Did something dumb today.

aigheadish · March 28, 2022, 12:40:15 PM

Yikes MM! Glad you are doing ok!

Well, it feels like just days ago... I took the backhoe to the neighbors so he could help weld some forklift brackets to the loader bucket. I was over there for a while and it was windy and cold and when we were done I was ready to get home for a beer and to warm up a bit. I drive the backhoe down the driveway, intently watching the loader bucket to make sure nothing bad was going on and that everything looked stable (it did). I pulled into the barn, looked back to make sure that the hoe side was clear, after dropping the forks, and that's when I remembered that I'd made an overpass of my internet cable like from the shed to the house side of the driveway. Well, there's nothing hanging off the backhoe, I guess it slipped over. I get out start closing the barn door and look up the yard to see that nope, the line didn't slip up and over, it broke, again. I'm an idiot. This is at least the third time I've broken this line.

The overpass I made by taking a 16' long 2x4, drilling a hole in it, which I ran the cable up through, then stood that up, leaning it against the shed and zip tying it in place. Then the line went over the driveway to another 2x4 where I did the same thing but had it zip tied to a tree. If everything was tight the line was just high enough I could clear it with the backhoe boom. Everything wasn't tight, and I knew it, so I just got used to lowering the boom as I went under. On my way back home I didn't. There was many feet of slack and somehow, getting pulled by the boom, I managed to grab hold of the line hard enough to completely crack the 2x4 in half, like shredded it. I think I lost about 4 feet of line in the process, then my neighbor came over and helped me splice the line.

As I stood there and loudly cussed over and over I thought of running the line through about 15' of black iron pipe, which the backhoe would just drive right over until it was buried.

terrifictimbersllc · March 28, 2022, 05:29:27 PM

Now we can use a metal detector to find you when you get lost.

caveman · March 28, 2022, 08:32:23 PM

I needed to take the bucket off of the tractor at school and put on the grapple to move a couple of logs that were blocking my path to a grill that the ROTC instructor wants to use. I asked a few of my ag mech girls to lock the pins into the grapple with the quick connect handles. I did not check to ensure that I had properly seated the grapple on the mount and proceeded to hook up the hydraulics. As I rolled the grapple forward to grab the logs it fell off, only attached to the tractor by the hydraulic hoses. Thankfully the hoses did not get put under any strain and none of the class members noticed me hooking it back up. I'll blame this on a long spring break week of volunteering at a livestock show we put together (Central Florida Youth In Agriculture) and a Monday that should have been devoted to recovery rather than impersonating a teacher.

aigheadish · March 31, 2022, 03:04:53 PM

Oh yeah! Though I know better I've already got my first dose of poison ivy or poison something this year.

I've got a neighbor who is cutting down some big birch trees and I asked what he was doing with them and if I could have some logs. He said yes so I made my way down there with the backhoe and some chains. I saw ivy that had grown on them but wasn't smart enough to pay attention to it. A day or two later I thought I'd gotten some bug bites or something on my arm... Nope, barely even Spring (I think it was still officially winter at that point) and I've already got it. Watch out for that junk!

SawyerTed · March 31, 2022, 04:46:39 PM

Quote from: caveman on March 28, 2022, 08:32:23 PM
I needed to take the bucket off of the tractor at school and put on the grapple to move a couple of logs that were blocking my path to a grill that the ROTC instructor wants to use. I asked a few of my ag mech girls to lock the pins into the grapple with the quick connect handles. I did not check to ensure that I had properly seated the grapple on the mount and proceeded to hook up the hydraulics. As I rolled the grapple forward to grab the logs it fell off, only attached to the tractor by the hydraulic hoses. Thankfully the hoses did not get put under any strain and none of the class members noticed me hooking it back up. I'll blame this on a long spring break week of volunteering at a livestock show we put together (Central Florida Youth In Agriculture) and a Monday that should have been devoted to recovery rather than impersonating a teacher.

Oh the dumb things that happen as a school teacher, especially for a Career and Technical Education teacher! That was a minor item but I've seen some real crazy things looking back on 30 plus years in CTE!

WV Sawmiller · March 31, 2022, 08:23:05 PM

Just wasted time but I got an order for another composting toilet and between rain showers I built the front wall section then realized I'd miscut 2- uprights on one side 2 inches shorter than the other, proper length. No wasted lumber as I can take it apart and use on the back or sides but is annoying. I just quit when I found what I'd done and went and burned a big brush pile. The rain made it perfect for that. I'll start back over tomorrow.

firefighter ontheside · April 01, 2022, 12:06:34 PM

No one has been interested in buying this little tablesaw I got with the great deal the other day. It had a really nice and new 1 1/2 horse motor and my jointer only had 1 horse. You can see where I"m going with this. I removed it from the saw and noticed it was not wired per the diagram and thought, boy this guy is lucky he didn't burn it down. Well, I got it all installed in my jointer after cobbling together a pulley puller to swap the pulleys. That involved a piece of wood, three bolts and some baling wire. It worked well. Turned on the jointer and ran a piece of wood thru and it didn't cut. Guess what, jointer running backwards. Turns out the other guy had it wired correctly for CCW rotation which is what was needed in the table saw and the jointer. Luckiliy I could lay on the floor and re-wire the motor without having to remove it. Now I have a more powerful jointer and I know a little something about wiring motors.

samandothers · April 01, 2022, 06:53:37 PM

Very good use of the saw motor.

