Pic of the Day

[Gerrit]

For the wagon lovers.

[Barry Donovan]

add a hawk to my freak window to the world.


it heard the shutter and looked right at me.


thunderstorms coming through, we seem to be a waypoint for southwest smashing northwest. I have camera going at the end of building, as one can see lightning in the sun, heavy rain, and clouds going different directions. I hope it comes out.. interesting events.

[Gary 351C]

yes.. they do..

http://www.customvinylgraphics.com/rear-window-graphics.html

http://www.vpwindowgraphics.com/

This may be the greatest one i've ever seen.

[STINEY]

...

[Deaf Bob]

...

How long is that trailer?

[STINEY]

IIRC it was for a 24' boat...........and I cut out the rear crossmember, sliced it in half, and welded it back on extending the frame rearwards (hence the flush mounted rear lights facing sideways) so that added 3' to it.

27' - 28' stem to stern sounds about right?



It weighs #1840, tried to keep it as light as possible. Cut the bunk mounts off, added 2x4 1/8" crossmembers every 24", bolted down an 1/8" aluminum floor and fabbed a rear ramp. Surge brakes and lots of tie-downs that thru-bolt to the frame.

The boat style fender cut-outs worked out real nice to help clear wide rear tires, instead of drive-over fenders. Kept all the lights functional and added front side clearance and over 80" lights are sunk in rear crossmember from behind and shine out through a series of 3 drilled holes for each light. No more bashed lights back there.

If you look real close you can see the remains of a bunk standoff still on the relocated original rear crossmember. It is now holding the pivot bolt for the strap that retains the ramp-gate when it is up. Everything just fell into place.

The ramp-gate is made of angle from Grandpa's old square-bale elevator. I used the axle hubs from the same elevator to build a triple motorcycle trailer for a friend.

[Deaf Bob]

Ah.. Was curious as the kid wants to build a 2 car hauler and figure 42 ft or so for 2- full sized cars.. Thought your's was in the 30 ft range..
20 plus too short!

[Barry Donovan]

smashed a diff cover with a claw end of a hammer, and ate some omhahaha steaks.
a good day.


this has 354k miles on it, a lightning tickle, welding...and my nuclear self at the chrome hurst helm in the middle. The holes are not countable...not even findable. It is an amazing ending.


I suppose I could leave an optimistic tip: the cover with a drain/fill built in is twice as thick , if not more, than the one in photo. This may not even be original to the truck..but off some bent in half camaro or nova some place. The very common 40+ year run of the ten bolt. Anything is possible.



Mmmmm. Don't recall having these. Very good. Barely needs the knife.

[Aircooled]

Peak load achieved during the string test of my electric motor driven propane compressor.
That 75.4 MW is shaft mechanical power (in megawatts) at the coupling. We were probably sucking close to 88 megawatts of electric power off the grid..
75MW = 100,000 hp

[Loren]

Metal project of the week: Sailboat (22') drop-keel, made to swing up-down for trailering. Sailboats need those heavy keels sticking down to stay upright in wind and for directional influence, and a nice side-benefit is a better ride through waves and swells due to the moment of the weight. Originally, this was 1" torch-cut plate w/ half-inch plates sandwiched on, welded in a few spots and laid into a fiberglass mold, then lots and lots of resin added to fill the shape under a single layer of weave. This crappy design cracked probably sometime in the '80s and let in enough salt water to rot the thing from the inside out, expansion from the rust had it jammed in place tight enough I nearly split the hull pulling it out. A four-hour job just to do that, I had no idea what I was in for! Good thing I waited another week to start that Swear-Jar. Strip, disassemble, take the pieces to the sand-blaster for a good cleaning.

I mig-welded it back together, adding a 2 1/2" steel strip to the front for a little more weight/stability and another square foot of area, then bent up a piece of 316 stainless round bar to make a leading edge and used some 2x1/4" strip for the trailing. You can see some of the deep rust pitting remaining on the original piece.



Then I used .06" 316 (marine-grade) sheet to make a new shell, instead of fiberglass. Pressbrake- and hammer-formed, tig-welded and metal-finished. This view is of the trailing edge with the portion at the left being the hinged side and a snug fit into a slot, this all only drops down out of the hull to about a 60-degree angle thus the slant of the contours. The dimple and notch features at right have to do with the raising/lowering apparatus, basically a cable and winch. Holes are sleeved with stainless, the main pivot is enlarged for a bigger bolt which will be drilled for a grease passage. To make sure it never rusts again I filled it with oil after it was all welded up, took about a gallon or two through a small screw hole. Total around 500 lbs now, I'm guessing.



The other, better way for a boat mfr. to make one of these is in cast iron and plan for it to be dropped out for cleaning/re-finishing periodically, but that's not how they made this one. With the stainless, hopefully this will now outlast me and I can be doing metal fab on cars not boats.

[Gerrit]

It was hot..

[Barry Donovan]

somewhere off the local coast of north carolina..
my dad called it a marsh marlin. The boat captain was enthused. Rare catch.
caught this a few hours ago.


the girl is an anonymous fisher.. woman.

[V12guy]

Is that a "Ribbonfish"? ^^

[Barry Donovan]

Is that a "Ribbonfish"? ^^

the boat captain called it a marsh marlin.
my grandpa had a mini version of marlin on the wall..but it is still much bigger. They grow in all sizes.



back to some car stuff. I am training myself to use big lense for simple shots.
blurs background more..but have to stay back further as well.
96 gmc. it really is a clean old truck. normal needs.

I found nay sayers may be a bigger killer than rust in the vehicle projects. Bangshift has been great to keep things going.

[Loren]

I found nay sayers may be a bigger killer than rust in the vehicle projects.

X2.