with a lot of help from friends

It's quite reassuring how willing complete strangers are to help me with my sea mule. Humbling, actually.

For example, I am now trying to figure out if the boat can handle the hydraulic log loader that I've got waiting to go on board. A 6,500 lb steel Prentice that can reach out 22 ft with its grapple and pull logs up and out of the lake, loading them on shore or where ever I want them.

The big question is "Will the boat tip over when I do this?" A good question to get answered before I build it. So I go to http://www.boatdesign.net/ looking for guidance. Hiring a naval architect is not something I can afford, but I was hoping that some of the pro's that hang out on this site would at least give me either a "What? You're crazy!" or a "Well, it could work if..."

Instead, I get 2 professional naval architects, one in Italy and one in Japan, who kick things around, do a bunch of figuring and what-if runs on the computer and give me the answers I need.

Now it's one thing if you are a carpenter and someone asks you if you'd lend a hand painting their fence for the afternoon. But when you're a carpenter and someone asks you if you'd like to pound some nails, well, that's kinda hard to get enthused about. These guys do this for a living and, yet, they were willing to do it for me, for free. Pretty cool.


People, most people, want to be helpful, are plain hard-wired to make the people around them better off. Perhaps love is too strong a word, but let's call it various forms of that, weaker versions of love. And as they said way back when Amor Vincit Omnia!

If you look, you can see it all around you: the wave of the driver in the car passing by, someone who let's you cut in line, hands being held, smiles made. Sure, it's easy to point to all the bad stuff, but, there is this foundation of love being made as Paul McCartney sang "The love you take is equal to the love you make."

The full back-and-forth can be viewed at http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/putting-log-loader-barge-28481-3.html

a lot of air

I finished the sandblaster. It was lost of fun to make in that it satisfied two favorite criteria: free form and low cost.

I took a large old propane tank I got at the junk yard for 5 bucks and, after filling it with water to be safe, modified it with the torch to meet my needs. Then I rummaged around in my shop for ells, tees, valves, hoses and gauges to plumb it up into a functional sandblaster. The great thing was that all the parts I needed were right there under my shop roof. It's not the money I saved doing that, it's that it vindicates me from all the "pack rat" accusations I endure over the years! Check out the cool cart Imounted it on so that I can roll it to the work site http://seamule.blogspot.com/2009/03/de-cart-gets-its-bearings.html

Yesterday I hooked it up to my air compressor, a 100 cfm brute mounted on a trailer. I trust my welding skills, but I gotta admit that, when I powered it up for the first time, I hid behind the air compressor. Hey, 120 lbs of air pressure in an old tank just makes me a bit nervous. It held air fine, but one hose section blew, which really was my fault as I had used heater hose. I changed that over to some very stout stuff and now it works fine.

Well, to be accurate, it holds air fine. I gotta go get some sacks of sandblasting sand--I'm thinking 30 grit masonry sand--and then we'll really see how it performs.

Once I have it working well, it's time to start stripping paint and rust off the boat hull.

the boat is back

Today I got the boat hull section back down the road. It had been sitting (well, listing) on the road side since the big mishap back in November, 2008. A source of much laughter and many questions, I must admit to a general feeling of uneasiness every time I drove by it. Subtle, little nagging feelings like: "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE! THIS BOAT PROJECT WILL NEVER WORK!" Little stuff like that. And after trying to right it up off it's leaning position didn't work--the Mack truck just spun his wheels--I was feeling even worse about it.

That all started changing last night. I took my trusty railroad jack, the big red guy that can easily lift 15 ton, and set it between the bank and the side of the hull. Lots of cranking and positioning of blocks and reminding myself to stay safe (slipping down the bank between the boat hull and the bank could have been disastrous had the boat chose that moment to tip back off the jack) and I got it up. Couldn't quite get it to fall over all the way back to good, though.

That had to wait for this morning and my friend, Hugh. Everybody should have a friend that will, on a work day, come over first thing in the morning to help you do something that's just for you--they don't get anything out of it. They just do it for you--because you asked. Everybody should be so blessed.

We met down there at 7:15. We hooked his pickup truck to the side of the boat and he began pulling it the last little bit over. To keep it from going to far and rocking all the way over, I had a chain hoist attached to the hull and a stout ponderosa pine. That way, after it came over the top of the fall, I could lower it down to the flat bottom of the hull.

