Monday: woke up early and got stuck in to a day of work in the garage. Chopped up some m16 threaded rod, and set up the first attempt at tack-welding a nut to a washer. Unfortunately, the washers are zinc coated, and I think that’s interfering with the weld. It also produces a bunch of white residue, which is probably hazardous vaporisation. So I decided to put off more welding, and spent the rest of the work time grinding the coating off the washers.
Also took time to have a lunch & coffee break, then made ramen for dinner.
Tuesday: woke up early, and headed to the garage to work. Managed to get the first leg tacked together. Had a setback when the initial assembly was jammed up, and I spent about an hour trying to unjam it. Got it sorted eventually, and I think I have the workflow sorted to do the other three.
There was a water outage overnight, so I was storing water before going to bed. It’s a medication night.
Finally heard back from the webhost regarding a couple of open tickets.
Had the second half of my smoked trout and carrot and lettuce for dinner.
Wednesday: a bad day, all things considered. Didn’t get a lot accomplished, fell off my chair, broke my bench vice trying to loosen a nut and had to rescue a discarded washer after running out of the ones I’d bought. The lesson here, always buy a box of anything.
Ordered Chinese, and had post-feast regret. Kinda wished I’d ordered Oporto instead. Ate about a third of it, and then divided the remainder into 3 portions and freezered them.
Thursday: late start, and short session. Didn’t get to sleep till late weds night. Worked in the garage but couldn’t get the alignment to work out, threaded rod kept jamming. In the end, cut the legs off the baseplates, and will redrill them. Cut new legs, and I’ll weld the nuts onto them directly tomorrow, making sure I get the alignment right first.
Friday: what a day. Remade the legs, and got three to work beautifully, but the fourth failed twice, and now I’m onto a third attempt. Cut all the baseplates off closer with the remains of the legs, and then ground them all down to flat, and redrilled the bases out.
Decided to stay in Brisbane until Sunday, so I’ll get a full workday Saturday. Fingers crossed, I should be able to get this final leg done, and the bases welded, and the toolbox onto its new feet before I leave.
Saturday: A final day working in the garage, and I finished my project; the legs are done. The last attempt was successful, and all four were welded into the baseplates.
Sunday: did a final tidy of the garage, packed the car, tidied Hannah’s apartment, and waited for night to fall so I could drive with consistent brightness. Stopped in at hungry jacks on the way home, but aside from that it was a nice, easy drive.