Roto-Tiller Delays Project

 I haven't been getting much done on my airplane projects for the past couple months because I've been busy rebuilding my wife's roto-tiller.  It's a nice heavy duty 8 HP machine built about 1978.  She got it for free and I've been promising for a couple years to rebuild it.  Between the rust and dried grease nothing moved except the engine which turned over with rather weak compression.  The wheels were rusted onto the shafts and had to be cut off and welded back together in order to get the transmission apart.  Other than the tines, tires, hardware, a couple chains and the gas tank which all had to be replace, the rest of the parts just needed cleaning and painting.  A little Marvel Mystery Oil got the rings loose, and with a rebuild on the carburetor the engine runs great.

 The good news is the tiller works great.  I still need to print a couple vinyl labels I couldn't save and make a cover for the pulleys.  The bad news is I spent $900.  Fortunately You can't buy a new one this nice for that price and it was a lot of fun.

Time to plant the garden or we won't have any peas this year.

EAA Gas Welding Class

I've spent this weekend in Virginia Beach practicing welding at the EAA SportAir Workshop.  It was good fun and I learned plenty even though I had to learn to weld to get my A & P back in the 70s.  I don't weld often so I've been practicing on lots of scrap and some tubing from Lowes.  I had lots of questions which I couldn't find answers to on line, in books, or in the EAA welding video.  It really was money and time well spent and good fun.  Now I'm ready to weld up the Tail Surfaces and the Wing Fittings.