Family x-mas, and COLD weather continues!

Family x-mas

We got together on the 6th of January at Mom's house.  Unfortunately, Connie, my sister, was unable to attend.  She had come down with a bad cold and had to cancel at the last minute.  The rest of us got together and had sauerkraut and pork.   Lots of cookies too.  Too many cookies.  LOL.  Ah well, its tough time of year to be on a diet!  I was doing pretty good.  I was down to 245 just the day before the party.  That's 40 lbs down since October!

COLD

The weather is in it's 2nd week of  single digit temperatures.  The doors on the country house where actually sticking due to ice condensing between the doors and the frames!   We had a dog-grooming scheduled for Saturday morning, but they rescheduled for the 13th due to the cold weather.  I guess it was considered too dangerous for some of the pet-owners to get to the shop.   I have been doing work in the shop as much as possible to avoid the biting cold winds.

Welding practice and Nutcracker build

Last week I was just running beads and welding silly stuff together to practice my MIG skills.  That was ok, but it got boring, so I decided to see what I could find on Instructables for small welding projects.  Well, I stumbled on a nutcracker design that sparked an idea.   I designed my own, similar to the one that was presented but using my old square shelving tubing (of which I have a LOT).  I scrounged around a bit and found enough steel to give the build a try.  I am winging a lot of it.

Since the walls of the tubing is thin, I decided not to drill holes into it, which would further weaken it. 
Instead I welded the pins to the surface of the tubing.

I made tabs of steel and drilled holes through them and welded them to the sides of the tubing.  These tabs are thicker than the tubing walls and provide a better bearing surface.

My welds are improving.  Its still damn difficult to see the weld while its happening though.  My breath fogs the helmet!

Oh.  I got a new welding helmet too.  Its auto-darkening, and unlike the old one, it seems to work more reliability.

I have a concern that maybe I didn't leave enough room between the hammer and the anvil to fit a nut in!  

Here it is with the pusher rod attached and forward

And with the pusher rod pulled back.

I have 4 more tabs to cut and the main lever rod to put in place.  I tried to get it done Sunday, but it was too damned cold to be outside for long, so I decided to just wait.  It's just for welding proactive anyway.

Post wood-treatment continues

I was only able to get another 2 posts done since we weren't there very long this weekend.   I didn't even take the tractor over to get the remaining posts to saw to length.  I did pull them out of the stacks though,  They are ready to grab and saw when I get there this coming weekend.

Another post is in soaking.  At these temperatures I think it takes longer to soak in!  I let each post sit overnight when I first put them in.  Then at least 4-6 hours when I flip it over.  Sometimes overnight for the second side too.

Seven (7) posts done by the end of this weekend!

The variety of wood is quite apparent here!

The darker wood is red-oak.  I am not sure what the lighter wood is - maybe basswood or poplar.

I pulled these seven (7) posts out of the lumber stacks to get ready to trim them to length.  It was just too cold to go and trim them this weekend!

I still have two (2) posts already cut to length and ready to go yet anyway.  There is also one soaking in the trough.  So I have 17 posts.  I need at most 13 for the fence, and 2 for arbor post replacements.  I might replace other arbor posts though, since I am betting there are more that will rot off soon.