Happy New Year!

More lathe restoration work

I started going over the lathe trying to figure out all the levers and controls.  Found that the gear-select levers on the power feed (and threading gears) were sticking.  In fact, one of the gear-select levers was absolutely "frozen".  The gear "box" is actually open at the bottom so I was able to use my phone to take some pictures and videos to see what was going on.

Using phone to take picture "under" the gear box while its still in place.
On the lower right corner of this picture you can see some rust on a gear - that is where the stuck lever is supposed to engage.

Another "under the box shot" with phone.  Trying to get a better shot of the frozen lever area.  That area is just too congested to get a decent shot.  

At this point I realized that I would have to take the gear box off the lathe to get a better look.  After fiddling for most of a day to get the  gear box off I finally had some success.  The gear box is easiest to remove from the right (as you face the front of the lathe).  The issue is the lead screw..which is threaded the gear box (actually attached to it), the apron and of course the tail side of the lathe.   I discovered that the various head stock covers are actually fairly easy to take off.  So after a bunch of fiddling here is what I found:

Actually able to see into the gear box now that its off the lathe!
The lower left is where the stuck lever is.  See the rust on those gears?

This shows how I took off the gear box.  

Frozen lever on top.  Severely worn gear - third from the right.

The stuck lever and gear.

Another view of the stuck lever

Looking at where the stuck gear would have engaged, I see a gear with some broken teeth!  Look in front of where I am pointing in the picture.

After taking off the shaft that engages from the gearbox to the back-gears I am happy to see no more broken gears...at first..

The shaft that holds he gears that engage the back gears from the gearbox.  The big gear on the left goes to the back gears.

These are the gears that engage in the gear box.  Looks ok, right?

But on closer examination of this gear I realize that on the small smooth hub on the right of this ganged gear there seems to be the hint of gear teeth real close to.the crotch   - you can kind of see the missing teeth in this picture if you look closely.

So, evidently. this gear was broken at some point in the past, and instead of replacing it, they simply faced off the gear teeth!  So basically, what I found was that one gear had been milled smooth, one gear had broken teeth, and one gear was severely worn.   I purchased and downloaded the lathe manual from Logan (yes, they are still in business and still supply parts for this lathe!).  For the record, my lathe is a Logan T-6560H (14" swing with a 40" bed).  Then "H" on the end of the model number indicates that it has flame hardened ways.  Nice!  I believe the "T" in the front of the model number indicate that it supports a turret, although mine doesn't have a turret, I could purchase one should I choose to convert this into a turret lathe!  Nice!

Upon examination of the gearbox diagrams I determined that all three of damaged gears are EXACTLY the same part number!  Logan part number 1392.  Looking that part up on the logan website indicates it costs $220 - EACH!  that would be $660 to replace all three!  UGH

This shows the gear box with the lever shaft removed.

Closeup of where the lever shaft would be 

Closeup of the worn gear (third from the right).

After watching some youtube videos on this matter (tubalcain) I decided to check on eBay for these gears.  I was lucky and not only found the part - but I found 3 of them and they are only $38 each! So instead of costing $660 I bought the replacements for only $114!   The only problem with the replacements are that they don't include the inner bushing.  I will have to recover the bushings from the existing broken gears.

I continued with the disassembly and cleanup of the gearbox.   I used brake fluid cleaner to remove the old grease and dirt (and chips that got impacted between the gear teeth),

This picture shows the box completed emptied of gears.  I am showing the placement of  a bushing/spacer here.

Same spacer.

Showing the gear train.  Note the key.  Note that this is going to be a bugger to put together again I bet!

After cleaning the gear train with brake cleaner

More cleaned gears and shaft for the back gear connecting portion.

I did squirt some WD-40 on these parts since, once cleaned with brake cleaner, I was afraid they might rust!

Backhoe

Well, the backhoe wasn't starting for me, even after recharging the battery for days!  My next thought was just to replace the batteries (2 6 volt batteries in series) with 2 12 volt batteries in parallel.  I can pick up cheap 12 volt batteries at Walmart for total of about $220.   As I was looking over the battery box I realized that the 12 volt batteries would not physically fit, but more importantly I also realized that I was charging only 1 of the 6 volt batteries!  So I re-connected the charger, this time to the correct terminals!) and let it charge for several hours.  I had to charge at 35 A to see any effect.  That one battery hasn't been charge and is pretty fried I think.   In any case, after trying to start it again I got it to turn over and run for a few seconds!  It was fairly cold out (just a tad below freezing) so it took several attempts to get it to start and run - but it runs!  After letting it warm for a bit I moved it back into the garage.  I was careful to put the locking pins in and put the bucket down in a position that should keep it from drifting in the garage wall (like it did last time!).  I should point out that the "forward" and "reverse" pedals are identified in the backhoe user's manual!


