Accessorizing

For some reason, it always seems easier for me to find time to buy stuff for new projects than it is to find time to work on the projects I already have.  Such is the case lately with my tractor.  I don't think I've turned a wrench on the poor thing since November, but that hasn't stopped me from coming up with things to buy for it.  For my birthday, C got me a nice sign to use when I display it.  Of course a yellow and black sign would be more appropriate for it in its current paint scheme, but I do have hopes of someday returning it to it's original gray and red paint, hence the red sign. 

This past week I bought a grease pump for the tractor.  This I deemed necessary based on comments I heard that an original style pump gives a better "feel", and can help prevent damage to the tractor.  When an old Cat grease pump turned up on Ebay this week, I snagged it for a very reasonable price.  The thrill of victory was short lived after I called the guy I bought my tractor from.  While he agreed I got the pump for a good price, he informed me that my tractor was built before they started using seals, so I didn't need to worry about causing any damage.  Regardless, it will be a handy tool to have, and cleaned up and with a fresh coat of paint, I can easily get my money back if I decide to sell it.

 
Another potential accessory turned up on Craigslist this week.  The bad thing about a tractor is you can't really do anything with it by itself, other than just drive it around.  To do any work with it, you need an implement.  Although my tractor would have primarily been used for farming, you could move a little dirt with it too.  The most popular way to do that would not have been a bulldozer blade, but a pull-behind scraper.  To my surprise, the appropriate style scraper showed up on Craigslist in Gridley this week.  N and I went over on Saturday to look at it.  I think the seller is underestimating how much it weighs, and is actually charging less than scrap value for it.  While it was temping to buy it and have some fun leveling the lot next door this spring, the reality that I would have no way to unload it when I got it home prevented me from getting it.  It would be a neat "prop" top have for my tractor, but I think I will hold off and try to find something that at least has wheels on it.

Another "son" is born

For the past 3 and a half years I have been working on a new tractor model.  Finally, last week, the new models started flowing down the assembly line with equal parts apprehension and relief.  While just seeing the tractor going into production is satisfying enough, the was an added treat this week. Cat machine serial numbers all start with 3 letters, and it is a tradition that people that work on the new tractor models sometimes get their initials used as serial number prefixes.  Thursday, DTD175 (DDT was already taken) started down the line.  It's not fully assembled yet, but I have been over to the factory a couple times to check on it.  Something I wasn't expecting was that because it is a D6T XL, the full 17 digit PIN contains "D6TLDTD"; so a nice little "shout out" to little LDT and grandpa LDT made it's way in there as well.  They say when you are the project leader, bringing a new tractor to production is like having another kid.  Since I'm not the overall project leader, I don't quite have that "dad" feeling, but I definitely feel like an "uncle".

The monster truck business had it's ups and downs this week.  My ebay auctions turned out rather lackluster, although neither truck I was selling was the first one of that model I had sold.  Both trucks this coming week are first-timers, so I'm hoping for a little better results.  I did get a nice surprise on my Bandit semi, which I sold once before only to have the buyer not pay for it. It sold this time for twice what it went for last time, although now 5 days after the auction end this buyer hasn't paid for it either.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.  I did have my best monster truck customer come through on a big purchase of the new trucks from my last two batches, 17 trucks in all.  He didn't pay per truck quite what he had previously, but still made a very generous offer on them.  I also got the new monster truck track done for N and L this week.  We tried it out for the first time on Friday night, and the mud pit is a big hit.

Finally, I'll leave you with a strange little phenomena that has been occurring in our back yard.  You may recall me mentioning having to fix the vent to our furnace to keep the North wind from causing too much backpressure and shutting it off.  Well, it appears that the elaborate vent cover we fabricated causes the exhaust to condensate and drip down to the ground.  Over the last few weeks, this condensate has formed an almost 2 foot tall ice stalagmite to form.  It isn't hurting anything, but sure looks strange.  We're looking forward to a little warmer weather this weekend to hopefully thaw things out a little bit.

Work and Play

It's hard to believe another weekend is almost gone.  It was another one with nothing terribly exciting, but good nonetheless.  I got my weekend off to a good start by going out and running a tractor on Friday morning.  It really is one perk of my job I don't take advantage of enough.  One of my coworkers had gotten a tractor stuck in the same place only a few days before, but with the temps well below 0 Friday morning, I didn't have to worry about any mud.  I was very thankful for the heated cab. 

