Almost done!

[Deleted]

My office/hobby room has been such a complete and total disaster for the past 3 months, I couldn't even get to the bench. Over the last 3 days I've been slowly working on getting it organized again. I'd say I'm realistically down to one more afternoon's work and I can get back to it. It's actually been a little embarrassing to see how bad that room was. My wife kept shutting the door so she didn't have to look at it when she walked by. LOL!

I finally dug into a whole bunch of old camera gear that I had stashed in that closet. I filled a box with 15 or so, almost new camera cases and took them straight to the garbage. I then ran into a whole box of old, antique, and/or odd cameras. I took them straight to the garbage as well. I now only have two more boxes of cameras to go through. Those boxes will include the good antique stuff and a few of the more rare oddities I have like a 3D camera. I'll keep a few, but I'm going to estimate I'll throw about 75% of them out.

The good news, camera wise, is that I also finally dug out a couple of my better cameras. I had stashed all my gear away when my disability finally prevented me from going out looking for antique barns and rusty old tractors and trucks to photograph. I was so depressed about having my hobby taken away from me, I buried all my gear in the back of the closet. I found a new $275 tripod I bought that I have never used. Not even once! Well, it's out where I can get to it. I'm going to have to take the time in the next few days to charge the batteries for the two cameras I got back out. Then I'll be able to take much better photos of the stuff I'm building and the stuff I have for sale.

[JCON]

Sounds good except I would have posted the old camera stuff for sale before throwing it out... your junk could be another man's treasure and buy you some new stuff!!

[Deleted]

I had a bunch of it listed on some forums, but nobody would give me enough for it to make it worth my time. The expensive stuff will stay with me. The 3D camera is valued around $275 and I have an Argus "Brick" Golden Shield that is regularly listed on eBay for $400 to $500. I don't think it's really worth that. I'd say more like $300, give or take. I've got several regular Argus "Bricks" and more than half of them will make their way to the garbage. They weigh a ton so shipping is expensive and nobody wants to pay it. I suppose there are probably a dozen or so antique cameras that are worth $100 or so. I'll probably box that stuff up and shove it back in the corner of the closet.

[JCON]

It all adds up my friend!!!

[BUCKY]

Sounds like great flea market stuff to me.

[JCON]

Or yard sale, you could even donate it and get a tax write off which is bettr then trashing it...

[Deleted]

The office/hobby room is all done except now I found stuff in some drawers I need to either sell or throw away. I found all sorts of baseball collectibles, some Hot Wheels collectibles, and some higher end pocketknives. But other than that, the room is cleaned and organized again. I'm all ready to sit down at the bench and finish the 1/6 scale engine that I'm over half done with. It has been sitting there waiting on me for four months or more. Time to finish that baby up and pull out a kit to start on. I'm fighting the urge to start with one of the kits I really want to see built. I think I'd best start back in with something a little easy.

[JCON]

Can't wait to see some pics of your builds!!! Congrats on getting to where you can work!!!

[BUCKY]

Feels good to have a clear path to the bench, don't it? LoL I find mine, occasionally! Hahaha Looking forward to seeing that engine!

[Deleted]

Holy cow! I actually sat down at my bench a little while ago. It took me a few minutes to check and double check to see where I was on that 1/6 engine. It's a Hemi 'Cuda engine with shaker hood, by the way. Once I had it figured out, I decided to do a little work on it. I assembled and added the alternator, added the alternator bracket, then assembled the power steering pump and added it. I decided to redo the distributor and coil. There was something not right with what I had done previously. The coil wire wouldn't fit comfortably from coil to distributor. Once I redid it, it seems to fit nicely now. I don't see where I really changed anything, but the coil wire fits, so there must have been a little something.

I did also discover that one tube of CA glue and one bottle had dried up on me. I thought that the caps fit well on both containers, but obviously they didn't. I guess I need to order some in. I'm not about to put a stupid mask on and run through the aisles at Wally World just for some CA glue. They'll deliver that stuff right to my mailbox in 3 or 4 days. That beats the whole mask thing hands down.

I might actually finish the Hemi in the next day to day and a half. It all depends on how I feel after mowing this afternoon. I've also got to adjust the front to rear deck height on this new tractor. I hadn't paid a lot of attention, but apparently the guys that assembled the thing didn't know how to adjust the front to rear height correctly. They actually have the rear of the blades lower than the front. There seems to be a differing of opinions on the front to rear deck difference. And it's actually the blades, not the deck that should be different. Some say as much as 1/2" to 3/4", and some say for mulching they should be even. I have always tried to get the front of the blade 1/4" to 3/8" lower than the rear of the blade. That has always worked well for me and for my customers. I had a small engine repair shop for about 8 or 9 years when I was still doing the computer repair. I found it relieved a lot of the stress caused by sitting in front of that strangely glowing screen. The smell of gas and oil is soothing to me. Go figure. Since automobiles had changed so radically since I was working on motors and racing, small engines seemed like the thing to do.

[JCON]

I run my mower about a 1/2" higher in the back and it mulches just fine... no plugging up if the grass gets too tall either but level it bogs down if even in taller grass...

[Deleted]

Yep. I always found having the front lower than the rear worked better. I've had more than one heated discussion about that over the years too. I had one "school trained" small engine guru tell me flat out that "the book says" the blades should be level. I told him what he could do with his book. I also told him that I always adjusted the front about 1/4" to 3/8" lower and I have never had a customer complain and that my own lawn tractors were adjusted that way and I always got a better cut on the grass doing it that way. So he went on with his yadda, yadda, yadda, and eventually gave up trying to convince me. He could have talked till the cows came home and I still wouldn't have listened to him.

[Deleted]

Well, it' not where I want it, but I did get it lower. I hate the adjustment on these new MTD and Husqvarna built mowers. Back in the day,,,,, yeah, I know. But these new decks have that stupid cogged wheel to level the deck side to side, then just that stupid adjustment rod that runs to the front to adjust front to rear level. It SEEMS like a good idea, but it totally bites. After 5 or 6 attempts to measure, adjust, remeasure, readjust, etc, etc, I finally got the front just a hair over 1/2" lower than the back. I guess I'll use your suggestion, Joe. I finished mowing and it looks darned good to me!

[JCON]

Awesome!!! Glad it worked well in the end Steve!!!