Hot and humid. Maybe not TERRIBLY hot, but pretty hot. Yesterday stayed cooler than the previous few days, but it was still instant soaked shirt in the sun.
Spent a bit of time on the gennie, but couldn’t keep the rust out of the tank. Had the idea I could use Evaporust to kill it once and for all, but couldn’t find any in the garage. Problem sorted when I picked up D2 from school. We went to harbor freight. I got Evaporust, one of the fuel transfer pumps (they’ll be on sale next month, 2$ off, so I’ll stock up then) and a cheap set of woodcarving tools. D2 wants to learn to carve and whittle.
When we got home, I put the Evaporust in the tank, and got out some wood, the cut proof glove, and the self healing mat and we got started.
As expected the cheap tools were almost entirely unsuited to actually carving wood. All the bevel angles are wrong for carving. It’s as if they were all set up as lathe tools. More disappointing was the Barlow knife I got out for her to use for the whittling. I bought it new for $3 in the auction, and it turns out it is made in Pakistan. Real cr@p. Don’t know if they are counterfeit or if Barlow sold out. Almost impossible to get an edge on the blade. My dad got hundreds of Barlow pocket knives as ‘gimme’ trinkets from a sales guy way back in the day. I lost almost all of them. I was an idiot. New ones are NOTHING like the old ones, except in appearance. If you squint.
Anyway… we ended up carving soap bars. MUCH easier to work with, much safer for starting out. We did a bas relief daisy, and a nose. She had fun, got way more confident with the tools, and it was about the right length of time for a project.
I’ll know if my Evaporust experiment worked later today. Other people online have had success.
Rust never sleeps. Gear needs maintenance.
I’ll be doing pickups today. I’ve got a big loop planned, and then pulling stuff from storage and building some Metro rack shelves. I will use them as I move stuff around and sort it for sale, and eventually put some or all at the BOL or in my garage. The work at my storage unit is contingent on a lack of rain though. We’re still in the “could get thunderstorms” area of the weather map today and tomorrow, even though it got sunny and nice eventually yesterday. Weather liars. Pttt.
Fix some of your broken stuff. Check to be sure your stuff isn’t actually broken. And stack some of the stuff you need to get it running again next time. Because there will be a next time.
nick