Then we hooked the Mack up with a very stout chain, 1 1/2" dia. links. Hugh got in the truck to drive, and I got behind the little parade to keep track of what was going to transpire. I was worried that the hull would fall over to one side or the other, so I lashed a 12' 6 x 8 timber to the bottom of the hull to act like an outrigger to keep things from tipping over. I hoped. If it did go over, we'd never get it back upright again with out the crane and there would not be the room in the road to get the crane up there. Well, as some one once told me "The brave don't live forever; the cautious don't live at all...."

Well, the brave thing was working. I was glad to see that Dr. Brown could pull that 20,000 lb steel box on down the road. And no tipping problems, either. Here's some video of it:

We ran into problems at the bottom. The Mack couldn't pull it. A big ol Mack dump truck with a 20 speed tranny and it couldn't do it! To be fair to the old doctor, it really wasn't his fault...there wasn't enough traction: his wheel started just tearing up the gravel road.

We backed him up and took as much running start as we dared. Nope. We backed him up and shortened the chain as much as we could, thinking that that would put more weight on the back wheels. Nope.

And there the boat sat in the middle of the road. Blocking the road.

Nothing left to do but go on up and wake up Alice, my 1965 M100b Allis Chalmers road grader. At this point, I'm feeling bad because I had told Hugh it would be a piece of cake and he'd be able to get off to his work at a reasonable morning hour. And here we were getting the grader warmed up and ready.

Eventually, we got the grader on down the road and positioned in front of the boat hull in Dr. Brown's place. I wasn't sure how the grader would pull in comparison to the Mack. Wow, incredible difference. Barely even had to work at it. Alice pulled that boat hull on down the rest of the road and I was able to swing it over and park the hull section right about exactly where it had been last fall on the fateful day when we had lifted it up and into the bed of the Mack and tried to carry it up the mountain. Here's Alice in action:

A year later and a bit smarter, I called it a morning. Off to go help Hugh and that turned out to be the best part of the whole day.

it doesn't always go like you imagine

Next step, albeit very much delayed, in the Sea Mule hull section number 4's journey is to get it back down the road. It as spent all Winter into Spring listing on the roadside halfway up my mountain after I had to dump in off my injured Mack truck.

The task now is to pull the leaning hull section back upright and then drag it down the road back to its starting point.

I asked my friend, Hugh, to come be driver while I was the "outside eyes" monitoring things. Hugh has many years in the seat of a Mack plowing snow for Okanogan Highway Department. Besides, he hasn't had the experience of helping me in my Sea Mule-often-turned dramas. Fresh blood, as it were.

I drove the truck down thru the switchbacks--three point turns all--and got the truck positioned at a right angle to the boat hull. It was listing at a bit more than a 45 degrees and I imagined that it wouldn't take much of a pull to right it. Imagined.

It required so much pull that, instead of pulling the hull upright, it just spun the back tires on the dump truck. No matter what position, no matter how hard we tried.

Funny how that goes. Something you think aughta work...doesn't. Something that looks easy...isn't. Something you think will turn out a certain way...turns out different. And half the time, at least, that's a good thing.

Next strategy: We talked over loading the Mack with gravel, say 5 yards, to get some more weight on the the back end, but that would require my digging up and loading that much rock. Instead, what I am going to do is bring down Alice, my road grader (Allis Chalmers). She has 4 powered wheels, thru the tandem chain boxes and lots of weight--26,000 lbs--to keep her footing. That should pull the boat hull back upright....

Dr. brown is back in town

Got a fish plate cut out (called such because it is supposed to be shaped like a fish with no straight lines that'll promote new frame cracks) and bolted up into place. Welding it in would have been so much easier, but those in the know say not to as it'll crack again. Bolts are the answer. Flanged frame bolts. There were a few pre-drilled holes in the frame, courtesy of Mack Co., but the rest I had to drill. Not a simple task drilling 1/2" holes thru 3/4" steel, but with a cobalt drill bit, slow drill speed and lots of squirts of oil I managed.

I was on the home stretch, with the clock calling 5:15 when the barn phone rang. My friend, Gary. I didn't really want to talk, but he needed to. So we did, a discussion about our church's stanch on accepting people to workshop who are gay or lesbian. This conversation ate up my remaining time I had before I needed to go pick up my son, Soren.

