Rake-o-vac rebuild

The sweeper when I started

The sweeper disassembled

The silver colored area was cut out and a new one cut,rolled and welded in. Replacing the worn out metal.

The fan blades were worn out ,so I had new ones cut and I weld then on to the center hub.

The rake assembly had the holes welded up on the paddles,new springs and plastic fingers installed.

The worn hitch was cut off and a new piece added. The rake- o- vac then was reassembled. The project was a big success.

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.