Rainy weekend. Tree-tube cleanup and machine work.

Mowing - of course!

Just so its recorded, I mowed the front lawn - not around the cherry trees or the persimmons though.

Cleaned up the Paw-paw tubes

In my continuing mission to remove all of the protector tubes from my trees I attacked the paw-paw trees.  Unfortunately, the trees aren't doing as well as I had hoped.  I was only able to remove the tubes off of 6 trees.   Some of the trees are about as big as when I planted them!  ARGG.    Well, at least they are all still alive.  I put cages around the ones that I removed the tubes from.  I don't want to risk deer damage on these poor trees!

Ornamental tree cleanup as well

I went ahead and cleaned out the tubes for some of the ornamental trees too.    The two crab-apple trees in the front are doing quite well and are already out!  I took the tubes off of them and replaced them with cages.

I was hoping that the red-bud and dogwood trees were ready to have the tubes removed but alas, not yet.  In fact, the redbuds didn't seem to survive the winter - which is kind of a surprise since they are native in this area too!  The dogwoods seemed to do ok though.   I removed the tubes from the dead redbuds and cleaned and re-set the tubes on the dogwoods.  Some of the dogwoods are a bit rough. We will see how they fair this year.

Started work on my new milling machine arbor

Since it was rainy out and I couldn't mow or do planting, etc. I decided to start working on new milling arbor.   I received a set of gear cutters that need a slightly smaller arbor diameter than what I have, so the new arbor will be sized for them.  The length and shaft of the new arbor will be the same as the arbor I already have, so I just measured that out and began cutting a piece of my alloy steel using my bandsaw!

The existing arbor is model 6-151- style "C" - I actually found it in an old VN brochure!

About 9.25-9.5 inches long

The critical part is the taper insert.  I might try doing a threading on a scrape piece to be sure I get this right!  Oh, and taper too.  I have some mild steel laying around...

The widest diameter is the flange.  I didn't buy a large-enough diameter cylinder to match the original flange but I don't see why my flange has to match  diameter.  As long as there is enough flange to engage the registration tabs - which I am sure it will.

Measuring the actual portion that sticks out of the spindle.  This is the part that will hold the cutters.  I will also have to make spacers for this too since the original arbor spacers will have too large of a inside diameter to fit right.  Oh, will have to make a new arbor nut too!  Joy!  Inside threading on a small ID!

I mounted the cylinder up on the bandsaw and started it up.

It was much slower going than cutting through angle iron

I set it up, started it, and went inside.  I did put a little cutting oil on the cut to start, but I am not sure it was needed.  The chips coming off looked fine.  Didn't seem to get hot at all.  No discoloration of the chips was noticed.  No damage to the blade that I can tell.

The saw finished the cut and turned itself off.  Sweet!  Damn nice cut too.

I missed a few pictures of the drilling the centers (I used the drill press).   I was upset that I didn't have any center finder tools to determine the center points at the ends of the cylinder.  I managed to use the calipers to get the centers and then used a punch to mark the drill centers.  Well, turns out that getting the center drill bit to hit those marks was much more difficult than marking the centers!  I was planning on using the 4-jaw chuck to hold the piece while the other end would be held in tailstock center. However, after trying this approach I quickly determined that the centers where NOT concentric with the outside diameter of the cylinder!  So, I  decided to do the machining between centers using a lathe-dog to drive the head engaging on a jaw of the 3-jaw chuck.  3-jaw chucks do not hold material exactly concentric to the center of the piece, however.  To get around this problem, I used an old trick I learned on youtube!  The trick is to put a sacrificial piece of rod in the 3-jaw chuck and cut the 60 degree center in place.  Since its cut in place, that center WILL be centered on the lathe and will hold the piece perfectly!  Just don't remove the cut center before you are done, otherwise you will have to re-cut the 60 center all over again!

After I got the center ready, I needed a lathe-dog.  I had an old lathe-dog from my small home-made lathe.  I had brought the lathe-dog up to the farm a couple weekends ago.  The drill holes were too far apart so I had to find a new center and recut the clamps on the mill.

Re-cutting some clamp grooves on the old-lathe-dog clamp pieces.  I had to drill and re-tap the holes for the clamps too.

Once I got a couple of longer clamp bolts, the clamp fits nicely and holds well!

The lathe dog arm had to be extended a little bit to engage the chuck jaw.

Here you can see one of the new grooves I cut with the mill.  It could be a wider angle (its only 90 degree) to hold better on this large diameter cylinder, but remember, this cylinder will get turned down to a smaller diameter!  Then this clamp will fit the smaller diameters better.

Once it was mounted up, i took a cut.  Works fine!

the chips come off in long thin razor like strips!  AND, they are damned hot too!

Turned the entire cylinder here.  Should be perfectly centered and concentric at this point.  I should check for "taper", but I have lots of material to remove before that maters much.

See the pretty blue chips?  I made sure the piece had plenty of cutting fluid on it.  The cutting fluid would smoke!  the shop was foggy when I finished this cut!  The piece was quite warm too.

In between showers...

I was able to get out between showers and do some planting.  We went to TSC and picked up some grass seed and a couple of spearmint plants (amongst other things).  I planted some grass seed in the front yard where I need to do more landscaping.  I figure it is going to be awhile before I get to the re-grading and fill so I had better get some grass growing here.  In fact, that was my plan last year as well, and I did plant grass here last year, but this soil is so poor!  Also, I added some fill here too last year and ran the tractor over it a bit too much for the grass I had planted there to survive.  Anyway, I planted some more!  I actually raked it in a bit this time too, so the birds don't eat it all and so it doesn't wash away (as easily).  I need to plant more in several places on the farm, but this is all I could get too.

We got 7/10ths of an inch!  Yay!  We needed it bad - the new trees need water!

I was supposed to pick up a couple spearmint plants from mom on the way up this weekend, but she was not home.  So I picked up a couple of plants at Mile Level in Bedford.  They were $2 a pot.  I decided to plant them down in the wet area near the old elderberry bushes.  Spearmint, if it takes hold, can spread quite invasively!  I am hoping this stuff does well here.  To be sure though, i will pick up the stuff that mom has and try it in another location.  Also, I have a bunch of little spearmint plants started from seed down at the city house.    If they little plants do well i will also spread them around - probably start some down in the city house yard too.

Stare of the garden report:

The front garden is the only one with anything in it yet.  I do see good growth though.  the onions are definitely showing signs now.  

Onions showing their tops!

Potatoes looking good

Strawberries taking hold!

The city raised beds

To be fair to the city house, the raised beds are doing quite well - only kale and potatoes planted here so far though.  It's obviously a bit warmer here!  Those potatoes are getting large!

Except for a couple that the squirrels keep harassing!

Kale and collard greens.  These will need thinning soon.