Sunday Reading - Finally Progress!!!!

Another beautiful day with temps into the 70's and dry ground. In February!!! The only bad thing about it today were the 40+ MPH wind gusts that made getting stuff done a bit more difficult.....

And annoying :(

I had a whole list of things to get done today in preparation for the busy season that get's kicked off here shortly.

I had to move the car hauler trailer back out into the barn lot. The sheep will love this because they really enjoy climbing up on it and pretending they are wild sheep on a cliff edge or something.

Then we had to pull the stock trailer out of the hay field and park it in front of the barn while it was dry so it's there when we take the slaughter lambs in next week.

Then it was time to put the bale spike on the 8N and move the remains of a round bale the old nags don't seem to want to eat into the barn lot for the sheep to munch on at night. The sheep will eat just about anything so waste not want not. Maybe those old nags discovered the anti-freeze I had put on the bale?

That was a joke really.

I left the bale spike on the 8N because with a little luck I will be putting up some more fence this week.

Then I cleaned out the front of the barn and moved the 861 diesel in there and parked the 850 outside for a while.

I remembered a little trick I used to use when shaping metal back in my medieval armor making days and decided to see if I could make the center emblem fit in the nose cone I had.

The problem is the back of the reproduction emblem has those raised spots around the rods that hold it in place. I don't know for a fact but I suspect the originals are flat because if it wasn't for those raised spots the emblem would fit perfectly.

The raised area hits the center support beam and was making the emblem ride out from the circle about a quarter of an inch.

So I got out my old ball peen, my copper shaping hammer, a chunk of lead and a stump. Placed the center cap over it and dished out the holes on the support strip so the raised spots would fit in snug.

The lead acts as a kinda squishy anvil and allows you to dish just how far you need without breaking or over stressing the sheet metal.

The emblem then fit like a glove just as it's suppose to. It then took me about three hours just to get the old nose cone off the hood assembly and I ended up breaking two of the bolts that held the old one on there too.

But it's off now and the new cone fits right where it's suppose to. All I got to do now is strip the new cone down and give it a paint job. Then I am betting the center hood strip won't line up properly so that will have to be tackled next.

At least it's progress!!!!

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!