In the workshop this weekend I got my last batch of monster trucks finished up.  This caps off what has undoubtedly been my most prolific period of custom toy production since before N was born.  Including the trucks up for auction this week, I have 30 trucks to sell.  While the trucks are done, the Ebay fun is only just beginning.  I've been strategically unveiling the trucks on the Monster Truck Collector forum so as to keep attention on my work, and attract bidders on my auctions.  We'll see how things turn out this week. 

Today N helped me with building a new monster truck track.  I plan on using it to help photograph my trucks for auction, and of course he gets to play with it as well.  One of his "crush cars" sets fell apart this week, so this new bigger and better one will take it's place.  This one has a "mud" pit on it, so it will be a little different than the one he already has.  While we worked on it, I had my truck out of the garage so N and L could run around.  I know they miss going outside, so this is the next best thing.  Days like today I am very thankful for my "man cave", with heat, a TV to watch the car auction and the Bears (even if they lost) and enough space to work and let the boys run around.  As the old commercial says, "it doesn't get any better than this".

 

Happy Birthday to me!

This past weekend we celebrated my Birthday.  I can't say there was anything super-exciting about it, nor would you really expect there to be for a thirty-something's birthday.  In fact, the lack of excitement was one thing that I would say made the birthday memorable.  My whole family was there, (except my brother who unfortunately had to work) and we got to just relax and hang out.  C did an excellent job preparing so we didn't have to rush or scramble.  The kids did a nice job playing together so we didn't have to spend the whole time chasing them.  Everyone seemed to have a genuinely good time, and that was perhaps the best birthday gift of all.  (Not that the other gifts weren't nice too.)

OK, enough with the sentimentality.  This weekend was also an extended one thanks to the MLK holiday on Monday.  That gave me some extra time to get a few projects done.  My mega-batch of monster trucks is finally done and the first couple went up on Ebay tonight.  Not being one to leave well enough alone, I did start a few more to use up some extra parts I have left over.  At least this batch is smaller and not as complicated as the last one.  Also over the weekend I finished up another article for the ACMOC newsletter.  I was asked a while back to write an article about an antique tractor that is going to be featured at Caterpillar's both at ConExpo for the March/April issue of the newsletter.  A month or so later, I found out the owner of the tractor was going to work with someone else on the article.  Fine by me, obviously I've got no shortage of projects.  Then late last week I was sent the article.  While it was a good account of the restoration of the tractor, it was lacking in historical detail.  I'll spare you all the details, but in the end, I was asked if I could write a supplemental article.  I really couldn't find much on said tractor either, but did turn up quite a bit on a similar tractor from the same era.  It worked out nice that I was able to help the club out by just summarizing some research I had already done, and because it's on a different tractor I shouldn't be stepping on anybody else's toes either.  At least that's the way I hope he sees it.

Two steps forward, one step back

Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe that it's been almost two weeks since I posted.  It's not that we haven't had anything going on, I just haven't taken the time to sit down and post.  My Christmas break wrapped up with plenty of things left that I didn't quite get done during my time off, but I was pretty satisfied with what I did get done, and got to spend alot of quality time with C, N and L. 

The workbench remains full of monster trucks.  They have officially transitioned from fun little projects to feeling alot like work.  There are definitely advantages to doing them in batches rather than one at a time, but I let this batch grow a little too much.  I still remain determined to get these done for this winter's Ebay season, but will be glad when they are done.  The past two week's work has mostly been creating artwork for, and applying the decals.  For the most part it has gone OK, but a couple trucks have been a challenge to get the colors just right.

With the decals wrapped up, most of my time on them this weekend has been spent painting on the lights and grill details.  A few of the trucks were a little farther along and ready for clear coat.  Clear coat is always a gamble.  It helps seal in the decals so they can't peel off, and gives a nice glossy finish.  The gamble is that the clear coat can be finicky, and if it doesn't cooperate I usually have to strip all the paint off and start all over.  Of the three I painted last night, two cooperated and one did not.  The paint developed little pinholes in the finish, and applying more paint just resulted in a bumpy, gooey mess.  Back to square one on that one.  At least the other two turned out OK.

Not all the workshop time this weekend was spent on monster trucks however.  N and I spent some time working on a birdhouse kit I got for him for Christmas.  It was just the right level of difficulty for him.  I just had to get him going in the right direction, and he could screw the pieces together himself.