Next Chapter Work Thread

[DeadNutz]

Glad to hear you are doing well Grayson as I have been wondering. It must be fun cutting out and grinding weld repairs done by a previous person who didn't know how to do it properly. Is the engineering dept at the college missing you?

[fatfillup]

It's taken a lot of changing to go from working to the thousandth to ±1 inch on most things.

I'll bet that does take some adjusting.  A machinist mindset is definitely different then a mechanics. 

[gtermini]

Did a 3406A inframe in another 623B in August. Claimed they had no idea what happened. Came in from a job on a piece of steep ground and the inside of the cab stunk like burned brakes. Turbo wheel had blown up and the pieces were in the charge cooler. It dropped 3 out of 4 valves in #4 and had been chewing on the chunks for more than a few minutes. I make no judgements...

Roughly $15k in parts. Used genuine Cat everything.

















Learned a $450 lesson about not air arcing towards the back window on the Jimmy 



Did a rush fix-up job on a stainless conveyor to feed a wine press just before crush. Mounted the hopper and added some stiffeners.





Telehandlers are a giant barrel of suck. Extension cylinder gland nut had backed off and was about to pop out at 1300 hrs. I think the factory guy forgot to torque it.



Did a upper elevator bearing on the machine that got the engine before it left. 30 tons wouldn't push the chain pins out. Had to heat and beat.







The Testing Grounds in the pond below the quonset hut



Built some dike and worked on a pond for a farm. Nice change from twisting wrenches on it.











Found a blown out bearing on the bottom of the JD scraper elevator the farmer owns. All obsolete parts. Going to be an extensive winter project.







Got an orphaned CNC plasma running (sort of) that was given to a friend. He's 78 and was super excited about it as he used to run a commercial burn table at a steel supplier in the 70s. His excitement has quickly faded as he's seen the programming involved to make it move. It isn't the 9 key pad and single line readout his dinosaur machine had.



Saw this Coastal giant salamander while out mushroom hunting last week.  Found about 5 lbs of chantrelles also.

[fatfillup]

Darn, you have been busy.

Wide skill set needed for what you are doing plus a big investment in tools

[goodfellow]

Darn, you have been busy.

Wide skill set needed for what you are doing plus a big investment in tools

+1 -- very impressed with your depth of projects. That CAT motor looked like a disaster -- good job.

[DeadNutz]

Thanks for the update Greyson as I always wonder how you are doing.

[slip knot]

Some impressive projects there.

How do y'all cook them salamanders?

[gtermini]

Some impressive projects there.

How do y'all cook them salamanders?

Sauteed with butter and bacon of course. 

[slip knot]

 . Everything is better with bacon

[gtermini]

Had some rain over the past couple weeks. Filled the incomplete pond in a hurry and flooded the river. It's back down now.



Split an IR roller to do the center hitch bushing. Volvo deals parts for them now and the prices make cat parts seem cheap.





Bought a 1944 Axelson 16 X 54 lathe because there was a list of stuff I needed one for. Impressively overbuilt machine by any standard. about 5500 lbs without tooling. Had to go rig it out of the building about 25 miles away. It was at auction from a prune and cherry pitting facility that closed due to owner retirement. I don't think it had been used in 15 yrs. Probably payed way too much, but the circumstances were right.

[walrus]

You certainly need the correct stuff to work on the heavy equipment you work on. What are you making with the lathe?

[DeadNutz]

Good lathes like that in good condition with tooling don't come up very often. When they do they bring a premium price.