Wisconsin TF

I wasn't going to publish anything about this project of mine. The pictures I took were only for my reference. As luck would have it I'm stuck in a hotel room in Quebec city this week with little to do.

So, I've a plan to build a small tractor and I'm using a model called the ''Super D2'' from a company called Gibson as my reference. That peculiar tractor uses the same engine I bough, namely a Wisconsin model ''TF''. Here's a picture of a 1951 ''Super D2''.

I bought the engine from an old farmer dismantling the family farm. Actually, I bought a mobile gas powered welder. The welder itself is mostly burnt out on the inside so unusable but the trailer was a nice bonus. Here it is then, a Wisconsin ''TF'' in all its glory.

Before starting it there are a few things to take care of. The engine hasn't run in over ten years but the oil seems clean and everything that should rotate does so, still, I want to go over the carburettor, fuel pump, magneto a governor at a minimum.

The Carburettor
Once I took off the carburettor it was obvious that there was a lot of play in the throttle shaft assembly. That and anything made of rubber was either disintegrated by time or on its way there. I reasoned that a complete rebuild wasn't going to be a bad thing. I was surprised and delighted to find my local parts store had a rebuild kit on the shelf. That is after being jerked around in the usual ebay bullshit for a couple of weeks. I also bored out the throttle shaft holes in the housing and pressed in new bushings. I also made a new throttle shaft out of bronze (had it lying around) because one wasn't included in the kit. Here's the finished product:

If you hadn't noticed I did paint the whole thing red too!

The Fuel Pump and Strainer
I had taken a picture of those two bits together to make sure I'd put it all back together the same way once I was done refurbishing them.

I've a slight problem with the fuel pump though, the rebuild kit hasn't been made for 25+ years and the diaphragm of my fuel pump is cooked. I've sent out feelers to different rubber product suppliers to see if I can buy the material and make my own diaphragm... time will tell. In the mean time I refurbished the strainer assembly, acid dip for the aluminium part and cleaning, buffing, etc... for the rest and here's the result.

 In the near future there's no need to wonder what I'll be doing when obligations are taken care of... I'll be returning my 1947 Wisconsin engine back to it's former glory. More to follow.

Odds

I've been neglecting this blog for a while. To be fair I set it aside for fun little projects I'd like to show people and lately I've been working outside and on the house. As an example, couple weeks ago I re-did part of the barns roof and no one wants to see that. Come to think of it no one actually really looks at this blog so I might as well:

I could go on about how the shingles are matched perfect and staggered special, how the chimney is actually not a chimney but a roof vent made out of old chimney parts in the hopes that the barn won't be so damp with it there. Not really interesting stuff. Oh, and if you caught the movie reference in this paragraph we might just be friends!

On to bigger and better things. I'd bought one of those compact pruning saws a while back, and though it cuts real nice it's really too compact. Myself being short doesn't help reaching branches that need to be pruned. So, I ripped it apart and made a new, longer handle for it. You can see the original handle in the middle of the picture.

The weird taped up wire and handle contraption at the bottom of the photo is actually a tool to pick Seaberries. Them bastards have really nasty thorns and it's quite impossible picking the fruit without getting stung at least a couple of times. Here's how it works:

With a bit of practice it's possible to strip a whole branches worth of fruit in one swoop. I put a tarp down on the grass, rip the fruit off the branches with the tool and then empty the tarp into a bucket.

Yes, a slingshot, because in the end I'm a thirteen year old boy with access to power tools... hold on, my dad had given me access to power tools by the time I was thirteen... So errr nothing has really changed.

This last one is part of a bigger project. I'm building a Makila (a basque walking stick) and I want to try a bunch of techniques I haven't before. So, resin casting, decorative punching, nickel plating. Those are the kinds of things I want to try out with this project. This bit here is the soul of the Makila, the hidden spike or spear.

It still needs to be heat treated and polished. Just imagine that spike on the end of a four foot stick and you'll get the idea.

Miniature Smokehouse

I've been wanting one of these forever it seems. An unexpected special at the hardware store on tongue and groove pine boards gave me the perfect opportunity. I had saved the internal shelving from an old fridge for exactly this purpose.

I know smokers are somewhat fashionable these days but I didn't want the kind where you throw a couple of wood chips on the fire as you're cooking. I wanted something I could cold smoke fish, cheese or pretty much anything I fancy could use a little smoky flavour.

I'd seen a television show where two brothers where building a smoker and their so-called expert friend said "No, no, no, you cannot build a smoker from softwood. Better to use something like maple." Well maple is nice if you're rich or you can get it for free but I'm neither rich nor have I access to free maple boards. So to mitigate the whole softwood resin vaporization (not sure it's really a problem) I decided to carbonize the inside of the smoking chamber...  problem solved!

In these two pictures you can see that A) I built the smoker around the shelving I had and B) I used cedar shingles for the roof. Cedar shingles are quite cheap at 20$ a bundle and are great for small projects like this one. The whole top and the shelves can be removed if ever I want to smoke something big enough that it wont fit through the door.

Here it is in it's natural element. Next time I'll show you the cold smoke generator and how it works.

I had published this picture of baby Honey Locust trees in the spring of 2014. Here's what one of them looks like now!

I'm in the picture for scale. The tree is now around seven feet tall and the trunk is around two inches in diameter at the stump. So the conclusion of the Honey Locust experiment: In good soil these things grow like mad! 

A Landscape Rake

I have a lot of trees on my property. Hundreds of little branches litter the ground in the spring. That, and I do not pick up my grass clippings when I mow the lawn which, over the years, have thatched the lawn. I once raked the whole place by hand and it is a tedious process that takes a whole weekend to accomplish. There is such a thing as a landscape rake that you can pull with your lawn tractor but they want three to six hundred dollars for it depending where you intend to buy. Considering I paid two hundred for the whole tractor...  I decided to make a rake. The eureka moment happened when I came upon a box of disused store display hooks, perfect for the rake tines!

