back at the ferry, and went to take the UHaul back only to discover the place was on fire.



I asked a woman wearing UHaul gear in the parking lot what was going on and she, with a panicked look on her face, yelled back “I DON’T KNOW I JUST WORK HERE!” Then she printed me a receipt and I got the hell out of there.

Fast forward a week. I made a reservation at one of the two local UHaul facilities for a similar trailer and arranged to borrow a friend’s Chevy half-ton to tow it. Then, yesterday, I got a text saying I needed to call them. I did so and ended up talking with someone at corporate. He let me know that the trailer I wanted wasn’t available but they’d upgraded me to the next size up - with a ramp. Ramps don’t work so well for forking stuff. He checked both local places and none of their trailers, any size, were non-ramp style. Crap.

Once again I was saved by The Neighbor Who Is Way Too Nice To Us. He loaned me his beat-to-poo poo 12,800-mile 2023 Ram 3500 and I went to pick up the excavator with that. I showed up and they cheerfully let me know that my shipping invoice would be a thousand dollars more than my quote. Turned out that hat bro had written the dimensions of the excavator as 7”x3”x7” rather than 7’x3’x7’. Inches are not equal to feet and their system determined that shipping an 1800-pound brick costs a lot of money (presumably it would be an as-yet-undiscovered radioactive element). Got that straightened out and loaded up to head home.



Halfway home the check engine light came on. :mopar:

There is no way my Bobcat will lift this excavator so I borrowed the neighbor’s skid steer (which conveniently came home from a job site yesterday). This was *just a little* sketchy:



It all worked out, though, and the excavator is now safely in my shop where I can take it apart and put it back together. That’s why these things are cheap; they don’t do much (if any) quality control after assembly. I’ve been told to expect a lot of loose bolts, but that’s fine, this is basically my big-kid sandbox toy.

sharkytm
Oct 9, 2003

Ba

By

Sharkytm doot doo do doot do doo


Fallen Rib
Eagerly awaiting results of digger escapades.

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


Advent Horizon posted:

I *almost* forgot to say the magic words before we left.

I KNOW! I KNOW!
<twangs straps> "That's not going anywhere!"

That's a neat little excavator. I don't have a legit need for one just this second, but what does something like that cost?

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


If you’ll believe it, when I jumped back out to say the magic words Ken didn’t know what I meant. Maybe that’s why he breaks stuff?

I’m into the excavator just over $5k including fees and shipping but not including taxes. Washington changed their laws a few years ago so now I have to pay their taxes and then apply for a refund.

Boaz MacPhereson
Jul 11, 2006

Day 12045 Ht10hands 180lbs
No Name
No lumps No Bumps Full life Clean
Two good eyes No Busted Limbs
Piss OK Genitals intact
Multiple scars Heals fast
O NEGATIVE HI OCTANE
UNIVERSAL DONOR
Lone Road Warrior Rundown
on the Powder Lakes V8
No guzzoline No supplies
ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC
Keep muzzled...
I thought you meant "For 19.95 you can rent this motherfucker!" and then doing a bigass burnout on the way out of the parking lot.

kastein
Aug 31, 2011

Moderator at http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/and soon to be mod of AI. MAKE AI GREAT AGAIN. Motronic for VP.
I just overbuild everything so much that I don't need to say "that's not going anywhere"*.

* Factory parts need not apply

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Boaz MacPhereson posted:

I thought you meant "For 19.95 you can rent this motherfucker!" and then doing a bigass burnout on the way out of the parking lot.

Aw, crap. I meant to include that in my post!

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


Advent Horizon posted:

If you’ll believe it, when I jumped back out to say the magic words Ken didn’t know what I meant. Maybe that’s why he breaks stuff?

What? I am incredulous.

quote:

I’m into the excavator just over $5k including fees and shipping but not including taxes. Washington changed their laws a few years ago so now I have to pay their taxes and then apply for a refund.

Oh, that's not terrible. Hmmmm...


Boaz MacPhereson posted:

I thought you meant "For 19.95 you can rent this motherfucker!" and then doing a bigass burnout on the way out of the parking lot.

I mean, I though it, too.

Suburban Dad
Jan 10, 2007


Well what's attached to a leash that it made itself?
The punchline is the way that you've been fuckin' yourself




Advent Horizon posted:

Aw, crap. I meant to include that in my post!

Literally the best Uhaul commercial. Makes me want to go rent one.

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Darchangel posted:

Oh, that's not terrible. Hmmmm...

Yeah. As near as anyone can tell, the factories are dumping them at very close to cost since the economy in China isn’t doing so great right now. They’ve nearly halved in price since this time last year. I figured this is my chance to jump on that deal and come out a wash, financially, vs renting.

Plus it’s a new toy and who can say no to that?

This, like the Bobcat before it, is rapidly becoming one of those “I never even considered doing X or Y before because it would have been a ton of work” things.

SpeedFreek
Jan 10, 2008
And Im Lobster Jesus!
Have you tried using it yet or still doing the QA on the thing?

Second question is what's next, a tiny dump truck?

Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


Funny you say that, I found this cute little dozer on craigslist today. I’m not buying it, I just think it’s really neat.



I haven’t really started QC yet, only hooked up a trickle charger and pondered what the hell I’m going to do with all of this.

I’m focusing on a thorough cleaning of the drill press first and getting the shop cleaned up a bit. I was expecting a few weeks before the ripper attachment and hydraulic thumb would show up from ebay but the seller decided air mail was the best way to handle free shipping. Aside from getting to me a lot faster than expected that was good payback to the mailman for macing our dog two weeks ago.

Darchangel
Feb 12, 2009

Tell him about the blower!


Advent Horizon posted:

Yeah. As near as anyone can tell, the factories are dumping them at very close to cost since the economy in China isn’t doing so great right now. They’ve nearly halved in price since this time last year. I figured this is my chance to jump on that deal and come out a wash, financially, vs renting.

Plus it’s a new toy and who can say no to that?

This, like the Bobcat before it, is rapidly becoming one of those “I never even considered doing X or Y before because it would have been a ton of work” things.

Literally any digging in my neck of the world is a Hurculean task - I have basically solid clay 6" down. Hence my interest, and that little guy is designed to be able to go through gates and such into backyards easily. Does that one do the thing with the treads so you can make it narrow for transport and widen it for stability? That's a handy feature I've seen.

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Advent Horizon
Jan 17, 2003

I’m back, and for that I am sorry


No, that would add a lot of cost and complexity. You really shouldn’t dig sideways anyway; you should be turning the undercarriage to face the work and dropping the blade for stability.

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