So if you didn't do anything airgun related what did you do today?

[Rabbit\Squirrel Killer]

Slow day at work today which was nice for a change.  Only assigned one job and when we showed up it was one we completed yesterday.  Not a single trouble call all day so I surfed the web and watched the clock until it was quitting time.  Very chill day.

Same here at the other end of the states, blah, boring, raining day. Planted one flower bed in front of my office with carrots, lettuce, and whatever else that was lying around on my desk. Some of the seed packets are about 5 years old so this should prove interesting, it's better that watching the grass die after a hard freeze.

I got 80 pounds of assorted variety Burpee seeds free about 45 years ago. I gave them to my dad he stored them in water tight containers and used what he needed each year for 30 years :^O
He said the last ones still had about 50% germination. If they were out in humidity it can cause them to go bad. 

[Mole2017]

I have been working on a clock clean-and-oil job that has turned into a major half-century clean up and polish! This clock is an ordinary, but sort of early, Seth Thomas from about 1870. The last marks on it indicate someone worked on it in 1949. Evidence suggests someone dropped the movement in the shop, the same or another lost a number of the screws and drift pins (I guess; that's what they are like) and made due after that, and yet another soul or two painted this poor clock in common oil.

The result was a very dirty or tarnished movement covered with gummed oil. Even the hands were covered. I thought they were painted black and maybe brass hiding underneath, but nope, regular blue steel hands under that scum (though the tips were worn, giving that brass illusion through the scum film). They needed major picking and scrubbing; I finally just sanded them both to clean metal and re-blued.

For all its troubles though, at least one person did some nice work rebuilding worn pivots way back before all the abuse. I don't think it actually ran much after that because so little else is worn. Here are the innards, ready for the next step: assembly!

[Chris USA]

David,

That is some super cool stuff. I could see myself easily getting caught up in something like that. Let us know how it all ends up.

As a side: I remember as a small kid of Mom and Dad taking me to a friend of theirs house and he did what you do. His house was wall to wall clocks as I recall. Like I said, I was small, but it has left an impression after all of these years. Near the Ohio River, Ohio side, as I recall.

[maraudinglizard]

Slow day at work today which was nice for a change.  Only assigned one job and when we showed up it was one we completed yesterday.  Not a single trouble call all day so I surfed the web and watched the clock until it was quitting time.  Very chill day.

Same here at the other end of the states, blah, boring, raining day. Planted one flower bed in front of my office with carrots, lettuce, and whatever else that was lying around on my desk. Some of the seed packets are about 5 years old so this should prove interesting, it's better that watching the grass die after a hard freeze.

I got 80 pounds of assorted variety Burpee seeds free about 45 years ago. I gave them to my dad he stored them in water tight containers and used what he needed each year for 30 years :^O
He said the last ones still had about 50% germination. If they were out in humidity it can cause them to go bad.

I keep all my seed in ziplock bags.  I was bored and said what the heck, if they come up that's fine, if they don't, I'll just start over again, no biggie. 

[Mole2017]

David,

That is some super cool stuff. I could see myself easily getting caught up in something like that. Let us know how it all ends up.

As a side: I remember as a small kid of Mom and Dad taking me to a friend of theirs house and he did what you do. His house was wall to wall clocks as I recall. Like I said, I was small, but it has left an impression after all of these years. Near the Ohio River, Ohio side, as I recall.

It's just a side hobby at this point. This is maybe the third clock I've had in pieces in the last few years, so it's going to take me a bit to get it back together. The chime side has stop pins on several parts and you have to get the phasing correct for things to work. I took notes, but there is still some trial and error. The time side is a piece of cake. By side, I mean almost that. There are two mainsprings in this clock and a set of gears for each one. The ones on one side are the time function; the other set run the chime (a bell in this case) when tripped by the time.

And as a hobby, I barely have time for it. This poor clock has been hanging around for 8 months, waiting for those rare moments when I think I have a big enough block of time to tackle some work on it. (This is Saturday, but I've been nearly at home almost three days already trying to finish this one.) Of course, I'm scrubbing and polishing everything by hand too, so that doesn't make for fast work!

Come to think of it, I'm sitting in a room with 7 or 8 mechanical clocks on the walls and shelves, so I guess that says something about my interests. Actually, "big" clocks are only part of it. I've a special place in my heart for middle 20th century or so quartz and electromechanical clocks. My office has a set of shelves with maybe 40 or 50 of them on the wall.

[Back_Roads]

 Busy day here took the passenger side wheel off my ram 1500 found what I suspected, a frozen brake caliper, have one ordered, had pads on hand. Next up was the Ariens 22" snow blower, thought it was running fine last year but had issues as soon as it snowed, took it it apart cleaned carb lubed cables, now I am sure it will blow snow when needed Also moved lawn equipment into storage etc.
 But before I did all that I shoot my DAR .177 tested slugs. 

[Ike the GSD]

My dad's dusk till dawn flood light burned out a bulb and after replacing it the light won't come on anymore even in pitch black darkness, so I grabbed a floor shop light out of the garage, nailed two finishing nails on an angle on the 4x6 light pole as hooks and hung it, ran a drop cord out to the light tucked the cord tight to the garage and plugged it in a wha-lah a field expedient flood light for the back yard. New dusk till dawn light will be installed Tuesday 😜

[bReTt]

16 hr shift at work is now over.  Time for a weekend.  Whew!

