Another week rolls by and still no Wheel Horse progress, but there are several other things you ought to hear about...

Remember those free mowers?  One was pretty rusty, and I had another with a questionable motor, so I tore them both apart, pieced them together and came up with one good one.  

I've also been at the Lebanon Area Fair a few nights this week, saw some truck and tractor pulls...a favorite pastime of mine.  

I spent some time today with a few good friends, working on trucks, looking at pictures and fiddling with...

...another garden tractor?!?!?!?  
 

As Sarah put it, my tractor collection will soon be as big as her shoe collection.  To that I reply..."gotta keep up."  

This one won't get "the works" like the Horse is getting...I just need something to ride while the other one is in pieces.  Hopefully this will keep me busy enough until I can move onto something bigger...

So I'm sorry there's not much progress to report, and I am saving my chats on machinery ideology for a rainier day when there really is nothing to report, so hang with me...it can only get a little less interesting.  

It's surprising how busy you can be with no job.

I have made zero progress on my tractor since the other week.  There's been things here and there keeping me from it that add up to two weeks of no work getting done.  I spent three days at Boy Scout camp with my old troop.  I like to stay active as much as I can with the Scouts.  I learned a lot there, and want to make sure others have that chance.  Also, my brother's Eagle Scout ceremony was on Sunday, my cousins from Arizona have been spending the week here, I'm watching/dogsitting two houses, spent a day farming with a friend, had two job interviews, picked up four free mowers to clean up/fix then sell, took some friends to Philadelphia to catch a plane, and I'm not done yet.  Who knows when I'll get back on it.  

I understand why retired people say they have no time.  

I think by next week things should settle down somewhat, though the fair will be taking place, and I already have some daytime plans.  Hopefully I will get around to doing something.  

There are a few subjects in this one for me to talk about in more detail, so maybe you'll get one of them later.   

 

Getting up to speed

I guess now is a good time to bring you up to date on one of my projects. Actually, this one is shaping up to come out pretty nice when it's finished.  

That's my 1968 Wheel Horse Raider 9 the day I bought it back in May.  

Might have overdid it a little on the trailer, eh?  I seriously need to get a pickup again.  I could have practically driven it home from where it was, and I ended up with this?  That's another blog though.  

Looks right at home in my "office."

The fun begins.  

Stripped and painted a few small parts to see what it would look like, and got completely out of hand from there...

I think that was the day I got sprayed in the eyes with stale gas...try getting across the yard to the garden hose with gas in your eyes...

Something wrong here?

Everything got sandblasted.  

$50 air compressor + blue tarp wind blocker + parts hanging in trees = redneck paint booth.

Everything is in primer, and that's about as far as I've gotten.  I put body filler on some spots, am not done sanding yet.  What a huge mess that makes...

The next step(s) is/are to finish sanding the filler, put on another coat of primer, wet sand and paint it red.  Then we put together the frame/transmission assembly and put the wheels back on so I can bolt on the motor and work on it while I'm waiting for the red paint to cure so I can wet sand and buff it then clear coat...wow, getting ahead of myself.  I'm going to be way busier the next two weeks than I'd like to be, so I'm kind of up against a wall for now. 

I had hoped to do some mowing with it this year but the deck needs work too, so I think I'll save that for a winter project.  It will however, plow some snow this winter.  

If I don't make any progress this week, and I most likely will not, I'll talk about why I went all in on this project and not some of the others I had in mind, and why I will never restore a Corvette. 

I'm blogging?

Didn't Bruce Weaver talk me into yet another foray...blogging.  Well, I'm a man of few words on the web unless we're talking tech on old machines, gardening, music, knives, guns, how to fix stuff...wait a minute, let's take a stab at this.  

So I graduated from college this spring, am about half way through restoring a 1968 Wheel Horse garden tractor, looking for a job and gardening.  For now, that's probably what you'll hear the most about.  I am a pretty adamant DIY person which gets me into trouble a lot, so you'll hear about that too.  


I'll get this up and running soon, but I'm gonna get out in the yard today before it rains!