Additional Progress

I cleaned up the Bolens 1250 mower deck arms, primed and painted them and then mounted them on the 1455 deck.  So they will work for that deck, while I figure out how we are going to deal with the two arms that are missing clevis pins.  Here's a photo of the deck with a lot of the hardware on it.  In the background is the Bolens 1455 garden tractor with front-end loader.

Couldn't get much done yesterday, June 18, because I attended the RPI Llano-Kingsland work session (look for the new blog on RPI work sessions I am starting for details).  Then this morning I had to water the vast majority of our 60-odd trees, shrubs, flowers, you-name-it, we have planted on our property to keep the drought from killing them.  Plus I sprayed fungicide on a number of shrubs that otherwise would get eaten alive.  Finally, I took the Sears lawn tractor out and cut the grass in front, along the street we live on, so it at least looks presentable.


After all that, I was determined to accomplish at least one RPI-related task today, even though it was starting to get hot.  I decided to cut the conveyor belt I picked up for free that I am going to offer for sale, with funds received going to RPI.  So I brought out my circular saw and began making the first of some eight cuts.  The first two or so were pretty easy, then it seemed to get progressively harder to make the cuts.  But over a period of two to three hours I got all of the cuts done.  I cut off two metal zippers and threw them in the metal scrap pile.  I also cut out two pieces of belt with wear holes in them.  The undamaged parts of those pieces can be used to make railway sweeps, as opposed to the motorcar floor mats I am planning to offer.  I measured the total length of the belt before doing all this work and it was 92 feet.  Also prior to today's work, I hosed off the sand and gravel that had adhered to one side of the belt.   Once I cut it, I turned it over so as to hose off the other side as well.  Did I mention that I had to broom the first side vigorously to get as much mud and dirt off as possible?  Oh well, it's all in a good cause.  We will need the money for RPI's insurance policy, if and when we get one.

Here's a photo of the conveyor belt in pieces, awaiting the cleaning of the second side:

 After cleaning it up, I will roll the various pieces up and cut them as needed to the size requested by the purchaser.

That's it for today, too hot to do anything else.