Coffee 10-16-10

Wow, another week has sneaked past us. Fall is certainly in the air. We had frost almost every night & it got down to 28 once this week. Getting closer to firing up the AA!
Come on in! Stay a while. The coffee is hot, French toast is ready to serve. Have a couple pieces of bacon & some real maple syrup & it'll get ya through the day. Put your worries behind you & look forward to what's ahead. We can't do a darn thing about yesterday, but we sure as heck can be determined to make today & tomorrow as good as they can be. Let's share something & find a smile someplace.
An electrician buddy came over yesterday. I had a two hour project to do and thought his experience would make it go faster. Well, I was right on one count, but it took us all dang day to get it done! I guess it was a full weekend project that got squeezed into one day. But, now I have a new breaker panel in the garage, Two different 220V 50 amp outlets, a 220V run to my CNC machine, and a bunch of new outlets, some on switches. The whole point of the project was for the CNC machine. Instead of a Porter Cable router doing the work it now has a 3ish HP water cooled three phase spindle motor. The amazing thing, & the reason I've dreamed of having one for years. is that it's quiet! The 3 phase inverter has a computer fan in it to keep it cool. That fan makes more noise than the spindle spinning at 18,000 RPM. It's crazy quiet!
Hope you all have a most excellent day!

Good morning, every morning that I awaken is a good morning. Yes the seasons are changing, cool mornings and nice days. We have not had any frost here yet but I know just to the north they have so I guess it is on the way. Today the plan is to clean Mom’s coal boiler and then hopefully mine, ‘tis the season. My observation is that burning through the summer creates more fly ash than through the winter even though you burn a lot more coal in the winter. I guess that the warm weather cuts the draft enough so that more fly ash settles out inside of the boiler and flue pipe. During cold weather this fly ash probably goes right out of the chimney.

Yesterday was my only day of “normal” work for the week. I spent the beginning of the week as a “government employee” except I was poorly paid and had no benefits. It was the dreaded jury duty summons, my first time. Everyone should do it because you learn a lot. What I learned is that if you end up in court you get tried in front of twelve people too dumb to get out of jury duty. It turns out that they made me an alternate juror and that is someone too dumb to get out of jury duty and too dumb to be a juror. Seriously though, it was a learning experience and I’m glad I didn’t have to decide on the matter, I got paid to sit and watch and do nothing and they paid me accordingly.

Everyone have a good week. Rake the leaves, put the mowers away, get your heating appliance ready, be it a stove, furnace, or boiler because old man winter is a coming.

French toast, bacon & real syrup that's what we're talkin about--outstanding Freddy--I just realized that I'm down to my last qt. of last yrs syrup--I think I'll get out in the woods & check those lines we keep up all year & blow them out again & get those other lines laid out before snow flies--yep--snows a comin--last 2 days we've had a "NOR-EASTER" hell,we don't get NOR-EASTER'S ---winds 30-40 mph,40*---feels like it's 20*---cranked the 50-93 up to 5 last night--house is at 70*--nice & toasty--I'm going to grab a 2nd cup of JOE Freddy & be on my way--have a good week-end all----yup,quite is good in the shop

Mornin all,
Freddy, I am Jealous! Nice tool.
I just got my coffee. The coffee perculator was messing up over the past year, sometimes we got luke warm light-brown water instead of dark, rich, HOT coffee. So yesterday I got a chance to work on it. Found the thermister was wayyyyy too close to the heating element, so I moved it away and put a spacer between it and the bottom of the pot.
We are now getting HOT, DARK coffee. Now I need to readjust the amount of beans I use. My wife had to take her cup of coffee and add another cup of tap water to cut it some.

I'll be taking the kids to the dentists right after breakfast, so I better get hoppin.

Have a good one

Freddy,
That machine is awesome!
Hey Gaw,
I got called for jury duty last month too! I tried to beg out of it with reason #4 - I'm self-employed and the duty would pose an economic hardship. Got a card back saying no way, you gotta serve. So I got a couple books on the subject and watched the old Henry Fonda movie "Twelve Angry Men" lol. I was on call four days and never got called to come in! Had to check the internet every night to see! What if I chose to not have a phone or internet? $500 fine. Now my duty is complete anyway.
I recieved my Tjernlund AD-1 draft inducer a couple days ago. Looks like I'm gonna have to redesign the stack completely.

Very busy working on a run-down pastor's residence for a local church. The pastor lady went to Cooperstown, NY after seven years here. The place needs a lot of TLC to be presentable. I'm giving a very substantial discount, but at least it's a job. House has been neglected, seems to be circa 1880's. Beautiful property. Pretty much set up to have everybody leave me alone and let me do my work. Everything has to be a board meeting and group decision involving everybody's uneducated opinion. lol.

Scuba Steve checkin in for a late morning cup of coffee Nice and windy with the look of fall out there!! Its just about getting to my favorite time of the year! Have a great weekend everyone !

Nice device there Freddy! Got yourself a manufacturing plant there now!