As I walked away from my almost-finished frame repair (one bolt left to drill and then put the wheels back on), I felt frustrated. The walk back up to the house fixed that. I reflected on what was interrupting me from "my work:" my friend, Gary, who would help me in any way he could by my just asking, a thoughtful conversation about how Jesus' most important message was to love each other (the greatest of these is love) and then, lastly, my five-year-old son, Soren. The truck is a thing, just a thing. Ultimately, all we got on this journey is each other. My job--no, my reward--is that.

wills and ways

A day about the letter "t"... Tuesday, Terry, Trunnions

Today Terry came up to help me replace trunnion bolts. Now, if you don't know what trunnions are, well, you're in good company. The trunnion is the probably the most important part of an entire dump truck. It is a steel rod as thick as your ankle and it supports the entire business end of the truck: all the weight the rig labors to carry is transfered thru the trunnion to the back wheels--all 8 of them.

Holding the trunnion to the truck is the trunnion cap which is, in turn, secured by 8 bolts--grade 8, 7/8's thick times 4" long.

First getting the old ones out. No way to unbolts them. They've been permanently rusted, fused, and frozen together for many years. They've gotta come off with the oxyacetylene torch. Problem is it's very cramped quarters down there in trunnion territory and when you've got a torch going and sparks are flying it's guaranteed that they're going to find away to the place you don't want them. In my case today it was my nostril and my neck and my ear and up my shirt sleeve. Not all at once, mind you--separate events. Separate sets of cursing and trying to wriggle myself out fast from under the truck to get at what's on fire and burning against skin.

Got the bolts off, Terry shows up and we get to work. The replacement bolts, shiny and new in the box, are supposed to be torqued to 1200 ft lbs. So guess how you put 1200 pounds of force on a bolt wriggling around under a truck axle. The pro's have an expensive 1" drive air wrench (that's not me). We did it with a 10 ft piece of pipe and some easy Math. 120 pounds of force 10 ft out on the end of a wrench extension equals 1200 ft pounds.

Tomorrow I'll fabricate the frame rail reinforcement and bolt it up. Then Dr. Brown will be ready to go to town. Or go down the road to haul the Sea Mule section back down to the bottom.

fixing Dr. Brown

So, those who know me have most likely heard the story about me doing a wheelie in the Mack dump truck trying to carry a Sea Mule hull section up my mtn. road. That was last autumn and now it's time to fix the damage I did to this truck, named Dr. Brown.

I cracked the frame rail. All the way top to bottom and stretched out the trunnion cap bolts (one even popped off). It's a miracle the truck kept his rear end under him at all.

After bringing the truck over to the shop, I stripped everything off the frame that was in harm's way. Then tacked up a bit of weld just to hold the frame crack tight together. Cautiously raising the dump bed, I put some daylight on things. Hmmn, I think I can fix this.

Ground out the crack, preheated the area with the torch and did some vertical welding with 7018 rod. Not pretty, but a sound weld. I ground it flat and next will be bolting a reinforcing plate 1/4" x 9" x 20" and 10 flanged grade 8 1/2"bolts.

Last fall, when this happened one could have observed me standing with my mouth open making low groaning sounds. I thought I had ruined the truck for sure. Now the sound you'd hear is me whistling. Two different sides of looking at the same event and two different sounds.

there when you need it

Budd nuts. Too much wise crack potential to even go there. But, really, budd nuts, budd lug nuts. These are the specialized nuts that hold on dual truck tires on, say, a dump truck. For a truck mechanic, this is as easy as buttering toast and is done as often. To me, it's new stuff.

I'm starting my fixing-the-Mack-frame project by first taking off the tires on one side. Easy. Sure. I stare at the wheel...how do I get those big nuts off there? Big and deeply recessed.

I begin searching and experimenting with tools. Some won't reach, and those that do, well, they don't have near the beefiness needed to get those lug nuts to budge.

I get a breaker bar, a long six footer that I got from some where. It's got a unusual end on it, but it aughta do some damage. Then I see that I need an extension on the socket. Hmmn, there's this funny extension that I got from somewhere and threw in the scrap iron bin.

