Hard Work isn’t Chic

I’ve started to feel obligated to report on my day after the sun goes down. I guess I’ll quit doing it.

But…

today was a very good day.

Because I managed to assemble my Offroad Swag finger brake, I decided to get an air-powered jack to replace the press’s hand-operated jack. When you’re doing one or two presses to fix something, pumping the handle isn’t a big chore, but when you’re working with metal and doing repeated bends, it’s a tremendous hindrance.

Harbor Freight sells an air jack for $80, post-coupon. I bought one today.

The jack is very nice. People rave about them. They lift trailers and houses with them. It’s an extraordinary tool. You can put a generator and a small compressor in the back of your truck, drive to someone else’s house, and help him level it.

Right now, all I have in my workshop is a 4.5-CFM compressor. It’s good enough for the jack. It slows down if you keep pumping long enough, but it’s adequate.

The jack does not come with screw holes in the base. The original jack had two holes, and there were two screws that went through the base into threaded holes in a plate on the press. The holes in the plate don’t line up well with areas in the new jack where screws can go without causing problems, so if I decide to put screws in it, the best thing will be to drill new holes in the plate, drill and tap blind holes in the bottom of the jack, and run the screws through the plate and into the jack from below.

You don’t really need to attach a jack to a hydraulic press at both ends, or so I’m told. The press holds the upper end of the jack in a steel cup, so that end can’t move, and the bottom of the jack is confined by pressure when you use it. But screws would be nice. A better design.

I decided to use my new front end loader brace today. I was so happy with it. It was all shiny and orange. It looked almost like a factory part. I tried to put it on the tractor, and I realized I had installed one end shield incorrectly. I don’t want to get into details, but I had to cut it off, shorten the brace, and weld it back on. I enjoyed the welding and grinding, but I wasn’t happy that I had to cut up a new project.

When I was done, the brace worked fine, except that it was shorter than I needed. I’m going to make another one. The steel will only cost around $20, and it will be good practice for me. The current brace will be useful when I’m working on the tractor, but I need a longer one to do it right.

I forgot something when I made the brace. It will hold the front end loader up, but it doesn’t restrain the other hydraulics on the front end. The bucket may still rotate. It has heavy forks on it, trying to pull it down. I left it up tonight to see what it would do.

It may not be safe to use the brace to park the tractor with the loader up, without something restraining the bucket. Oh, well. I was planning to move the tractor outside anyway, and the brace will be nice to have.

I used my new 6″ angle grinder to remove the end of the brace so I could redo it. That grinder is monstrous. Cuts metal much faster than a 4.5″ grinder. I’m glad I bought it.

I put leather pads on the ends of the brace to prevent it from marring the tractor, and today I learned that 5-minute epoxy does not work well for this purpose. It doesn’t bond leather and metal well. Time to look into some kind of rubber.

That’s all that’s happening today.