Today the local blog critic awarded my blog the most boring blog in the neighborhood award. I guess he missed the geometric proofs from a couple of years back. And the lyrics for 'Oh, Yes Wyoming'. (If your interested, I recently proved the triangle inequality theorem for vectors.)

Then I remembered my blog wasn't really meant to be entertaining, it was intended to document my current obsession, whatever that might be, for example a Miata, a 1925 Chevrolet,rebuilding a 1972 GMC pickup, hoping to acquire an unspecified year Corvette or Volkswagen Beetle, building Furniture, hot tubing, auto body repair, camping, hiking, biking, welding, metal-meet, camping, Dodge Chargers, low carb dieting, school, procrastination, hypermiling, building a foundry, melting aluminium, state quarters, container gardening, MDF, STL, model railroading (n gauge), tenth scale RC cars, RC airplanes, Vertigo, slot car racing, Formula One, the US Grand Prix, attending car shows, Mini Coopers, ping pong, foos ball, chocolate chip cookies, fembots with a penchant for evil, cast iron skillets or even fried okra. Whatever. I feel so validated now.

Mmmm, fried okra.

iMike and Terry did not even get an honorable mention because their blogs are too interesting. Sorry guys.

Hello, Hello, Hola!

Welding Class

Tonight in my welding class I made a crucible. The picture below contains the crucible, my aluminium ingot, and a quarter (for scale). The crucible should easily handle six pounds of liquid aluminum. At least I think so.



After I finished creating this masterpiece, I set it on the bench and declared it to be a work of art. Or perhaps a tip jar. Folks really appreciate good art.


You can't hide money.

Last night in my welding class I decided to tackle MIG welding. I have not mastered stick welding nor am I anywhere close, but I did get the basic hang of it. My primary goal for learning to weld was for autobody work. Mig provides better control and is less likely to blow a hole in the thin sheet metal. For this reason I decided to abandon stick welding and move on to mig.

My first bead with the MIG turned out very nice. I attribute it to my 'ah-ha' moment from last week with the stick welding.

The first peer to drop by and check my progress was impressed. I proceeded to tell him everything I knew (very little) about MIG welding. I started with how to adjust the equipment: wirespeed, voltage, gas pressure. Next I explained the basic process showing how to position the wire, trim to length, etc. Finally I demo'ed my technique and then encouraged them to try it as well. Before the night was over, I had give my little speil several times and every one who tried it out was very successful. You may recall, this is not my first time to teach others to mig weld. Last time it was a bunch of 5th graders. It is true what they say, "Those who can do, those who can't teach." Hopefully I will soon be one of the ones who can and still be one of the ones who teach.

I left feeling very good, not only about my progress, but about helping other folks learn to weld. The teacher was busy most of the night helping another student with a project so he never got around to teaching me how to MIG weld. That is ok because I did some reading ahead of time just in case. The reading paid off.

If only I hadn't burnt my thumb through a hole in my glove where the seam came loose. Man that hurt. I had a blister on it this morning.

Diet Progress: 19 lbs down .
[4.8 lbs to go]

Weekend Update

I got the taxes out of the way this weekend. One less thang.

Yesterday I finished up removing all the suspension leaf spring brackets on the GMC. I have made pretty good progess in the last couple of weeks considering it is winter. I suppose the next step is to drill holes for the related coil spring brackets and then touch up the frame paint. Either that or clean up, blast, and paint the rear differential. So many choices.

Today I made a trip up to Nashville to attend a parts swap. The swap was much bigger than I expected. I went looking for a GMC tailgate, or a GMC core support. Both of these items must be off a GMC pickup. Most parts are interchangeable with a 1967 - 1972 Chevrolet, these are not.

I found and purchased a GMC radiator core support. It is in very good shape. By its appearance, the donor truck spent most of its life in a garage or under a car port. The original paint is in excellent shape, considering the piece is 35 or 40 years old. The common problem with this part is the lower portion at one end is usually deteriorated due to acid from the battery being mounted directly above it. This one had the common problem, though someone had patched it. They did a fairly good job. At first I could not even tell the patch was there. Nice job.

The bargaining process went really well. Here is how it played out. I walked up, gave it a quick glance and asked the gentleman "how much for the core support?" His reply was "$50". I then picked it up and gave it a close inspection. While I inspected the core support, he dropped his price to $40. While I closely inspected the patch on the core support, he dropped his price to $30. He had done such an excellent job bargining the price down for me, I didn't even bother to counter offer. Personally, I think he just didn't want to have to carry it back to his truck. Instead, Brian (neighbor) and I carried it about a quarter mile back to our transportation. Well bought.

I also purchased a 1972 Alabama license plate. Perhaps someday this will be registered to the GMC. Brian also purchased an old Alabama license plate, his a 1966 for his Mustange.

My antique truck got posted on Stovebolt in the gallery. See it here.

This weeks welding class went well. I got a little experience arc welding. Arc welding is very frustrating at first, though I will say two+ hours of welding went by very quickly. This is definitely a learned skill and I haven't learned it yet.

[ 9.6 lbs to go]

I went to the tech school this evening for my first welding class. Upon arrival I found out the class had been canceled due to a lack of folks registering. I asked the woman how many more people we needed to have the class. She replied two. I then proceeded to convince a couple of guys there for another class to sign up for the welding class instead. Now with enough interested the class was un-canceled, but unfortunately the teacher was not there because, well, he thought the class had been canceled. So the first class will be next week instead.


Yesterday I started a diet. My weight loss goal is 24 lbs. For the next few months you can watch my progress at the end of my posts. I will post pounds remaining pounds to lose in this format: [24]. Accountability is good right?

[24 lbs to go]