Retrieving it, I come back and begin staring at the two pieces in my hand. Then I realize the odd breaker bar end goes perfectly in the extension. Then I see that the extension isn't just an extension--the end of it is exactly sized for the lug nuts. I'm in business.

Slipping a 4 ft pipe over the 6 ft breaker bar, climbing up on the dump truck side and jumping up and down on the cheater bar (10 ft out and 150 lbs of me = 1500 ft lbs of torque on the lug nuts) and they squeal in protesting movement.

Without this special tool there would have been absolutely no way I could have gotten the wheels off. And then I remembered where I got that special tool: in the old garage of the house we bought in Walla Walla, Washington. I had kept this tool, even though I had no idea what it was for. About ten years I've had it, and tripped over it, and moved it around when it was in the way. Not knowing what it was for, but just that it must have been for something therefore I was going to keep it.

And, now it redeemed itself. I'm thinking about all the other things, and experiences, that, at the time, meant little to nothing but now were the keystone for something else. You never know. A smile, a rain storm, a chosen other way, a tool and it makes all the difference...as Frost pointed out much better than I.

I wonder what events and things in my here-and-now will be key for later chapter in my life. I try to keep my eyes and heart open wider not to miss it.

not not only tires get changed

Good news; bad news. Fortunately, that's usually the case. I picked up my neighbors tire...big slit in the side wall (didn't notice this until I had muscled it all the way up into the truck). Then I went to my friend's ranch to retrieve his tire and the same thing. Hmmn, Martin, do ya think there might be a reason 500 dollar tires are lying out in a field? So two for two on the tires.

But then the good news. I went on to the tire store and they had found 2 used (50% tread) tires for $125 a piece. I bought them.

simply changing a tire

I need to get my road graded so that I can drag the back hull section from where it lays on the road side (If you are not familiar with why part of my boat would be laying on the side of the road, see blog entry about popping a wheelie).

Problem is I have one tire that is flat and 1 tire that is in such bad shape I cannot fathom how it even holds air. Time to change the tire.

I call up Les Schwab and find out that a new tire is going to cost me 510 dollars. One tire. New rubber all the way around my grader would be 3 thousand bucks. I think I'll scrounge around for what I can find. For starters, my neighbor has a tire he'll give me. It's a 14.9 x 24 instead of my 13 .00 x 24, but beggars can't be choosers as gramma used to say, so I'll use it as it's really only 2 inches bigger in cross section. The first number is a measurement of the circumference and the cross section of the tire and the second number refers to the diameter of the wheel rim.

I get the grader jacked up and on blocks, persuade the wheel nuts to loosen up and, with a big Kung Fu kick, get the wheel off the grader. But, watch out! This wheel is so heavy that if it tips over, I won't be able to get it back up. I carefully roll it away. Not sure how I'll get the wheel up into the pick up for the ride to the tire store.

open to the light of day

I decided that I wasn't going to take the tank to Chuck, the welder, on the trailer. No title, no license plate, no brake lights. Besides, I wanted to cut the tank open, see what was inside, and clean it up with a wire brush.

I rolled out the cutting torch, scribed a cut line all the way around the tank with white chalk. Even though I knew that this was only a water tank, it still always makes me nervous when I apply the torch to the tank sides. There's that moment of apprehension when the torch melts through and the shower of sparks fills the dark tank interior. Round the tank I went--12 ft in all--saving the last 2 inches at the top so I could be out of harm's way when one 1000 lb hunk of metal became two halves.

Ugh. Looking inside, I found a bottom covered in muck and a dead rat. I climbed in armed with a garden hose and cleaned things up and out. I'll wire brush the rust and paint off and then figure out how to load the tank halves in my truck to take to Chuck's.

fuel tanks

Today I drug home a 1200 gallon tank. Using a chain winch, I was able to pull it up top of a 20 ft. trailer pretty easily. The trailer is an ugly looking thing that I picked up for a hundred bucks. In a former life it was a camper trailer--who knows where all it traveled to--but then spent lots of years sitting in an orchard as cheap housing for migrant workers over by Cashmere. A front-end loader crushed the camper and I got the trailer frame.

It worked great hauling the tank home despite the 1,000 lbs or so load. Some day I'll have to sandblast and paint the frame, wire it for lights and get a vehicle license for it.