Just don't let the smoke out!

Crossroads · April 02, 2022, 10:30:14 PM

Glad your okay Lynn, falls and head injuries can get serious in short order.

Magicman · April 02, 2022, 10:37:40 PM

Thanks, the staples come out Monday.

kelLOGg · April 03, 2022, 12:27:49 PM

Quote from: Gere Flewelling on March 26, 2022, 07:58:17 AM
Kinda reminds me of an episode of "Tool Time". Tim made many a trip to the ER as I recall. Could there be a future "Saw Time" series in the works?

Lots of funny scenes of him in the ER. My favorite is:
Tim: Its great being here and not being a patient" as a door slams on his head.
Nurse: "Hold that thought for another day"

Ventryjr · April 04, 2022, 07:59:00 PM

I didn't want to leave the log in the saw when the drive cable separated. So I reversed it and made a big mess. Skip to 5:05. For the mess!

https://youtu.be/LZ73VHwba5k

The previous owner had a splice in the cable. I've since replaced the entire cable.

firefighter ontheside · April 04, 2022, 10:05:00 PM

Thanks for sharing. Looks like a mess, but also looks like a great mill.

fluidpowerpro · April 04, 2022, 10:21:37 PM

I hate it when that happens!
I also noticed that hydraulic hose really vibrating around. You might want to secure that somehow otherwise I see an oil bath in your future.

rusticretreater · April 04, 2022, 11:18:28 PM

Never good when the operator goes a runnin'!

Your push/pull stick looks a bit oversized. Maybe add a smaller one with a hooked end to grab the small flitches and pull them to you.

Chuck White · April 05, 2022, 07:43:04 AM

Wow, that turned out better than I thought it would, I was thinking that the unraveled cable was going to snag on the sawblade!

Now that would have been a mess, to fix and also to pay for!

At least the way it turned out, it can be taken care of and put you back in operation soon!

samandothers · April 05, 2022, 08:31:12 AM

Glad no animals were harmed in making the video!

mudfarmer · April 05, 2022, 09:15:23 AM

Ouch!

That reminded me to upload a pic for your other thread

sawguy21 · April 05, 2022, 10:29:31 PM

Well it's my turn to go to confession. I went with a friend to the airport in her car, a fairly new Hyundai. Stopped at Wally world on the way home and the car stalled in the parking lot, wouldn't restart. I'm pushing buttons and twirling knobs but no nada. Then I noticed a dash display, Press Brake To Start. Well sunuvagun if that didn't work. :

A woman behind me was leaning on her horn, I went to her window and explained what was going on. "Oh ok, I'll pull out frontwards" and drove away. I just shook my head and muttered.

Magicman · April 06, 2022, 01:28:59 PM

I almost always put moisturizing eye drops in my eyes in the morning to "wake" them up. My bottle had gotten low so this morning I got a couple of bottles. I opened one, leaned my head back, and gave the left eye a squirt.

Pain....PAIN !!!

I had mistakenly gotten enhanced contact lens cleaner !!!

Thankfully the lavatory faucet was there so that I could immediately start rinsing. I carried the cleaner back, explained what had happened, and it was cheerfully exchanged for the eye drops. Even the opened bottle which they threw in the trash.

Read the label. :P

WV Sawmiller · April 06, 2022, 01:38:26 PM

Is this a Here's Your Sign suggestion?

Let me make sure I understand this correctly - You can't see so you need to put your eye drops in but before you put your eye drops in you need to read the fine print on the tiny little bottle of eye drops. Did I get that right? :D

I'm just glad it was nothing more serious and hopefully no long term effect.

Jim_Rogers · April 06, 2022, 01:43:20 PM

Well it wasn't really my fault. But after we left DonP's job site we traveled over to Independence VA. He wanted me to see the timber frame that the Timber Framers Guild built for that city.
We parked across the street from the "farmer's market site".
I got out and wanted to take a long shot with my phone's camera:

Just as I snapped the photo, the VA DOT truck happened along, this busy street.

But I did get that shot:

And here it is from the sidewalk:

After the roof gets finished, it will be a nice farmer's market place.

Jim Rogers

SawyerTed · April 06, 2022, 02:02:08 PM

The digital photo of the truck isn't nearly as dumb as it would have been with a 35mm film camera. You might not have know until the photos came back from the dark room! :D

That's a very nice timber frame farmers' market. It isn't too far from here, I need to ride up to see it.

Resonator · April 06, 2022, 02:16:25 PM

QuoteThe digital photo of the truck isn't nearly as dumb as it would have been with a 35mm film camera. You might not have know until the photos came back from the dark room!

Oh back in the day... if the film wound on the opposite spool, or didn't have the back come open and get exposed to the light...

Hilltop366 · April 06, 2022, 03:38:06 PM

That's not bad Jim, back when digital photography was just starting my wife and I were out for a ride and went by a friends second hand store. I had recently sold the store a bunch of stuff including a dozen brightly coloured chairs from our family's motel that we had closed and changed into apartments, he had the chairs all lined up in front of the store so I took a picture to show my dad then made our way to a place called Brier Island and stopped at a wharf to take a few more pictures when I noticed that there was no film in the camera and by the time we went back by it was dark......never did get a picture.