I started the process by making an axle out of a piece of 1/2" steel pipe and a couple of wheels I'd been keeping in the barn for such a project.

 You can see the little red bracket on the axle... I was trying to figure out how to make the whole thing work. What I wanted was a modular system where I could reuse the axle and hitch for other implements if the need ever arose. The solution in the end was quite simple. I bored out a couple of cast iron tees for a slip fit on the axle. This accomplishes two things: 1) it allows the rake head to swing up and down to follow the contours of the terrain and 2) it allows me to take the whole rake head off the axle and hitch if ever I need it to.

Once that was figured out it was a simple matter of making a hitch and populating the rake head with tines. In this next photo you can see most of the parts. I kept making the parts out of steel and cast iron plumbing pieces because they're cheap, easy to work and I had most of what I needed on hand.

Here it is assembled and painted. The wooden piece and rope allow me to tilt the rake head to empty it without having to get down from the tractor. When it is actually working the wooden piece is straight up. After a test run the rake works really well but it tends to bounce a bit if I'm going too fast. I'll either put some weight on the rake head or devise some sort of spring loading so the tines really follow the contour.

An unexpected bonus of this system is that I can put it away in the barn and it doesn't take much place at all.

The Bar

Last time I showed you my old new little chainsaw and I mentioned that I thought the 16" bar was maybe a bit too long. Thirty two inches of chain turns out is a bit more than it can drag around the bar while doing anything more than cutting little branches. With that in mind I was out at the Coop store buying something else when I saw they had chainsaw chains on clearance. Probably unpopular sizes or whatever but they had a chain for a 14" bar real cheap so guess what! Now that I had the chain I needed something to put it on so I went and had a look at the pile of old chainsaws in the barn and not a 14" bar in sight. I picked a 16 inch likely candidate for cutting down and this is a before and after wire brushing.

 I set it up on the milling to lengthen the slot the proper amount before cutting it off and reshaping the back end of it. I did not take pictures of the actual shaping or re-grooving as it was mostly done free hand on the belt sander in the heat of the moment. Re-grooving I did on the drill press. I put a small cutting disc the right thickness in the chuck and set it the appropriate amount off the table to center it on the bar. It was then just a matter of grinding down the middle lamination until the chain passed freely through.

  That same day I was painting another project I'll probably show you next time with red rust paint and I thought why not paint the bar too. While I was at it I figured why not go the whole nine yards and give it a logo. I've been wanting a logo for myself and the little projects I make for a long time. Although I could probably tell you how a mechanical appliance was feeling when it stopped working not so with graphic design, I've no talent for it. Anyway, this is what I came up with, which I don't like but it's going to have to do for now.

Anxious for the thing to dry enough so I could try it that very afternoon I hung it up in the kitchen oven to dry. If you're going to try this stunt set the oven to the lowest it can go (or else the paint may bubble) and keep the door ajar. You can also see in this picture the re-shaped back end with new oiling hole, tensioning hole et etc...

And here's the end product sitting pretty on it's log end. I'm happy to report the chainsaw loves it's smaller chain and it cuts beautifully.

A New Beginning

I've been asked over the last few years: "Why don't you put some new stuff on your blog, I really enjoyed it". Which is surprising to me because I hardly got any feedback. Lately a couple more people asked if I'd do anything with the blog.

Today, I guess you get your answer! It will take a little bit of time to really get back into it because they've changed the interface some and there are things I used to use that I can't find anymore.

I was thinking maybe instead of just doing a show and tell sorta blog that I could do some step by step little projects. I'm not sold on the idea but it could be fun.

Anyhow, on with today's post.

I dug this little chainsaw out of a pile of scrap metal last summer. It is a Poulan 2000 built for Canadian Tire. Interestingly it was made in Canada. Apparently only Canadian models had the chain brake. It didn't look too too bad so I wondered what was wrong with it. After changing the dried and cracked fuel line I gave it a couple of pulls and it ran, not great but it ran. So I decided to give it a little tender loving care. So I took it all apart and scrubbed and doused it in paint remover.

I looked around the garage for paint and the only colours I had are bright pink and black. I would somehow feel silly with a bright pink chainsaw and a completely black one is remarkably easy to lose in the underbrush. I therefore went to the store and bought a can of whatever yellow was on special.

And that's how the littlest of Poulans spent the winter, in a cardboard box with all it's bits unattached. Which brings us to today. This morning over coffee I decided that today was it's day. I cut new gaskets out of bits of leather, made an air filter out of a kitchen sponge, threaded a new fuel line and gas filter, gapped the armature, etc, etc...

"Aren't you ashamed of rebuilding a chainsaw on your kitchen counter?" Only if my mother was to drop by! I have a spare 16" beam (which might be a bit big for it honestly) for my other chainsaw so I figured why not.

There she is in her native element. No she didn't cut the log she's sitting on, that was her big sisters doing. It took four or five pulls to get gas up the line but then she settled at idle and purred like a champ. I now have a tiny chainsaw to cut branches and whatnot's.

Photo Light!

I was looking at DIY photo lighting options and nobody really made what I was looking for, so I went and made my own! It's made from bits of drain pipe and other pieces I found around the house. I also made an adjustable reflector for it out of foam core board with aluminium tape on top and a car rigid brake line as a support.

This is probab;y the last time I post something to this blog. I'm simply not getting any feedback anymore. To top that off, the statistic program tells me One person accessed my page in the last month. Hardly seems worth the effort.