So what I'll do is cut three feet off each end of the tank, put the finished end down (like a cup) weld baffles inside so the fuel doesn't slosh around and then weld a top on (like a lid). The factory seams will be down, where any leaks would be, and our new welds will be on the top, where leaking would be less likely. Still, even with this safe guard, I'm going to have someone else do the welding. I've got a friend, Chuck, who's been welding all his life, who said he'd be glad to help. He also has both a MIG welder as well as a plasma cutter.

The tank is perfect for this: it never had fuel in it, so explosions when cutting won't be an issue, and it is very heavy gauge at 3/16th of an inch.

Three feet of tank at 45" in dia. comes out to about 250 gallons. Minus 10% for air space and that makes it very close to the original Sea Mule tank size of 220 gallons. And, that's two tanks at 220 gallons, by the way, as there is one tank in each hull for each of the two engines.
I'm trying not to think about what it will cost to fuel up....

Smooth sailing

Some days feel like I get nowhere; others, like today, I gallop. Here's what all got accomplished:

I started out by getting the 80 amp breaker wired into the panel for the welder. Couldn't afford (or didn't want to afford) a price for a new breaker, so I found one on Ebay for 15 bucks. The welder, a behemouth of a thing, pulls 80 amps at 240 VAC. So, I'm that much closer to welding on the hull.

I got the wiring figured out and fixed on my big trailer air compressor. Since it's designed to be used by guys in the construction trade who, no offense, just wanna gettr done and won't be keeping an eye on engine gauges, this thing many fail safes. The engine will shut down if there's low oil pressure, or if the manifold temp gets too high or if the compressor pressure gets to high or if the engine overspeeds. When any of those things happen, it cuts of power to the coil AND shuts off fuel to the carb.

Fine. But what was throwing me was the fact that I couldn't get voltage thru the sensors and to the coil. Seems like the problem was in some missing circuitry...Turns out that they had installed a starter button that you hold in to bypass all the sensors and energize the system so you can start the engine. When everything is running, then you let go of the button.
Well. Yeah, now I know this! The button said "Push to start" so I just thought it was a starter button to crank the starter motor. Their lack of specificity and my assumptions added up to 4 hours of wire-tracing and head-scratchin'. But, it now runs great.

And, finally, I got a fuel system rigged up for the Wisconsin/Hobart gas welder. A friend gave me an Evinrude gas tank from his old outboard motor. Well, actually he gave me two and I told him I'd sell the other one on Ebay for him in return. I hooked the hose up to the fuel pump on the Wisconsin engine and that'll work just fine. I can even use the pressurizing pump on the tank to prime the system after it's sat for a prolonged period of time.

So I got the shop welder hooked up to do hull repairs, got the air compressor running to power my sandblaster, and got the fuel system running for my gas welder which I'll use to weld up the tracks on Millie the crane out in the field where she's far away from electricity and my shop. Millie is crucial to this project because she does all the heavy lifting of boat hulls and related equipment.

And all this after church and before supper. Yep, I'd call it a galloping day.

no reason to doubt

My friend Terry Sanderson asked if he could come up and help me work on some equipment. An unusual request since, as Holden Village's mechanic, all he does is work on equipment. Regardless, I wouldn't turn down the offer.



That's Terry on the right next to the 1948 Sterling Petrel engine we pulled out of an old mine pump house...but, that's a whole nuther story.


Terry is a great guy to have a round. When there's a problem that I can't figure out, I just let Terry at it. I know he's crunching the data when he's got his hand rubbing his chin and no words being spoken. He's from the farm lands of South Dakota, a place of few words. Finally the word that I wait to hear: "Huhmn." That's right, just a "Huhmn." And then he'll say something that I hadn't thought of and probably would never thing of. But it'll be elegant, creative, and get the job done.

Since he was the guest, I gave him the choice.
"Would you like to get the Sullair compressor woken up or breathe new life into the old Wisconsin engine/Hobart welder?"
He chose the compressor. Good, because since purchasing this thing 2 weeks ago and towing it home from Seattle, I had been having doubts about whether this was one of those too good to be true deals.

