Lee hand primer repair

I have a Lee hand primer which I like to use for priming shells and it recently broke. Seeing that I want to load some shells that day I decided to repair it. The ram as I will call it was made out of zinc die cast and it cracked. This is a third one that I've had do the same thing so I decided to make the part out of steel. I turned a small disk on the lathe. Next I  cut off a small piece of quarter inch rod.    Then I made a little flat steel piece to go between the two and I welded it all together. The new piece works well and it actually is improved the priming tool. The priming tool now has much better feel for seating the primers.

Some interesting pictures

I shot all pictures with my phone, a S-5 galaxy. I thought you might enjoy some of the things I see when at work. These are the reasons why I love working on a golf course.

Butterfly 

A Luna moth

A small hawk that landed next to me

A unknown moth

18 fairway on a fall morning 

A snake which had crawled into a irrigation module. 

The new year

I start the new year with a lot of time to reflect. I am recovering from surgery to my ankle. My New Year's resolutions are to improve my health and make weekly posts to my blog. This New Year was the first for our new dog, Katie. Katie is a Labradoodle, and she has been a challenge. During my recovery I will post about some of the projects I worked on this past year but didn't have the time to get posted.

Broyhill Boom Repair

Our 150 gallon sprayer boom hinge broke and a replacement is no longer made so I had to repair it. The threaded end of the shaft broke off. The shaft must have had the bottom part cast around it. I tried to remove the shaft, but could not get it out, so I decided to drill out the shaft. First I cut the damaged part of the shaft off flush with base. Next I drilled out the old shaft. Then I tapped the base to 3/4 NF thread. The shaft on the boom hinge was 5/8 diameter and the broken-off thread is 5/8 NC . The plan was to make a shaft with a 3/4 NF thread on the bottom and 5/8 shaft and thread on the top. Then I would use some red loctite and thread the newly made shaft into the base, and assemble the hinge. We used the repaired hinge the last time we sprayed and it worked well.

Greens aeration

The procore making holes

The core harvester picking up the cores

Applying the sand

Terra brooms at work brushing the sand in

The completed green

Reel grinding

A short video of grinding

Pride in ones work

I recently worked on a customer's golf cart. The cart had a oil leak which was coming from the sump cover. I removed the engine and put it on the workbench and then I saw it. Someone had tried to repair the leak previously. They had smeared the outside of the block with some kind of sealer. Why do so called mechanics do this? At best it is a short term fix. I see these kind of repairs often and I just shake my head. Are the mechanics just lazy or don't they know any better. I can't say why they do this, but one thing I can say for sure, they don't take pride in their work