The starting procedure is:

1. Put the machine into neutral using the big lever on the left of the steering wheel column.
2. Turn the ignition key to the right - one click
3. Push and hold the glow-plug heater button (silver button on the lower right of the front panel).  Hold it in for about 60-90 sec (if cold).  Make sure it pops back to the off position when released - it has a tendency to stick!
4. Now turn the ignition key all the way to the right and depress the hydraulic release pedal on the floor - back of your left foot as you sit in the drivers seat.
5. Open the throttle wide open
6. Hit the starter button to crank the engine.
7. It should start at this point.  Keep trying if it does not.
8. Once it starts, turn the throttle down to something reasonable,  Don't leave it wide open - it is hard on the engine!
9. Don't forget to take it out of neutral before you move it!  Also, be sure to remove the locking pins!

Back in its place in the garage.

Pumpkin processing and seed saving

I baked the last of the Musque de Provence pumpkins (they were starting to get bad spots) and pureed the meat.    I also saved the seeds.  I used 6 Cups of the puree to make pumpkin leather!  I used the nchfp recipe.

In the dehydrator.  I made 3 trays worth.

I package this one up and took it to the New Years family get together

I took one of the 3 batches over to mom's for the New Years family get together.


Since this was the last of the pumpkins I decided to save the seeds from these (also - they were FAR away from any other pumpkins so they should be true seeds.)   After I washed the seeds well, I placed them in the dehydrator at 90F overnight.  The goal was to removed as much surface moisture as possible so they wouldn't mold during storage, but not to remove so much that the seeds would be denatured.

Bear meat!

I took some goodies over to my neighbor for the holidays and he gave me several pounds of bear meat!  This was some of the 300lb bear he shot earlier this season.  I haven't tried cooking it yet, but I am excited to try it!  He also gave me some "chipped venison", and some venison hot dogs and summer sausage!

Getting ready for family thanksgiving at the farmhouse

First - some fixing

I had broken a weld on the chipper feed lever so I hooked up my arc-welder and gave it a shot.  I wasn't sure what settings to use (or even which type of rod) so I took a wild geuss.  I think I guessed a bit high on the current settings since I burned a hole in the pipe!  It looks like crap and isn't as strong as before, but its good enough for now.  This fix let me continue chipping the slabs left over from milling.

oops!

More saw-milling

Trying to get the old rotting wood done first.  Just a little bit left (that I can mill - some will go to firewood).

I keep moving the new boards onto the pile.  Of course I have to sticker as I got and the sizes are all out of order.  I will have to restack at some point.

I had to change the blade again this weekend.  It was just too dull.  I think this dirty old wood dulls the blades faster.

More chipping

Of course, lots of the old wood just goes straight from the mill into the chipper.  The pile on the right here is all from this weekend.  The chipper worked OK considering how dull the blades are.  I just don't want to change them out too soon since they are still able to do a fairly good job (also, they aren't cheap and it's a pain in the a$$)

The boards on the right side of this picture are too wide to put through the chipper.  I have pretty much given up on edging the boards in the mill as its too dangerous and frequently the boards shift and crimp the blade. I have a couple of new  resaw bandsaw blades on order for the upright bandsaw.   One of the new ones is carbide tipped!

New project: Sawmill-lathe!

I really liked the idea of a sawmill based lathe (for making perfectly cylindrical posts, etc) but I am not quite willing to pay $4,000+ for the "lathe-mizer"!  So I decided to try to design and make my own.  I will build two uprights that will sit on the mill bed.  One at the head of the mill and one at the other end.  These uprights will be made of wood  and hold the bearing and spindle for the lathe.  I need a wider board than I currently have for the base of the uprights, so I plan on doing a glue up panel.  I started gathering some boards together and prepping them for gluing.

First step (after cleaning nails out!) was thickness planing the boards.  Here is a bunch shaving left over after the planeing operation

Planing makes so much dust!  

I cut the boards into approximately 3 inch widths as per recommendations for panel glue-ups that I found on the internet.

Some of these were pretty bowed - instead of removing all the bow with the jointer (it would have taken forever!) i put the bowed boards own next to a straight board and passed them both through the table saw.  After that I put them through the planner again to be sure.