Well, with two seasoned mechanics set loose on it, it didn't take long at all to have tools and parts spread out like a garage sale. I drained about a half gallon of gasoline so old it looked like varnish. Terry got the points set and timed it by putting his thumb over spark plug hole number one until he felt the whoosh of air coming out. I fiddled with the carburator, an old up-draft zenith. Not trusting the governor, I disconnected the throttle. Terry couldn't get voltage to the coil, so he jumped from the starter terminal to the ballast resistor. We were ready to start it up. I controlled the starter, the throttle and choke; Terry had the hot ignition lead, and the starting fluid.
Gave it a try. A bunch of pops.
"Wait a minute, Martin...the spark plug wires are connected wrong. Alrighty, now try again!"
And that's all it took. Fired right up, ran smooth. Compressor built up pressure to the regulated 120 lbs. I opened the air line and the throttle kicked right back in. I closed the line and the unloader opened.
Everything as it should be. And, why not? True, most compressor's of this type go for 2 to 4 thousand dollars--not $550. And true, the successive stories I got from the folks that were selling it didn't always add up. But, bottom line: I trusted the guy. He looked me in the eye. My gut said "yes."
And now I have a good compressor that I can use to sand blast the Sea Mule. Well, accept for the fact that, when we shut it down a small geyser of pink, pepto-bismol looking compressor oil shot up and out the air intake. I'll have to figure that out next.

Still, a good day. The sun was out, meadow larks were singing and, for the first time since last fall, I felt the warmth of the sun on my back. Could be Spring is finally decided to come around after all.

seeing the signs

Yesterday there was an auctioning of the estate of welding business. I'm in the market for a powered hack saw, so I thought I'd go check it out. I've been looking for a powered hacksaw for a year or so, but the 500 - 1000 price tag turns looking into dreaming. And yet, I have sooo much metal to cut and only a simple hacksaw and a bicep muscle--well, okay, two biceps.

Sure enough, there was a big, water-cooled, brute of a saw there. About 300 lbs of steel on a good rolling cart. Sticking around to bid on it, though, was pretty disheartening. A feeding frenzy is what I was witnessing. Three hundred buck paid for an old AC buzz box gave me a picture of what I should expect when it came to the hacksaw I was hovering by. I decided I'd go a hundred bucks max, but knew that it would sell for way more than that.

The old auctioneer (who laughed at his jokes much more than the rest of us) came on over and the crowd followed him.

"Let's start the bidding for this ol' girl at 200."
Silence.
Alrighty, I see you like to work up to her true value. Can I hear a hunderd?"
Disinterest and far away looks.
"So, jump in there fellas with fifty."
"Huop." barked his assistant.
"And now sixty."
I nodded in my best rancher fashion.
"There."
"Sixty an a half"
"Ho!"
I nodded for seventy.
My challenger bowed out and there it was going, going, gone to me.
And the crowd went on and I stood there dumbfounded on how in the world I ever got this machine for a mere 70 bucks.
As the shaker quote says, "When the way opens, proceed."
So I do. So I am.

and (de) cart rolls

Enough penetrating oil and enough persuasion with a copper hammer and enouhg patience. And a good whack after you loose your patience. A tried and true recipie.

Got everything apart after being siezed up for who knows how many years. The rollers in the bearings were so pitted, I had to take a power wire brush to them. Even afterwards they are pitted so I sanded them up a bit with emery cloth...it'll make for a bit of bearing backlash, but I suppose that's not anything of consequence for a pull cart going at, say, 3 miles an hour.

The main thing is that this cart will be able to carry a good 1000 lbs or so of weight. And I'll be giving it the what-for what with a 100 gallon sandblasting pot mounted on it.

It was a lot of work to get this cart rolling again, but the cart is of the vintage that deserves the tlc.

(de) cart gets its bearings

I don't know exactly why I like this old cart enough to pound the keyboard at length about it, but here I am doing it some more.I discovered that the back wheels were frozen solid. I pulled out the big cotter pins to discover these very unusual bearing. Like a flat roller bearing, but no cage or anything to imprison the rollers. You can pull them all out clean it up and reassemble. There's a grease zerk, but I decided that rather than give them a shot of grease, I'd need to clean them up and give them a fresh start on life. I'll give them a day soaking in Kroil (very good stuff...I like it better than PB Blaster) and then see if I can get them apart.

affirmation

So, I'll be honest: I've lost hope. I look at this big rusty hulk of a boat (not to mention the other sections that are laying on the road side halfway up the mountain) and I think to myself "What the hell have you done here?" There are so many, many unknowns, not the least of which is how am I going to get this thing back in the lake and then, oh yeah, where am I going to moor it? I've spent so much money and the final goal is so far off and I'm feeling pretty down about it all. And, then,even if I get it all back together, back down to the lake, and successfully floating, how am I ever going to have it working for hire? I mean, the existing barge service is already doing great work, and there'll be no need for my old WWII relic. I'll be out all this money, and should have just bought a speed boat. Think of the new boat I could have bought for the same amount of money and I'd already be having fun with it!

