Today was a day when nothing seemed to go right. That started first thing in the morning as my (perfectly good) debit card was declined when I tried to buy a book online. I had to use a different debit card.
From there I went outside and had to rush straight back in to the loo. Yes - it was turning into that kind of day. I'd had a fairly miserable night too. Then there were all the things that were falling off the wall, out of the fridge etc. Not really a day for doing anything.
Nevertheless, I wanted to make a mount for the dynamo. I thought I'd make it out of wood and put the thing on a wooden pole. I located a hole saw and cut a hole. I have a limited supply of hole saws including some that I bought as one unit hole saws and the big hole saw set I got from Harbor Freight that is now stuck fast on one size. No matter how much muscle power is put into it, the thing won't budge.
I have two one-unit hole saws the same size. On one the drill bit had fallen out while on the other the teeth were blunt. I soldiered on and cut a hole with the blunt saw, almost setting the wood on fire in the process.
The edges of the hole were blackened and burnt. After the hole saw had cooled off, I decided to retire it and removed the drill bit and bit holder. That was easy enough.
Having done that I went to work with the other hole saw. I tried to take the drill holder out but met with a problem - the grub screw had partly come out and was now blocking any attempt to remove the holder. Add to that I couldn't lay my hands on my allen keys and the fact the screw couldn't really be accessed.
Putting that away as a bad job I cut a bigger hole using my seized Harbor Freight hole saw but it was too big. At that point, I gave up on actually doing anything today.
The empty roof coating bucket will make excellent turbine blades for a vertical access wind turbine. If that is cut in two vertically and the bottom removed then they will be excellent.
There was an old wheel hub lying around. The plan is to weld the long piece of metal vertically from the center of the hub and to put 5 spokes coming out at ground level from the edge of the hub to provide extra stability. The hub will be filled with sand for extra weight. The whole thing will be free standing. I still have to make a mount for the turbine but I can do that later, knowing what I'm mounting it to.
If the rain tomorrow holds off then I might get started on that. If it doesn't then I might look at putting together a tarpaulin shelter. I've been threatening to do that for a very long time! If it wasn't for the fact my welder needs 20A then I would just weld inside the shed. My cable is not long enough for that though.
I did attach angle brackets to the ends of the arm I made the other day. I just haven't shown a photo of that. They're just loosely attached while I make my mind up whether to rivet or bolt them. I'm leaning more toward riveting.
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