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Would that be modern art Dwight?

Do tell please.

Top off of a gas hot water heater? or heat exchanger of some sort?

Dwight, did you have the surgicial pins removed from your foot???

That's what I thought at first JHAP, but then I thought that Dwight's blood might be corrosive like in the Alien movies.

Dwight has corrosive blood, and we have a new member who is a giant robot.

Possible connection?

Not to mention the Human Torch was denied a bank loan.

Well, whatever it is, it involves an OA cutting torch.

OUCH, in that case I hope it was not how the surgical pins were removed.

ooh! ooh! I know!
It's a pulley. Probably from the air re-circulator on Dwight's alien spacecraft. It got eaten away when he was working on it and he busted his knuckles. The corrosive blood did the rest.

Some stuff you tacked together to confuse us!!!

What's left of the underwater lighting project?

baby fish lips....

A U-bolt and pond barge deck fitting that it previously held, destroyed when the barge was struck by lightning. Thanks to Dwight's engineering and construction practices, this was the only damage; replacement parts are lightning-proofed. Even though the U-bolt and deck fitting were destroyed, the fore and aft trowling motor batteries were fully recharged by the lightning strike as Dwight had intended.

Remember next time: Red goes to positive and black to ground. Did this make you hop around on the wrong foot?

A good example of what it looks like when you use self shielding mig wire without gas to weld zinc coated bolts to rusty steel. Also a good example of some shakey handed oxy-acetylene cutting.

I have substantial experience in welding projects that look like the one shown, and then described by Ryan.

I have really enjoyed your “intellectually stimulating” responses to my original post.

This is not that colorful a story, though there were a lot of colorful words uttered during the struggles that produced this piece of (GW called it Modern Art) snit.

The whole thing started when I was doing a little maintenance on my Garden Tractor and noticed the main drive belt was cracked and appeared ready to break at the most inopportune time. In order to replace the main drive belt you have to remove the drive pulley from the engine crankshaft.

I borrowed the perfect puller from the local Small Engine Shop (Dave’s). I offered to rent it, but Dave said, “Bring it back tomorrow and there is no charge”.

I hooked the perfect puller up with confidence that it would pull that pulley off, no problem.

Wrong! Even though I had slathered on the skunk-juice a couple days before and had the perfect puller for the job, the pulley was seized on the crankshaft.

The pulley is a wreck from the three arms of the perfect puller bending the snit out of it.

I return the perfect puller the next day and Dave says, “Yep, that happens a lot, you will have to find someone with a cutting torch to cut it off”. I thanked Dave and thought to myself, “Aaarrrggghhh”

A week later…… I got out the cutting torch.

I made 4 cutting torch cuts with a long break between each over a couple days to avoid overheating and destroying the crankshaft seal. Each cut was made carefully to avoid damaging the crankshaft. (I am doing this stuff from underneath the garden tractor with molten metal for company.)

I had a couple of 3/8” x 6” bolts lying around (OK, more than a couple). I cut the heads off two and (stick welding overhead with molten metal for company) welded them to the pulley that the perfect puller wouldn’t pull.

I bored a pair of holes in a piece of ½” x 2” flat iron that that I had lying around.

As soon as that pulley felt the nuts being drawn down against that ½” x 2” flat iron, it was over!

...I knew it was a Minnesota gear puller job all along

Thank you so very much for not giving it away, Bski.

More of those engineering genes at work in your system. No wonder you have been hand mowing for so long. I thought maybe
you forgot the routing on that serpentine belt you got for your rider.

I needed an attitude adjustment after the pulley pulling episode, so I did this:



I feel better, now.

Proof that a good weld isn't always pretty.

I wish that would pass ODOT's inspectors...well on second thought maybe not...
Here's a little welding I did a couple weeks ago. 30' of full penetration 7/8" web and 32" of full pen. 1-1/16" on the flanges. We were burning 3/16" 7018. The burns on my arms have almost healed now.

A guy welding overhead with big rod should wear a leather body suit (with air conditioning pumped in).!

The largest welding rod I can recall using many years ago was a 1/4" hard surfacing rod of which I don't recall the number. We used it to hard surface the rolls in a large gravel crusher. That would make the ole Lincoln howl.....

Dwight, I worked for a millwright company for 5 years before my current job and have replaced my share of sheaves and pulleys. I think your method was ingenious and could have used the idea many times. We'd soak it down with PB Blaster and/or WD40 and/or Silkroil, attach the puller (never really the right size it seemed),crank it down with an impact wrench, beat on the threaded part with a sledge hammer and tighten some more. If still stuck we'd heat the pulley and shaft and spray on more penetrating oil between heating cycles and more tightening of the puller. There was no sweeter sound than the creak it made when it finally came loose. We had to torch or saw quite a few off too.

The worst thing I ever had to remove was a Doris gearbox on top of a grain leg. The case only had two access holes, one each end and didn't split in two halves like a normal one. It wasn't holding oil so the farmer had pumped it full of grease to make it through harvest. We had to torch off the individual gears and bearings through the access holes while flaming globs of grease were showering down everywhere. With two of us standing on a 2'x4' platform 60' off the ground there was nowhere to hide.

Ryan, I have a ton of grain elevator and feed mill stories; legs, head drives, spouting, turn heads, scale decks, scale pits, drag augers, overhead conveyors, manlifts, grain dust, Class II Group G, and a few cat sized rats here and there.

If you and I ever sat down at a table (or on the Barge) and started talking welding related stuff, it could take awhile.

I hope that happens some time!

Of all the things I THINK I can do, welding is not one of them. I would like to try one day, though.

I'm not much of a welder but can stick stuff together and sometimes it stays.

Pipeline welder was to be my chosen profession prior to WW II.
I loved it - took me away from a small town in East Texas at the age of 16 and allowed me to discover the world.

Started as common labor, graaduated to welder's helper, went to welding school to qualify for work in shipyard, joined the army with "specialalty" classification, promoted to T Corporal after basic training and then to Sergeant - all before my 21st birthday...

Still can run a pretty good "bead"...

Burger,if your ever around Corsicana let me know,I always have something needs welded.You can play with my welder anytime

One of my welding instructors for Hobarts welding school once told me "if you forgot it, you never knew it" George, I'm in the office 90% of the time but jump at the opportunity weld every chance I get. There's something much more satisfying to running a bead and flicking the slag off with your glove than producing a production data or cashflow report.

Dwight, I'd love the the opportunity to chat on your barge. I've swung a hammer at more than my share of rats working in 3'x3' conveyor tunnels and have no doubt we'd both lose our voices before all the stories could be shared.