The fun of the chase

This is the inch thick chunk of aluminum that was defeating me yesterday. Today my resolution was to succeed. Thus, in the hour or so before work, I drilled a series of holes around the groove my hole saw had made.

Normally I regard tools as being sacrosanct. I maintain them in great condition and use them gently. The hole saw was designed for wood and I'm using it for metal. A real hole saw for metal would cost ten times as much and for the amount of use the saw will get, I'll just treat it as disposable.

Anyway, after work, I returned to my chunk of aluminum and used the hole saw. It didn't exactly go through as a hot knife would go through butter - it was a bit slower. Perhaps not quite as slow as an encroaching glacier but not far off!

The aluminum now having a nice hole in it of suitable size to facilitate use with my new door lock, my attention turned to mounting the receiver onto a sheet of 1\8 inch aluminum. The plan had been to insert countersunk screws out through the aluminum through the lock receiver and to fasten nuts onto fhd screws. That was the plan... It didn't quite work like that though.

Earlier - before work, I'd picked up some M5 coiuntersunk bolts. Needless to say, when I went to use them, they were M6. Hunting around, I found some countersunk M5 bolts. Then after inserting them, I found the nuts wouldn't fit. They were 10-24! Then I remembered I had a pile of M5 rivnuts and fastened M5 rivnuts to the receiver and bolted it all together.

It wasn't quite that simple though... One of the rivnuts overtightened and rotated freely. The only problem - it was attached to the tool and couldn't be removed easily. Eventually after much effort and trickery, the assembley was removed. Basically I had to disassemble the rivnuts tool. That left a rivnut spinning in a hole. With pliars and a drill, it was removed and a new ruvnut correctly inserted. Sounds straightforward now, doesn't it?

Nope - you've guessed... It wasn't! The bolts were 35mm whereas those M6 bolts were the correct length of 20mm. That meant the bolkts needed trimming so out came the angle grinder. As I have no vice and am quite attached to the idea of retaining all ten digits, holding the receiver while grinding was out if the question. Thus, the receiver was placed on the ground and held in place with a stout stick. The resultant cuts were rough and ready but the bolts are now acceptably short. Time to mount the lock...

And, as you've realized, there was a problem. Firstly, that great shimmering light source in the sky had been kidnappoed by the horizon. More importantly, because it had cooled down, hoards of mosquitoes were homing in on me. After beating off 5 or 6 squadrons of attack mosquitoes, I called it a day.