[Mole2017]

Closer to done on this clock project...You saw the parts in a tray above; here they are where they belong. I'll oil the pivots next, put it in the case and run it through its paces before taking it to its home on the other side of town.

[Bicycleman]

David, what method do you use to remember where the part belong?

[Tater]

Our oven has been setting off the smoke detector so yesterday we cleaned it really well. It's all shiny inside now, but when I turned it on at 400º to burn off any oven cleaner residue the alarm went off again in less then 10 minutes.
Anyone have an idea of what could be causing this in a clean oven?

[Bicycleman]

Jerry, could it possibly be a defective 'smoke detector'?  How old is it?
If you have another detector in the house, put it side-by-side with the existing kitchen 'smoke detector'. 

[Tater]

Jerry, could it possibly be a defective 'smoke detector'?  How old is it?
If you have another detector in the house, put it side-by-side with the existing kitchen 'smoke detector'. 

It is pretty old, but otherwise seems to work fine. On Thanksgiving it went off while we were cooking a cornish hen, but you could actually see smoke in the house so I don't think it's defective or over-sensitive.
Edit: It's a gas stove, could something have gotten near a burner somehow? They are not visible.

[Mole2017]

David, what method do you use to remember where the part belong?

I made some notes. For example, as I took those enameled wires off the two shafts you see at the right, I noted what I found. On the backside, one shaft had a homemade brass washer on top of a steel washer. I took pictures here and there when notes would be too tedious or still uncertain. For example, the fly has a notch in the corner you see at the back of the movement (top right in each picture). I sketched the two gear trains, noting the meshing, but otherwise was careful to put items and groups of related items in a different bin as it came off. That's why the bottom of the egg carton above has numbers--to go with my notes. And of course, they ultimately really only go together one way...the key is not to have little bits left over when done! Chimes are the hardest part. For all the notes, it comes down to some trial and error to get the gears phased correctly, but even then, it either goes or it doesn't and you just need to tweak things.

This clock was actually in good mechanical condition for a 150 year old specimen except for the problems noted in the posts above. In fact, when it got to my house it ran like 2 weeks straight with just fresh oil. But it did need cleaned to get the old crud out of the pivots where it would cause wear. After that, it really did get more cleaning than I or the owner had thought it needed when I picked it up. The bezel on the front of this was relatively ornate--120 little hemispheres around the perimeter and almost every nook between them had either black paint or bad tarnish. I spent hours over a microscope on that alone. I can't possibly stick them with the bill for the hours on this clock. I'll figure some "average" fee, maybe even go a little low as a favor for keeping it so long, and call the rest a combination of a labor of love for an old clock and continuing education for me.

I learned some new things on this project. There was a rust problem that cropped up after I cleaned things; enter Citranox into my tool/cleaning kit. The hands needed bluing. I've messed with that before, but this was the first for something other than scrap metal. It took two or three tries on the hands themselves and twice that many on some practice pieces, and even then the last time felt like it was high stakes--I could have cried afterwards to see how good they finally came out. The adrenaline was so high from the ordeal that my hands trembled for 10 or 15 minutes afterwards. The result wasn't perfect, but now I know how to do it. Then there are those tapered pins--wore a sore spot on a finger rolling those on a diamond stone. You see brass ones replacing the bent up wires someone used in the past. I made a steel one for the hands and blued that one. On top of it all is Renaissance wax, also a new addition to my kit.

I intentionally didn't buff to a high polish; just let the Meguiar's and Simichrome cut through the crud. The brass does have a lot of blemishes from either metallurgical issues or corrosion from oil slobber gone really bad and who knows what. I consider it part of the family history of this clock now, so I didn't want rub it out of existence. The current owners are in fact descendants of the guy that built the house (and bought the clock) and that just about puts this clock in "continuous residence" at one house for 150 years. So, it has a significant family story.

[Bicycleman]

David, that is amazing.  I admire your skills.
Several years ago, my son did a frame-off restoration on a 38 year old motorcycle (BMW).  He took hundreds of pictures and watched many videos too.  I helped with the project when we went up to visit in October.  We would work from the time he arrived home after work until about midnight, five or six day each week.  I was working as his assistant - cleaning parts, etc.  I learned a great deal about how fine motorcycles are put together.

[Madd Hatter]

Used a lid I cut off of a 55 gal drum that I burn trash in to cover the opening on top of my one of my rain water caught tank. The previous owner has left it open for the last 12 years so there's a bunch of junk in the bottom. GRRR

[Hoosier Daddy]

Second day of dodging volcanic burning embers erupting from the vent of an Extruder at work... I am over this trial run to try and do something no one else can.

[maraudinglizard]

Watched turkeys fly in like B-52 bombers in the stand this morning. Came home later to play with diaphragm turkey calls and the partial I have created a new challenge with them. Time to break out the scissors and start trimming for a good fit. I guess it's one of the joys of having fake dental work.   

[bReTt]

Gluing some wood together for cutting boards.

[maraudinglizard]

/\/\/\/\/\

Brett, you need to slap all those together and make a segmented turning. The link is for software to take the guess work out of cutting the segments.

http://segmentedturning.com/