Saturday, I went for a bike ride. I will have to ride in on Monday, since I need to leave the truck to get the seatbelt fixed. I decided to try a new trail. It was quite pleasant (despite my current shape being round), though still disappointingly muddy even after several days of no rain. It was also frustrating that my ratchet shifters had started to seize up, they weren't grabbing right and as a result you had to push the button a specific way to get it to shift.
When I got back, I started working on the table. It turned out putting them on paper towels was not the right course of action. I miss having a nice work area that I could set them on and not care about what is underneath. I had to take a knife and shave it all off (without removing the stain).
The reason the paper towels were there in the first place was because their drying spot was on my cot in the carport. The paper towels were insufficient for that task. Sigh. There isn't enough urethane on the cot to warrant trying to fix it at least.
I also mowed Saturday. The whole yard. The mows between fixes still stands at 1 for the Cub though. I noticed this while mowing the leech field. That is the wheel off the deck. I just raised the deck and mowed with it anyways. I couldn't find the nut, so I will need to bring the bolt in and get one. Apparently this wheel has a history of being obnoxious, so I might either double lock nut (if the bolt is long enough, it looked questionable. Or replace the bolt too) or put some loc-tite on it.
I even mowed the parts that I didn't mow last time because it was too wet like the far back and the creek side of the leech field. The far back was still slightly damp (to be expected with how tall it was, it was up over the brush guard in spots), and the creek side of the leech field was marshland, but those two spots hadn't been mowed since before my last KY trip, well over a month ago.
When I was mowing the driveway, I noticed that the weed killer is finally working.
All the pieces are now urethaned. I think I want to put one more coat on the table top itself, but I ran out of brushes. I can start assembling the table inside though, the table top is the last piece to get installed.
You may have noticed that I tried painters tape on that last round of urethaning. It worked better than just paper towels, which this time were just there to protect the truck (as opposed to the paper towels preventing the dripping on the other side in previous coats). They need a little trimming/sanding because of how thick I slathered it on, but no scraping off paper towel fibers. Side note, this urethane has a pretty nice shine despite not being a glossy finish, the angle of the picture makes them look so different in shade.
Sunday of course started off with rain. So I went and picked up new tires. I had to drive a couple hours each way to get them, but they were worth it. They came with tires on them, and not junk ones I will need to replace immediately. Most importantly, while they have some rust on them, they aren't disintegrating like the ones on the truck are. These are about as rusty as mine were when I first bought the truck, so I would expect that they will last about 5 years.
For comparison, here is what the rims on the truck look like. Bald tire edges and all.
The tires on these are decent. Two of them are really good, and the other two are better than what I have but that is about it. With any luck though, I won't have to buy tires for the rest of the truck's life, which at 200+ per tire is nice. They aren't as aggressive as I like, so the 4WD will get a little extra work this winter. Right now I am leaning towards replacing the truck next year and doing the house the year after.
I also had some free time after that and worked on the power center some more. I ordered a copper bar to build an adapter to put lugs on the battery charger. Unfortunately my pilot drill bit was not up to the task. Fortunately this wasn't one of my nicer black oxide bits, which I used to finish the job, this was just a bit from a small "quick change" pilot bit set I picked up on clearance. Even at 75% off, they don't appear to be worth it. Copper is a fairly soft metal.
And to add insult to injury, I just put the bit directly in the drill after that and then the bit broke.
I got one of them complete, the easier one. The other one the split I put down the middle isn't large enough. I am debating whether I want to make the copper split wider or just use the Dremel to cut the plastic housing away. The copper is the conductor, and I really don't want to cut away most of it, which it looks like I would have to do. I will definitely be noting this when I review the battery charger.
At that point the bird was rather unhappy and I was running out of daylight. Apparently there is a second set of young'ens in the nest.
I sprayed some lubrication on the cable for the shifters as best as I could before riding the bike in this morning, and by the time I got in, the shifters were largely working correctly, indicating that the biggest problem with my bike is just that I don't ride it enough anymore, which is kind of sad. It was an expensive bike, and while I put a lot of miles on it when I lived in Syracuse, I probably put more miles on it in one year in Syracuse than I have cumulative since I moved.
I was also poking around the project list after picking up my tickets for the Colorado trip later this year, and I am thinking of postponing several of the items on the project list. It occurred to me when I was out riding on Saturday that there is no chance of finishing all of them, and I at times feel like I am too focused on completing projects instead of enjoying things. That was only the second time I have taken my bike out this year. I didn't even go out hiking or camping last year. I am thinking of postponing the ones in red to lighten the load for the rest of the year.
2021 Projects:
Prepare summer equipmentCarport repair- Windows in shed
- Shed supports
- Table
- South wall siding
- Bridge over creek
- Review options for house (mobile home vs stick built vs modular)
- Trailer hub - I am selling the trailer anyways.
Rebuild smaller trailer- Level back yard
- Level side yard - I probably won't do all three, and the side yard is probably the hardest to do.
- Level front yard
- Clear trees to creek
- Remove dead/dying beech trees
- Retaining walls?
- Eliminate pile of crap in back
- Camper Power Center (portable AC power source and generator)
- Baffle box
- Clean up/level area down by second parking spot
- Driveway round three
- Fix shed door.
- Fix shed floor.
What about some cheapie $1 tree special plastic table cloths? That's what I used to cover parts of my truck while we were painting it(like the windshield). Only cost a dollar for 1 and they are decent sized.
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