Barn progress... Lot of stuff happening yesterday – I was busy all day, and very tired by the end of the day :) The remaining parts for my table saw showed up, and I finished assembling it. It's now all ready to go to work! My drill press also was delivered yesterday, and I assembled that as well. It came as a kit, but the head (the big part on top with the motor on it) was mostly assembled. That thing weighs about 250 lbs, and was way too heavy for me to lift by myself – so I used the forklift on my tractor again. I lashing it up to the forks with ropes, then just hoisted it up and dropped it onto the column. I'm really starting to like hydraulics :)
When you need to bang on something, it's really hard to beat an old-fashioned anvil. I got a 165 pound steel anvil (Ridgid) with a machined flat top, much like the one shown at left. It came by truck on the smallest pallet I've ever seen – so small that I couldn't get both forks under it at the same time, even when they were adjusted to be touching each other! I got it into the shop by balancing it delicately on one forklift fork.
Shortly after I set it down, some of my neighbor's kids came over, wanting to look at the barn. They're fascinated by the machinery, and stop by two or three times a week to see how things are coming along. Yesterday, though, it was the anvil that captured their attention. I showed them how you can flatten a piece of copper wire on the anvil, and for the next two hours, three of them took turns flattening every piece of scrap copper wire they could find lying on my barn floor (this is all left over from the still-in-progress wiring work). None of them could wield even my smallest hammer in one hand, even though the oldest boy looks plenty strong enough. I think they just don't have much experience with hand tools...
No comments:
Post a Comment