Medicine Cabinet Scrap Bin

In the land of pointless suburban renovation, things like this are common on the side of the road.  I noticed this medicine cabinet was made of sheet steel of decent thickness, so I figured it would be a good scrap bin also due to it's shallow depth which means no digging through huge piles of metal to find the right piece.  Also the cardboard boxes I'd been using to store metal were falling apart.

Since scrap bins don't usually need mirrors on them, I inspected as to how to remove it.  It turned out the hinge for the mirror was spot welded on, a formidable mass production strategy.  At last, a legitimate use for my spot weld cutter!

Fender Bracket Repair Part 2

The long awaited sequel to part 1.  When we last left our fender bracket adventure, the bracket for the rear fender remained unfixed.  However, there were several other stays holding the fender on, so there was no urgency in repairing it.  Over time, I'd been noticing the fender rattling more and more when going over bumpy terrain, so I figured it could do for a fix.  The moral of the story last time was never use aluminum to hold stuff together, bend it, or use it ever!

Who needs lōctite when you got rust?

Vineyard Expansion Year 1 and Garden Relocation April 19

The garden has successfully survived relocation once again.

ACT I -- Relocation and Expansion

My life has gone through many numerous twists and turns in the last month and a half, causing me to relocate once again. Luckily I was able to move my downsized garden without any issue (ok I lied, I snapped a stem on one of the tomato plants). The plants seem to have adapted to their new home well and are growing up just fine.

The Foundry: Molding Sand

Let's see what we got in the trailer today... Oh it looks like we're making some molding sand for the foundry!  Now that we got the furnace working at a decent level, it's time for some real casting action!

Details on the trailer now available!

For over a week I was compulsively checking the free section on Craigslist hoping for a free bathtub which I was going to store the sand in, but the Scrap Alchemists had something better in mind.  Instead of letting me have a bathtub, they intentionally withheld all free bathtubs in the area for those two weeks until I could find this: the turtle sandbox.  I know this for a fact because as soon as I got the sandbox, free bathtubs started appearing all over the place.  With that notion, I decided that bathtub dodging was very necessary.  Not in a gypsy sort of way. Actually, yes.
Anyways, we gave the turtle a lift by attaching some trashpicked castors onto a pallet.  There were a few small holes in the bottom of the sandbox, but I just put duct tape over them.