Then today happens.

I'm down at my wife's house (we're separated) checking on the pets while she and the kids are out of town. Just as I am leaving, the phone rings. I hesitate answering it--it's not my phone and it's probably for Leigh--but, then think perhaps it;s the kids trying to reach me. So I answer it.
"Hello, I'm looking for Martin."
"This is he."
"Hi, this is Joe from the Forest Service and we have some work projects for you and are wondering if your barge is ready to work yet...."

This FS guy did not have this number. And even if he did, what are the chances that I would be there in this house that is not my house at that time?

Some might see this as coincidence and, to be honest, at a different point in my life, I would have also. Not any more. This was God. God giving me a little boost, a little reassurance. Hey, I know that what I'm doing with this project is crazy, from start to finish, but it's my crazy. Soren Kierkegaard said that our ultimate goal is to be our best self, this best self that God designed us to be. Not anybody esle, or their best self--you and your best self. This kind of thing that I do, the collecting of tired iron, the making of things out of cast offs, the fixing of things others can't fix, the big crazy dreams, this is what God made me for. I can't explain how my purpose fits into the big Plan, I just know this is me and this is what I am supposed to be doing.

(de) cart

Rene Decart - is a great French philosopher who was the first to connect the ideas of the greatest Italian physicist and German astronomer. Decart verified Galilei law about inertia and constructed the mechanism of Universe, where all the solids are made more by pushing.

So, I took this great little cart I got from a ranch up the Entiat River road and am going to turn it into my sandblaster cart. It's the coolest thing: art deco look to it, big silver steel wheels and built to haul a heavy load. I couldn't even guess as to what it was originally, but I know that it's last life was as a mobile air compressor.

As I stripped off all the unneeded stuff, I began getting a sense of the man--the rancher/welder from the Entiat River--who made it. He didn't have much money, turning making-do into an art form. Indeed, none of the twenty or so bolts I took off were the same. They all were scrounged out of an old Maxwell coffee can, no doubt. And the cart/air compressor wasn't pretty. But he wasn't building it to be pretty; he was building it to work, to deliver air. Cobbling together an mysterious compressor from some refrigeration unit, a handmade expansion tank, a small electric motor, a belt to drive it, and an emergency brake from an old car to serve as the belt tensioner.

Just stop for a minute to measure the huge distance from this machine to "Oh, I need a compressor" and driving down to Home Depot and buying something made in Korea and shrouded with plastic.

His unit meant something to him and it does, now, to me. And I will reincarnate his cart into something different but similar. I could buy a sandblaster from Harbor Fright, I suppose. But what's the fun in that? Instead I am halfway to mine and it's been a fun story. The cart I've told you about and last week I got a tank for the sand pot from my Friend, Randy. I told him I was looking for a tank..."I've got just the thing for you!" he exclaimed. "Come over to my place right now and we'll load it up in your Subaru.

air for the sandblaster

Just got back from hauling my new air compressor home. I had to haul it over the Cascade mtns on Stevens Pass with my old, trusty Subaru. Pretty slow pulling up thru the grade but, all in all, she did jsut fine.

It's a older Sollair. Four cylinder GM gas engine driving a 100 cfm compressor. I had been getting depressed looking around for a compressor as everything I found was in the 3 - 5 thousand buck range. I knew that rental charges would kill me, but how could I justify plunking down several grand to by one? Well, I found this one on Craigslist for $550 (I wonder why the 50!?). It even had a fresh rebuild on the engine. The catch? The engine hadn't been run since the rebuild...hmmn. Well, it all looks good--new frost plugs, gaskets, engine painted. The guy--a nice guy whom I trusted right away and ultimately, in my book, that's worth lots--reported that he just is too busy and it is one of those almost-finished projects.

So, I'll drain the gas, squirt a bit of oil, put in a new battery and we'll see what happens.