Leaderboard

Quite a productive weekend so far and extended my familiarity with certain operations and problem solving. Started on the replacement Drive Shaft. For anyone interested, I took images of the sequence to make it. Clamped a length of 3/16" dia Silver Steel to enhance the angles/line of the original drilled 'Lock Pin' hole- I was then able to use the Rod to set up on the Lathe, so a Ball Nosed Slot Drill would mill the radiused groove along the correct line. The Rod checked first against a Face Plate, then against a set of precision Parallels and 'V' Blocks laid on the Bed Ways- Offset was only about 2 degrees from parallel along the Shaft (arrowed), and about 4 deg on the tilt from vertical (obscured by spanner) - Finished machined Shaft along with the old one for comparison- Some careful measuring and prep before pressing the shaft in to ensure the two parts with the partial holes line up worked ok- Pin pressed back in ok and happy with the result. Well, with a 12 ton Press sitting in the Workshop, it seems a shame not to find any work for it.

I had a couple of jobs today at a customer's garden and I thought I would give the 600 a brief workout especially since the head gasket and exhaust been replaced by my mate Chris a few days ago. It fired up first time this morning and was a lot quieter than of late. There was a dead Acer (Japanese maple) that needed to be removed. I pruned the branches off and mattacked the roots around the tree. I slipped on a rope around the tree and secured it to the hitch. The Bolens pulled it easily in first gear and took two attempts. Considering that it is a 6hp Bolens without diff lock I was pleased with what it could do.