Trying Electric Welding

Monday: (03/22) I spent too much time watching the haul away the dirt pile from the basement hole at the project down the street. I tidied up the area by my shop to make it easier to work there. I had an old bed frame that I sawed into straight pieces of steel tubing. I moved the dirt from the hole I dug last evening which was stored in four buckets to the front yard dirt pile. And, finally, I setup the welder and made some sparks. I misread the setting chart so my first attempts made me think I was using too much current and had too low of line voltage to be able to weld at my shop which is the furthest point in our yard from our service panel. So I rolled it up front and used power from the RV panel. Same problem. So then I reread the settings and made an adjustment of 10 and started to melt some metal. Still not a good weld but that is technique which I hope to develop. Granola and banana for breakfast. Ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. Dinner from Chili’s Restaurant, 3for10. I had a hamburger.

Tuesday: (03/23) A very windy day. Rather cold too. I prepared some scrap metal to practice welding. I finally gave up on doing that because of the winds. They weren’t consistent in direction or speed. I decided to replace the garage door lock. I installed the one I bought a couple of days ago. I didn’t locate my rekeying stuff but was able to transfer the lock cylinder from the old to the new. That should have made the job easier. It didn’t because nothing I tried would make either the new nor the old locks work when installed. They worked fine on the table. I finally gave up and found a new lock on the shelf in the shop. I tried stealing some parts from it and then tried installing it. Same problem in any combination. The lock was sticky or inop when installed. I eventually got another new one from the shelf. I installed it in the door using some parts from the original to make it fit and eventually got it to work halfway consistently. The deadbolt would only operate halfway. Out ½” instead of 1”. It will have to do for now. I think I’ll replace the entire door next time. I want a new one that is both a solid door and a screen door in one. Granola and a banana for breakfast. Leftover pot roast for lunch. Meatloaf with baked potato for dinner.

Wednesday: (03/24) I attended my Wednesday webinar with Alphasoftware. Lou was off for a delta appointment at 1100. I did a little tinkering in the yard. When Lou had returned from her appointment, and sufficiently un-numbed, we went to lunch. Back home a little more tinkering but I didn’t feel like working so relaxed the rest of the day in the man-cave (RV). I made ham and eggs with toast for breakfast. We all went to A Good Morning restaurant for lunch, or actually a second breakfast. Artichokes and spice chicken for dinner.

Thursday: (03/25) A windy day with occasional broken wet looking clouds. More neighborhood construction project supervision. I did a few little projects in the yard. I tried to fix the leaking waterline in the backyard but the fix, didn’t. I think I may have found it is not the water line that is leaking but something after the sprinkler valves shutoff valve and the actual sprinkler valves. Tomorrow will tell. If my hole isn’t full of water then I might have it. I also put in some drip watering stuff around the arbor. Granola and banana for breakfast. Chili for lunch for me, pizza for Lou and Dawn. A loaded baked potato for dinner.

Friday: (03/26) I drove Lou to a doctor appointment then I stopped by Harbor Freight to get more stuff for welding, a welding table and torch holder. I picked up Lou and we stopped at Lowe’s for some things and at Grocery Outlet, Smart and Final and Nob Hill Market for groceries. We picked up lunch on the way home. Of course there was some construction project supervision down the street to do. I also tinkered in the shop and assembled the welding table. Granola and banana for breakfast. Chinese from Lucky Chinese Bistro for lunch. Dawn made dinner, some kind of stew with an egg cooked in it.

Saturday: (03/27) I worked on some drip watering system updates. I rode the bike over to Ace Hardware to get some fitting and completed the new drip tube in the old garden. I also worked on trying to activate the new timer in the arbor. There are four and I was only able to get one online. I tried welding later in the afternoon. A lot to learn to be acceptable. A little before 5 pm I noticed there was no power to my fan that I use to blow the fumes away. The fan was plugged into the outlet in my shop. The elder was using power from the arbor. Different circuits. I thought I might have tripped something but couldn’t locate the fault. The other sheds have power and are fed from the same circuit. I decided to shut the welder off and put things away. Shortly thereafter Ernie and Dawn both came out and blamed me for killing all power to the house and trailer. I knew better because I had turned off the welder earlier and also had checked the power to Ernie’s shed. Both were OK when I checked. I looked at our breaker and they were OK so I assumed it was the city power. We stood out front for a while and our neighbors all confirmed they were out too. We decided to get dinner from Harry's. On our way there all the signals were out until we got to Menlo Park. Palo Alto provides its own power delivery. Back home, we confirmed power would be out until 9pm. I found it odd that most of the traffic signals on El Camino Real were out. They should have been all working because they all have battery backup systems that should have powered them for 2-4 hours. Obviously someone hasn’t been doing maintenance. After dinner outside we adjourned to the RV for some TV time. Power was back on about 1945. Nice and early. I made corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast. Leftover Chinese food for lunch. Dinner from Harry’s Hofbrau.

Sunday: (03/28) Granola and banana for breakfast. We were off early (0700) to San Jose to watch them move a two story apartment building a couple of blocks to a new site to make way for a new high rise building. After they got it onto it's new lot we went by La Victoria taqueria for lunch which we ate on a bench on the San Jose State Campus. Then toward home with a thrift store stop on the way. Back home we caught up on some lost sleep with an afternoon nap. Lou made taco salads with roast chicken for dinner.