These boards are essentially ready for glue up.  I need one more though.  One more 3 nich board should do it.  Some of these boards are bowed a bit along the wide dimension.  Not much I can do about that except get another boards.  However, the glue up advice suggested that a small amount of bow wouldn't hurt.  I will find out if I have a small amount or not when I go to take off the glue-clamps.

Here is the hardware I picked up at TSC.  The two wheels will be the bearings/pillow blocks.  I plan to just try to screw a faceplate on the log to be turned instead of using the ram-chuck type of lathe hookup.

I scavenged the motor off of the old lathe I had at the city house.

Miscellaneous stuff

I had called Chestnut's septic service last week to arrange for them to pump out the tank.  It was very full and I didn't want to host thanksgiving with a full tank!  I checked when we got there and the tank was indeed empty and I found the invoice in the door as promised.

Also, I dehydrated more pumpkins!  I gave a lot away this year (since I have so much pumpkin powder left over from last year).  I am taking 3 of the musque de provence back with me for making stuff or maybe just eating.

Canning, garden cleanup and mulching.

Canning Sweet potatoes

As I mentioned before, my sweet potatoes were in rough shape.  I decided to can most of them (all but 3 which I will use for starting next seasons taters).  This was the first time I canned sweet potatoes.  A bit of a surprise was that they stain your hands brown!  I used fruit-fresh and water to keep them covered as I cleaned and prepped them, but my hands where exposed the whole time and picked up a brown stain.  I got a total of 7 pints - the last pint was a little short.  These were pressure canned with 10 lb for 65 minutes.

7 pints of sweet potatoes canned

More dried pumpkin

I got a few trays ready.  I must admit that the allergies were getting me.  I had quite a headache driving up Friday afternoon.  I persevered though.

Cleaned up the black plastic off of the front and big gardens

This took way more time and effort than I thought it would.  I think I rediscover that every year I have done it!  The front garden was especially surprising since I had forgotten that I had doubled over the plastic there to make the rows closer together. 

Front garden - sans plastic.  The stuff on the left is the strawberries which still have some plastic down.  They need to be cleaned (de-weeded).  The plastic that I took up from the far right side had been down for 2 seasons and was NOT easy to get up or clean.  In fact, some of it was so bad I cut it off and will just re-purpose it in some other way.  Maybe on the blackberries?

Mowed off the weeds and ground up the debris using the Cub Cadet zero turn on the highest height setting first, then dropping it to normal lawn setting to finish up.

Big garden with the plastic removed and weeds mowed down.  I also have removed the broccoli. 

Left the Kale and the brussel sprouts.

Last of the Broccoli

I decided to pull the broccoli plants, but first, I picked all the broccoli florets that were big enough to bother with.  

I got 1.25 lbs of broccoli the last harvest!

Blanched and ready to vacuum seal and freeze

Garden Mulching

Finally got to use some of the mulch I have been building for the past 3 years!  I had piles of mulched leaves and grass clippings that I used for mulching the veggie gardens.  What I didn't realize was that I need A LOT more mulch! Anyway, I used all my mulch but the gardens could definitely use some more.

Paw-paw patch got leaf mulch.  Could have used a lot more!  Note that I do plan on shrinking this patch a bit.

The new portion of the front patch got all of the grass clipping mulch.  Some of this mulch hadn't complete rotted up yet.  I hope its ok.  I will till - maybe plow - this all in next spring.  If its not all mulch by then it will not be good for the soil!

I got pretty good coverage on the new portion of the front patch.

The big patch got leaf mulch.  Not near enough even though I worked around the Kale and Brussels sprouts!

I am planning on cutting this patch in half - I only mulched the half I plan on keeping.

Last of the Sprouts!

Well, not really - but of the sprouts that are likely to yield anything.  I picked and pulled the plants for all of the short season sprouts and also for some of the red-sprouts.  The red-sprouts need a longer season - I got very few of them that were big enough to eat.  Anyway, I got 3 lbs of sprouts!  Some of these were eaten immediately the rest I froze - 24 ozs total frozen.  I don't think we ate 24 oz - but you always loose some to waste.

3 lbs of sprouts! These are probably the last.  Only red ones left in the garden now.

Finally cut into the Musque de Provence pumpkins!

Look how orange they are!  I baked these and ate a half of one.  Texture was not great.  I removed the pulp from the skin and pureed the rest.  Added a little sweetener and salt and it was a pretty good pudding like dessert!