Brrrrr!! House is 59° again, due to the howling wind. Had several gusts over 20mph here with temps in the low 40's . Anything over 5 mph comes right through the walls. I'm to cheap to turn on the oil, & it's waaaaay too early to be lighting the stove. Like I say every year -- it's better to freeze now when it in the 40's out, than to freeze in the winter when it's in the single digits! This way we get accustomed to the cold faster. It could always be worse - and it usually is ... so no complaints here!

Just been getting the wifey's new-to-her beater ready for winter. Swapping some parts over from the Jimmy that happened to fit, like the shocks & brake rotors. Finished installing all the tires I bought from Tire Rack last week. Was a bit of cash, but Michelin & Firestone are having fall/winter promotions. I get a $70 gift card & another one for $50, plus yet another from Bridgestone. That covers most of the shipping charges. The defective tire has been picked up by UPS & is out of my hair. All that's left to install are the Michelin Hydroedge's for the Marquis, but that will be off the road in the next month or so, so no rush there. The beater has Firestone Winterforce's on, & my truck got a set of Bridgestone Blizzaks. Nothing will keep us stuck at the house this winter!

Went on a coal run with dad a few days ago. His back has been messed up for quite a while now, so I unloaded all 7,200 lbs of coal myself ... TWICE! 3 pallets of 40 lb. bags -- 2,400lbs per pallet -- or 180 bags. Once from the trailer to the cart, drive the atv to the backyard, then from the cart to the backyard. Was a little sore the next day, but not too bad. First heavy load on the flatbed car hauler I aquired this summer. Worked great!

I gotta get to work so I can warm up! BRRRR!!! Later folks!

I certainly didn't get as much done around the house this week as I had planned.. I was distracted by other issues.

But I did recieve a 23.4 ton load of Pea coal from UAE. I'm hoping that with the house rebuilt, zones reconfigured, and all the insulation in the 'living part' of the house, that I'll burn a lot less coal than in the past years.. We'll see. I pushed the coal to the back of the bin with my backhoe, and now that side of the stockpile will sit, and I'll empty out the other side this season.

I just finished off some 'from scratch' buttermilk pancakes, and several strips of bacon. I sure like my new kitchen.

The house is still being heated by propane, it's less expensive than having the big AA260 idling along for only one, at most two calls for heat in the house per day. I'm thinking I may wait till mid November or maybe later for firing up the coal heat.. I think I heard the thermostat click on at 0300, it woke me up in my recliner in the family room,, I finally got up and went to bed.

Frost last night, the thermometer read 29* at 0300, I still had frost on the shingles on the shaded side of the house at 0900. Supposed to rise to 63*.

I'm not sure what I'll work on today,, pretty depressed with all of last week's issues, Maybe I'll take a walk out back. I sure have plenty on my list to do, but almost zero ambition. I did spray-foam the end or rim joists in the basement last week, that should help keep the basement warmer and the main floor hot around the perimeter, next to the walls and doors. I found a fair amount of gaps between the rim joists and the sill plates, they are now sealed under foam insulation. Code requires insulation, but just fiberglass won't do much if there is cold air being pulled into the house, the drafts go right through fiberglass. I'll probably post an update on the 'Huge Project' thread.. It's been months since I've added anything to the thread..

Have a nice fall weekend,
Greg L

I heard that delivery was on the way!

Hello Listers,
Another busy Sat today. Repaired my BMW F650 first thing this morning. Last Sat it left me stranded about 8 miles away. I had to have it towed back home in my coal trailer. Electrical system failure, I troubleshoot it, discovered a faulty voltage regulator. It's amazing how fast the battery drained down last Sat. I was only out 15 mins.

I sold off a Harman Mag I had no use for too. Used a dolly & a come along to pull it up through the Belco basement doors.

I think I will light a 12hr coal fire tonight just for grins. Gives me a chance to work out any kinks too although how many kinks can I have with a hand fired unit?

Neat tool Freddy. And nice load of Coal too Greg. When did UAE become the perferred supplier over Superior? I always like the UAE for the lower ash but saw more heat from Superior. Did the BTU or ash contents change any with the two suppliers? Take care gang.

Hi Cap, I can't hardly tell the difference in the BTU output from Superior to UAE. To me it's minor. But the ash content from the last load from Superior, [about 2 years ago] was double what UAE's coal is.. I really notice how much and how often I have to empty the ash pans, they can get pretty full and heavy.

And, now that UAE washes most of their coal, the amount of fines is about the same as everyone else's. So there are no negatives for UAE for me.

Greg L.

That huge delivery is a thing of beauty.... I caught a pretty nice break. I found a guy on the internet who said he had some anthracite laying around for like 10 years. I shot 2 towns over, turned out it looked pretty decent. we filled a 40 lb bucket 60 times 2400#s for $120 bucks!!! Filled my brothers pickup and drove home VERY happy!!! Im set until at least mid January now!!! Today was a great day

Good deal, some exercise included !!

The only 'old coal' I've found was about half a ton of Bituminous coal. Everything else has been trucked in from the Breakers.

Greg L

Yea, My muscles are gettin sore already!!

This photo mysteriously appeared on my cell earlier today:It seems there is a doggie heaven, Havik is there, and they have cell service!