What's everybody doing?

Last week lows at zero and below and barely making it into the double digits during the day, and some snow.  This morning, it was 59 at 5am and will warm a little until 10pm tonight...  Fine with me as long as it's warm.   

Sales tax got finished up yesterday, is filed, paid and done for last year.  Everything is also entered in Quickbooks for last year and ready for the return in April.  Now maybe I can get back to some fun in the shop. 

Windows is also running inside Linux on all the computers, that was the big project while the cold was on.  There are a few things that just won't run on Linux but Windows is too much of a pain to keep secure.  I had a dual boot system and had to log in and out of them to do things in each one, it was a bit of a pain.  Now I have it all on Linux and Windows is where it belongs, safe and secure while locked up in it's own window.   

If anyone else is interested in doing something like this the program I'm using is called Virtual Box.  It's open source and free, and you can put all the operating systems in it you want and switch them on the fly, or run several at the same time.  They can also be resized and moved around at will, pretty cool. 

 

Jeremy picked up his restored 753 and one of the Wheel Horse trucks last Sat so now there's just a little more space around here.  I'll take all I can get...  

This morning I decided to get into the flywheel mess from the Kohler 12HP I took apart last week and see what happened.  The pics are pretty much self explanatory.  It turned out to be easy after one spacer was removed, but only because the magnets weren't even glued in...  The only thing holding them was the spacers someone put in there, why am I surprised.    

 

Doing a little cleaning, rearranging, and maintenance around here, what else is new... 

I need to move the Fastenal pegboard to get to some things behind it.  It's going up against the wall near the blaster.  While the blaster is moved it needs some mods, the lighting above it needs to be updated, and all kinds of other things. The corner where the pegboard and tire equip is is also a mess so it's getting a good clean up.  Just another normal mess to be made for a little while. 

 

I needed to upgrade a few lights while everything is getting moved around and things are out of the way.  3 of them in the blaster area got done today and I even made a pattern from an old center piece.  Of course I should have done that in the beginning of this venture long ago knowing they all wouldn't get done at the same time... 

The pegboard is moved, just need to cover it this time with some plastic in the morning.  Got a little done to the blaster, I'll update that topic next. 

 

Spent most of the day today cleaning the big mess made last week on the blaster project.  Benches and everything else is cleaned back up, organized, and put away.  I even had a little extra time to do the windows and make a few more clean spots on the floor.  I think most of the yellow lines are finally yellow again...  

Company is coming tomorrow, peeps that are at the Farm Machinery Show in Louisville usually come by while they are there, it's just an hour away.  One person is an old WH Dealer that wants to buy a C-160 Auto tomorrow.  Always nice to meet and talk to old WH dealers.  

 

Been finishing up the new lights.  All that's left are 6 around the center rack.  I'll prob do the new fixture setup in them next but have a lot of 8' bulbs left that I'll still use in there till they die. 

 

I started working on the next tractor for someone when my friend Ted stopped by today.  I put the tractor on hold this afternoon while I had help, and we got the old waiting area lights down.  They are going on CL, they are too hard to keep clean and use 648W, not to mention the red hue they end up putting out in the room not long after cleaning...     There are 4 dimmable LED's up there now that use 12.5W each and are 100W equivalent.  

It's weird having down lighting in here now after having the indirect lighting so many years.  Everything is much brighter, but I may move them around and put 6 in here to get the light a little more even.  The dimmer isn't in yet so now they're wide open, with 6 they will have to be dimmed a little I think.  Biggest thing is it's just different and will take getting used to.  

Right now it's pretty impressive that the lighting went from 648W to 50W, and there's a lot more light on the surfaces.  600W less per hour for around 10 hours per day, and 6 days a week should show up as a nice savings on the electric bill too.      

 

I am going into more of a cleaning binge than ever. 

Peeps come in here and say it's clean, then some of them look at me when I say it's a mess and think I'm crazy...  Well, I am a little crazy but I know what it's supposed to look like around here.  The first 2 pics are of the glass light covers for the ceiling fan up front, and it shows just how dirty this place is.  Between the paint dust and carbon monoxide things are pretty dirty as you can see, and it's like that almost everywhere.  The bigger Wheel Horse ornaments looked just as brown as the ceiling fan light glass.

I decided to add 2 more lights to the waiting area today and it was the right choice.  In my spare time for the rest of this week I will be focusing on getting that room and everything in it cleaned and organized, and make a few more changes before moving on to the next thing.  

 

Been working on the waiting area in between other things and it's coming along good.  The first pic is as the grout was getting cleaned.  The next 2 pics are of the grout cleaned minus some behind the counter, and after the floor was scrubbed.  I never would have dreamed it was that nasty.  I'll start taking the time to keep it clean from now on after seeing what a mess I let happen...  

The grout is getting resealed and colored again, and the granite is getting a deeper cleaning with chemicals made for it so it can be resealed as well.  As long as everything is out of the way and pretty much ready now is a good time to do it. 

There are also 4 new LED's in the ceiling fan.  They are just 1 watt each, equivalent to 10 watts, and are 5K to match the new ceiling lights.  The camera makes them look bright but they're really more like accent lights.  Been working almost 60 hours a week again but at least some of it is doing cleaning, maintenance, and upgrades that need to be done around here.   

 

Playing with tractors and getting the blaster back together today.  A customer called early this morning for one being picked up today and asked if I had time to get some new tires on the back before he got here.  I said sure, it will only take a few mins once I get the tractor back on the lift so here they are.  Nothing like some real meat on the rear wheels.