Project Basket Case - Giving Things a Nice Coat of Paint
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
  Yes, it's been a little while since the last update. This fall I started a new job which has taken a fair bit of my time as of late, and just life, in general, has been making its presence known.  In particular, I have noticed quite a significant uptick in requests for some of my laser engraved signs. So I have been spending quite a bit of time in the shop, just not enough time for writing it seems...  Now that I have my excuses out of the way, it's now time to focus on the next chapter of bringing my basket case tractor back to life.  Now that I had the engine insta ..read more
Visit website
Project Basket Case - The Saga of the Stubborn Wheel
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
  With the engine all squared away, I now could focus on the other parts of the tractor.  One part that I had noticed when I was bidding on the tractor was that one of the rear tires was horribly cracked and in dire need of replacement.   I did some pricing on a new tire for this size of tractor, and I was absolutely floored at the price - basically, I was literally doubling the value of my tractor by installing a new tire.  Well, I couldn't really use the tractor without it, so I held my nose and soon a new tire was on its way.  While I was waiting for the ti ..read more
Visit website
Project Basket Case - Wiring It Up
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
In my last post on the garden tractor restoration, I had just finished installing the new engine and gotten the fuel and throttle connections all done.  The only thing that I needed to do to get the engine going (and in theory, the tractor moving) was to hook up the electrical system.   In principle, the electrical system for the tractor is fairly simple. The engine block is connected to the negative terminal of a 12 Volt battery.   The fuel solenoid is connected to the positive terminal of the battery, which allows fuel to enter the carburetor. The engine is t ..read more
Visit website
Project Basket Case - Installing a New Engine in the Garden Tractor
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
  In my last post, I just successfully removed the old engine from my basket case garden tractor, which left a fairly large empty space in my tractor's front. While that made the tractor a possible candidate as a soapbox racer, I really needed to replace it with another engine.  In my previous post, I mentioned that I actually had a spare engine sitting around that I had rescued from another lawn tractor that was on the way to the junkyard. This engine was also a twin-cylinder engine, similar to the engine that I had just pulled out of the tractor, but since it was a bit newer, had ..read more
Visit website
Project Basket Case - Engine Removal on the Garden Tractor
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
 Last week I dragged home an old garden tractor that I had picked up at an auction for around 100 dollars.  In some respects, this old tractor was a bit like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. It certainly didn't look very good, but if you looked at it hard enough, you could see something that could really be something special, perhaps all it really needed was just a little bit of love.  One thing that it did need for sure was some engine work. The tractor had a vertical twin-cylinder Briggs and Stratton engine on board that seemed to turn pretty easily and showed some signs of c ..read more
Visit website
Project Basket Case - Trying to Resurrect an Old Garden Tractor
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
  Well, it started off as a desire to grow some pumpkins.   With all of the pandemic issues that are swirling around, it has been taking its toll on the local community events that usually occur around my local area.  One significant event (at least to me) is the local agricultural fair that is usually held this time of year. For obvious reasons, the fair is canceled this year, but to at least keep the spirit of the fair alive, the local agricultural society decided to hold a series of virtual events.  One of those events was a competition to grow the largest pumpkin ..read more
Visit website
Making a Super Simple Planer Knife Sharpener
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
2y ago
  Last week, I talked about my neverending frustration in keeping the blades on my surface planer nice and sharp, which was creating a situation where my favorite tool was quickly becoming my most hated tool.  After searching in vain for an off-the-shelf sharpener, I quickly came to the realization that I needed to make my own tool if I ever wanted to sharpen my knives.  Thankfully, I found out online that many people had the same issue that I had, and I was able to find many tutorials on how to build a jig that should make sharpening knives quick and easy.  I found that ..read more
Visit website
The Bane of My Existance
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
3y ago
  Well perhaps that's a bit too strong, but I do have a bit of a love-hate relationship with my planer.  I love how quickly and easily it levels out wooden boards to make them nicely flat and perfect, saving me many hours of sanding. That is until the knives on my planer start getting dull.  When the knives start getting dull, my planer becomes my worst enemy, literally chewing up any boards that I try to feed through it, all the while complaining as loudly as possible.  Granted, I realize that blades get dull, and replacing the knives on a planer is all part of owning o ..read more
Visit website
Wrapping up the Tweeting Weather Station - 3D Printing a Stevenson Screen
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
3y ago
 Now that I had all the pieces of the weather station now all put together and tweeting out the weather conditions inside of my home, it was pretty neat to see in action, but alas, not very useful. In order for the station to be truly useful, I really needed to have the sensors outside of the house. The issue with anything electronic is that they don't really take exposure to the outside elements very well, however having them sealed inside a box won't provide any accurate readings. The solution is to have the sensors housed in some sort of container that will permit the entry of the ou ..read more
Visit website
Building a Tweeting Weather Station - Hooking Things up to Twitter with Python
Small Workshop Chronicles
by
3y ago
  Last week I put together a fairly simple weather station that gathered the temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure and stored the data that the station was gathering into a text file. The ultimate goal in all of this was to have the data from the weather station end up being fed to Twitter so that I can see what the weather conditions like at home from almost anywhere.  To do this required doing a little bit of magic involving using some Python code to create a bot to feed my data and setting up an API on a Twitter account to allow Twitter to talk to the bot.  To be ..read more
Visit website

Follow Small Workshop Chronicles on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR