Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

Ok guys .... must apologise for the lack of posts of late ..... my net has been atrocious


Anyway ..... a bit of an update


“Who let the dogs out??”


Well the Great Dane got a try out ..... hell don’t it cut the green stuff!!





Don’t think the damned stuff’s stopped growing since last November, which is the last time it got a trim IIRC, or whenever it was dry enough last?


It’s a ‘bit of a handful’, although TBH the ground was really still a tad too damp, combine that with a serious growth and the slope I was tackling and it’s hardly surprising there was a ‘certain amount’ of drifting going on.


Still not totally sure just how I ended up in this position ........ ??????





.... a combination of very slippery and quite possibly squeezing the wrong side!!
Its predecessor was clutches/brakes .... squeeze left to go left ...... this is the opposite, so I’m guessing I cocked up !! :???:


I’ll learn ..... least there was a fence post to stop me disappearing off down a serious bank t’other side of it. :uupps:
The abandon ship process was easy enough though and I would not have wanted to be sat atop of it, getting into the same predicament !!
It’s a hell of a lot steeper than it looks!


Anyway .... no way José was it coming out backwards, under its own steam .... so had to go get suitable gear to hoik the lil’ bugger back out .....





Left her parked there in case of further ‘mishaps’ ..... pleased to say there weren’t any, but I was also pretty circumspect about just how slick it was, in places.
Needless to say, it got plucked out and back onto the drive with zero effort .. looking at the tracks after, it’s quite poss. it just slid in there, but I really don’t know’s, the honest answer !!





I do know for a fact that its predecessor would not have coped as well as the Dane did!


The down side was the amount of green crap it produced ... it’s set up for mulching and it mulched alright ....... just that there was so much of it, losing it was never going to happen .... as is the case on first cut every year !!


So the rest of the afternoon was spent dragging it into ‘orderly piles’ ready to pick up and cart away, accompanied by Sparty’s little bro (in years only-he’s 14lbs), Sqeaky .......





.......who rarely sits still long enough, to get a decent pic. ...... and Smedley .... top of the Werngounsel ‘pride’ pecking order,





chief mouser, ratter and mole catcher extrordinaire !!




By the time it was all sorted into ‘orderly piles’ I was bollo-ed, but at least I’d only had to walk around it once, instead of the usual twice, dragged behind the Dane's predecessor, so that’s a result in itself !!

[v8druid]

The trickier/more exciting bits’ll have to wait for another dry day or two, to guarantee some better traction !!


Last Sunday saw the collection done the easy(ish) way ..... take the mountain to Mohamed ... :thumme:








Damned near a boxful !!



....and Tuesday saw the lawn get it’s first cut too ..... with the Dane .... 6” of green stuff was a bit much for the ride on !
Cut it a treat and looked reasonable after it had all been collected up and ‘boxed’








To hell with barrowing that lot any further than necessary!!


This thing frightened the beejeezus out o’ me, as it swooped over me and headed off over the barn ridge, before making a tight turn right





Glad the mower wasn’t running at the time, or I’d have really had a fright!!! They come from no-where when they come over us at seriously low levels !

[v8druid]

Late Thursday saw me haul out the various bits of gear and refit batteries, start and run ‘em up, ready for the season’s assault on the senses !





Must get some power in that new shed ... ‘twas damned near dark by the time I’d jammed ‘em all back in there.


yesterday saw me out on a jaunt to Barry to collect a fellow 'other' forum members ebay spoils ..... Thank God for sat nav ..... would never have found it otherwise !!


A yard down in the docks amongst a rabbit warren of plots, units and old /new buildings .....nice Senny and pleasant enough chap ... FYI ..... paying 15 quid for cars and £50 a ton for good clean heavy #1 ...... scrap is in the crapper again




‘Spoils’ looked OK and thankfully not quite as big as it looked in the photos!!





Fair play ..... got it loaded and sure it’d fit, before any mention of settling up .... which makes a change from some places I’ve been before.





Spider’s web job of a tie down, ‘cos every bit of it moved and wanted to go off in all directions. With a 50 mile drive home I did not want it trying to escape in any direction, having got it nicely sat in the trailer, just where I wanted it for balance !!


Arrived home exactly where it had been put .....





..... and would’ve gotten it off, except for having to dash into town, with a poorly mog, to the vets !!
So that was a job for anon !!

[v8druid]

Been far too chilly here today to be messing about with it ...... at least that's what Pam said this morning when she 'required' me to paint a very large ceiling ...... so it's still sat where I left it yesterday.


Bought a little bandsaw off another 'other' forum 'member' today, which is located not far from the grab's new owner, who is planning to come and fetch it next weekend .... so he'll be bringing me a little bandsaw


As you can see, the Dane is performing well, with the exception of grip in places .... I need to get me some o' these





http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4006709869...84.m1436.l2649


This week's latest Dane listing on ebay ...£7k!! ....Think I had a bit of a bargain with mine .... in fact I know I did ..... 2 of them for 500 quid and change


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2917111916...84.m1436.l2649



Looks like someone been around that one with the paint brush ... and no hour clock which is real unusual :???:


As for the old Countax ride on .....it hates really long grass and what was on the lawn would've proven a length too far this year, I think.
Decent enough otherwise ..... on the flat !!


Been a good mower though and have had it 6 years ..... was a good eight hundred quid's worth


The yellow peril ate it up like it wasn't there


And that guys gets you pretty well up to date in Druid Central ..... weather has been quite decent now for several days and the old ground is drying well ..... might manage to get some dirt shifting done in the very near future if it holds out like it has been


Watch this space .........

[AndrewMawson]

Are there no local sheep farmers that could put a small flock on there for a few days? Save a lot of hassle.

[Muz]

I have the pedestrian version of that Dane 4 foot cut ... It'll tackle grass about 18 inches high

[v8druid]

Are there no local sheep farmers that could put a small flock on there for a few days? Save a lot of hassle.

I've tried the sheep idea before Andrew, elsewhere .......got to fence the buggers in, they eat everything in sight, crap everywhere, which then makes the bloody grass grown even more, stink and are a liability.
Would rather the occasional hassle. It's usually only first cut is the hard work.

[v8druid]

I have the pedestrian version of that Dane 4 foot cut ... It'll tackle grass about 18 inches high

Sorry Muz.......missed this one and didn't get any heads up!!?
yeh they're some tool those ..... would've gone for one, or a Scag .... but pee-ed of with tramping round behind my Ransome Bobcat, so a pedestrian one was a non starter really

There's one one the market that's ped and ride on combined and the controls swing over the rear for ped use.
as usual .... I can't recall the name, but got some pix somewhere I'll look out.

[v8druid]

Sunday morning’s mission was ..... to see WTF the strimmer had become a lil’ bitch to start ... without a thumbful of throttle .... ran fine once running.

I’d noticed that the head no longer ‘freewheeled’/idled on tick over and suspected the centrifugal clutch had seized or had a problem.
Accessing it was damned near a complete strip, but sure enough .... there was the problem!!





Mini blowtorch later, reform & quench a new end on the culprit, reassemble and started like a new one !!

Cleared up me tools and cranked up the ‘Drema to hoik that orange peel out the trailer as I needed to use it Monday.

Stuck the dynamometer on to weigh the beast, so its new owner had some idea of what he had to haul home......



And parked it out the way ‘til it gets collected shortly .....



Then spent the rest of the day test driving the rejuvenated strimmer on all the bits the mowers can’t get to. The spring seems to be holding out OK, but will get a new one as ‘insurance’ ....... doubt I’ll ever need it then !!

as usual, of late I had Squeak scrutinising my every move ...


Whenever I turned round there’s this inquisitive face ...... “what yer doing next then?”



I'm sure he thinks he's a bird ...... loves to 'perch on high' !!


Monday’s mission was sort the Grass collector out on the Countax ..... having hauled it from its slumbers recently, I found the bearings in the grass collector’s roller were, shall we say, a tad second hand !!

Bearings were duly ordered, after extracting the originals for a size up and arrived Monday.
Roller re-assembled and fitted and the lawn got a ‘back-comb’ cut, followed by its more usual directional cut and left it looking good as new.





Plus a load more grass for ‘the box’!!

[v8druid]

Tuesday’s mission was to create some more space in’t new mower stable. I’d always planned to build a supported platform over the ‘im-movable’ tank in there, as although it had a footprint that was never going to be changeable, the ‘airspace’ above it was gonna have to function.
So it was drag out the ‘wood-butchery’ gear time again and set to making some more studwork.
After more thinking, lotsa measuring and some lopping up I had the platform created ....



Dropped it into spot and secured the shed wall side ...



And having leveled it up, I could measure up accurately for the support panel’s creation –



Which then got slotted into place .....



With the decking boarding following in quick succession .....



to measure up the ‘trap’, to access the lid/filler in the tank’s bund !
Incredible how long these piddley jobs take to get done, specially single handed, when a 2^nd pair would speed things up sometimes !!

By now ‘twere getting a bit low on the light levels in’t shed and was struggling to see my markings, plus tea time was fast approaching, so had to get it all back in there and call it a day, to avoid the boss’s ‘wrath’ for being late to the table!!

Wednesday ...... didn’t quite go as I’d originally planned !!

[v8druid]

I had a PM from a member on 'tother, waaaay oop north, in Scotland a few weeks back, asking for some local knowledge, as he had a job to do down here, which transpired to be only a couple of miles from me and did I fancy a couple of hours lever pulling for him, on a hire machine?

“Do the bears crap in the woods” ??

Anyway ‘Martin’ had ‘laid plans’, for some time toward the end of the month, to do said job, when I got a call from him Tuesday to say he was on his way down to Druidland and how was I fixed for the morrow!!
Aside from platform construction .... fine .... like that couldn’t wait !!

So a rendezvous at the site was set for the morning.
Much later in the day and still heading south having reached the Derby area, Martin called again ..... the plant hire guys had rung him to say - no way José could they get his m/c there in the a.m. - 3 o’clock earliest ..... did I know a lorry I could suggest for tranny to fetch it.

Couple of calls later and a suitable truck would be in Monmouth in the morning to collect the 9 ton Tak., but couldn’t be before 09.30, ‘cos the lad whose truck it was had physio first thing, in the hospital ...... “what yer done Simon?” had been my Q to him.

His answer made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end .... “cut me right hand off, ‘fore crimble” ...... FFS !!!!!
Had a traccy drop on it, I assumed loading on his truck and severed it!!
Back on though after 9 hours on the table and quietly getting the use back!
OMG!!!!!


So.......Wednesday morning dawned with me in’t middle of no where, waiting for Simon to arrive and Martin to also arrive, with another local crew I’d put him on to, with a bloody gert telegraph pole on their truck.

I’d arrived to find a young fella stood in the field on his phone .... no transport and looking a bit ‘out of place’ in his ‘posh’ black work gear .... you know the sort ... pockets on pockets and built in knee pads type stuff , stood in all this ‘green’!
After a quick conversation, he was there to fit the equipment to the ‘gert pole’ that Martin and I were there to put up !!
“How’d you get here?” said I .... no van, gear, .. nada!!

“ oh me mate’s gone down A&E with chest pains .... thought he’d better go and get it checked out” !!!!! This did not bode well for the day!!

Like buses, they all turned up together ..... in a convoy up this narrow lil’ lane, with Simon and the Tak leading the procession !!

Field gateway was big enough and firm enough to get him in back’ards to get it off, while Mart and the pole truck went on up the road, closer to where he needed the pole off-ing.

Asked Simon if they’d checked it over ‘fore they’d loaded it .....”did they ever” was his reply so jumped in it and tracked it off his truck ..... at this point I realised I’d forgotten me glasses and couldn’t read a damned thing on any of the switches !!!!!

Eventually got it to rev with some help from Martin, lifted the ramps for Simon, on his truck and set off across the fields to get the pole off , over the hedge and the truck away. Big old lump it was too .. 400+ dia in the base and a good 12m long .... Tak handled it well at full stretch!!
Tracked it back to somewhere near we wanted it ......



and the guys who needed it up said where they wanted it ....... yeah right!!

Having stuffed the Tak as far into the holly bush/tree, as I could....or dared, I set about trying to dig a 2m+ deep, small as possible hole, as close to me as I could get it !!

Bloody great field and they wanted it in the most awkward of spots they could choose!!
Martin cat-ed it, I leveled her up and we set about it.

Not three bad ground and narrowly missed a couple of bloody big rocks, just glancing ‘em .... couldn’t have gone better if you’d x-rayed it first!!



Got meself back around to reach the pole and get sat in the optimum spot to drop it in the hole.



Martin slung it only to find the bloody shackle pin a gnats nadger too tight in the hitch’s lift eye, so after a search of his van and my car for something smaller, it had to be choked around the link pivot, which actually put it pretty bang on for length to control it against the back of the bucket and enable us to get it in vertically, sweet as a nut and barely touching the sides.

Mart tamped a bit of fill in round the base and then I kept it tight against the side of the hole for a bit more.



... ‘til we could let go of it and get some proper back fill into it ... getting the choke off was ‘interesting’ but off it came

Bit more tweeking for upright .....



Then push the rest back in and ‘batter’ it down a bit ..... was amazed that we managed to get 95% of it back in there.

Tidied up and back off down across the fields to dump it back at the gateway for them to collect it later.

Typical quality hire gear .......!!



So that was Wednesday ‘occupied’.

Thursdays have become ‘Clara days’, so spent some time with the little un, but got a call from my machining man to say my bosses were ready, so shot off down to his place later in the day ......... nice ....





Told Matt not to be too fussy with ‘em as they were going to just be spacers in a rough old environment, but well happy with them.

Would’ve given them a trial fit and try today, but despite a beautiful day ..... been ‘rough as a badger’s ... ‘ all day, so a job for tomorrow, ‘praps.

Watch this space .........

[v8druid]

Managed to get the tanks shelf finished off this last week .......







and been awaiting the arrival of a new acquisition, I scored before Easter.

[v8druid]

Booked a pallet collection for the Wednesday after Easter as the guy was shut on the B/hol and the Tuesday.
Damn me if they didn’t collect it on the Thursday before ..... fortunately he’d got it ready to roll.

Pallet2ship’s tracking website was a complete shambles all over Easter , so had no idea when to expect it, other than the fact it was showing as collected.
Eventually got told by email, having chased info Tuesday that they had no idea!!!!!
Wednesday’s tracking showed it out for delivery and I’d no sooner looked at the site and had the driver on the phone asking directions.

Was very surprised to see an 18 tonner heading down the drive, as they usually send a 7.5, knowing it’s a bit tight getting here. I’ve had bigger though !!

Driver decided he wasn’t gonna be able to turn around (despite everyone else who comes here managing, no sweat) and I wasn’t going to argue with him ... wasn’t the happiest !

When he opened the back up he eventually tells me he’s in a shit mood ‘cos of the way the warehouse had butchered the pallet, me new lump was on ... pretty well nadgered, I had to agree,



but we got it on the pallet truck with a bit of wiggling about and he was a happier chappy.

It got dropped where we could get it .... pallet trucks on planings ain’t the best and I watched him reverse back out and up the drive to the turning spot.

Luckily it had been steel banded on the pallet and hadn’t quite escaped .......


Been after a 604 or 605 Kins for a while and this ’04 was just what I’d been looking for, at 500 wide, plus it is in outstanding condition and done virtually no work .... 2008, used for 6 months handling pellets (plastic I think) then dry stored ever since !!
It’s as good as new and at 600 quid was coming Druid’s way. Couldn’t believe I won it!!

Got a hold of it .......



and took it up to the bench, to get it on there for some oil extraction.



And a good look over .........

Edges are like new, as is the rest of it .....





A combination of compressed air and a ratchet strap persuaded it fully open.....



....managed to relieve the cylinder of its oil contents.......



....... and gave it a bit of a clean up.



I’ve a couple of jobs that I wanted this for and I’ll need it both free hanging and solid mounted to tackle ‘em ....... so.

Being Mr Kishofer’s product, the bloody thing’s all metric fittings, save for the cylinder ports, so, due to my lack of expertise in identifying the various vagaries of these bloody metric fittings, I had to resort to shopping at the local Turpins’ emporium, which is always a painful experience, mostly on the wallet front.

Having been relieved of the wrong side of forty quid for this little lot,



.... and taken very careful note of exactly what they’d been identified as, I ordered what I did know I wanted from Flowfit, which’ll be here Monday hopefully and swapped out the various adapters I needed to, to get me to my now std. set up for dangly things, with the option of solid mounting, as required and getting powered by the VA-r's aux ports.

The boss has had me busy most of the day.

She’s been pestering for a lil’ pressure washer, ‘she can use’, instead of my diesel 3500psi unit and picked up a real nice little un, Wednesday from Aldi, which has had some great revues .... 2.2kw, 150 bar and 7.5ltr/min (which our water supply can cope with). Put it together for her this morning, so she could have a play with it, demo-ed it and off she went at the patio, which is looking a bit in need of a wash .... as in very dark grey/light black.

After an hour her hand is dropping off from gripping the trigger and would I like to have a go at a bit of it ...... that was the end of the rest of my day!!!!!

Have to say ... I am impressed with it .... and it’s had a bloody good testing today, I can tell you ....... our patio’s about 70’ x 30’ and a good 50% of it is now looking like new.



The other half is a tomorrow job, if it doesn’t pee down



This will be followed by several days of re-pointing/grouting, what the frost has seen off and the pressure washer has ripped out.

“I’ll do it ... I’m pretty good at grouting” she says ..... we’ll see how long that lasts and I know who’ll be mixing it !!

Having put it all away this evening, I had enough time left, before being summoned by ‘the bell’ to upright the Kins, clean all the nipple recesses out and give ‘em all 4 good pumps to push the old stuff out.





Have to admit it was all very well greased !!

Subject to weather, the bosses inclination to trigger gripping and ‘getting away with it’, I’ll hunt out some materials, to make a hanging link for this tomorrow, to dangle it off the Miller’s lift eye, as I’ve done for t’other rotaters on the Cranab and block grab’s. Everyone of ‘em is different !!

Also had the good fortune recently to pick this up .....





..... for a seriously reduced percentage of new cost ..... just gotta find a drive arbor for it now!
Standard/smaller/up to ‘bout 50mm broaches are on a 19mm drive spigot .... over that and you’re in the realms of 32mm drives ...... and I don’t have one .............. yet !!

Been looking for one of these for a good 12 months so I hope an arbor doesn’t take the same amount of time.
I’ve found one, but it doesn’t have the through coolant facility.....oddly?
A cutter this size’ll need flooding to keep it ‘alive’ !!

I need this, in the absence of a miller, to create a Druidfab S70 ‘special’ quicky for under the VA-r.

As usual, watch this space ...........

[v8druid]

Right then ...... before I get into what I’ve been up to of late, I am in need of some advice.

The ‘Drema is in need of some oil in the hyd tank and before I go pouring any new Plantohyd 40N into it, at great expense, I thought I’d have a shufty at the filters.

Having searched high and low for a cartridge/canister type filter, I’ve drawn a blank, so I assume that the only filtration on her is the beast in the top of the tank !!

So set about sussing that, this afters .... I haven’t run her for several days and was surprised to find a good pressure still in the tank, after opening the filler to relieve it ... just in case there was any ....... there was !!!

Having consulted the parts schedule I acquired off ebay for her, a while ago I could only find one exploded diagram, which didn’t really give me a lot in the way of ideas as to what I was about to have a go at .... so it was a cautious approach, not having seen/had a go at, one of these types of housing before.

Four 12mm bolts holding what I assumed was the cover lid on, all came undone easily .... one’s been through drilled and replaced with a nut & bolt at some time in it’s life, presumably having been stripped?

A little cautious ‘prying’ to the lid’s edge and it came away/free, with no dramas, to reveal a large magnetic wand. .........



.... attached to it, with surprisingly little in the way of detritus on it. Cleaned that off, examining the finest of obviously metallic particles/dust/sludge attached to it .... no dramas there ..... and set it aside.

Down in the body is what I’d expected to see ... a filter with a wire handle to extract it with. I should say at this point that the tank lid was securely back on at this point and the oil level in the housing was to the top/just below the inlets from the return pipes entering it.
Gently pulled the filter and rose sweet as a nut and I let it drain back into the housing as it rose, ‘til I had it out and in a catch bucket.



A little puzzled to find it open bottomed and looking like it ought to have a bottom to it, it was sleeves up time and delve in up to me elbow .......

to find the bottom of it sat in its cradle in the housing and I could feel ‘nodules’ sat on it. So it came out very carefully, slowly and gently, not to disturb whatever was sat on/in it.
Successfully extracted I found the ‘lumps’ to be bits of rubber, which I ‘d assume were once part of a hose?


Another delve and feel about revealed only the carrier frame left in there and I’m wondering why the oil’s still at the top level, knowing the tank level is well down, so opened the filler again and down went the housing level ......



Gave the housing a good wipe clean, where it was exposed, which was TBF pretty clean anyway, plus the seat, dropped the cover plate back into its seating and decamped to me bench to investigate the filter and clean it up.

After standing in its bucket, for a good ½ hour, whilst I’d been ‘ing’ about with the rest of it, it had drained fairly well .... lifted it out to allow the bottom to drain too and cleaned up the filter base plate, whilst the last bit of oil drained.

I could now see yet more bits of rubber in the bottom lip of the filter so extracted them and this is the sum total of what I got out .....



Set them aside and turned my attention to the detached base and filter body ...



...... it took a bit of tapping back on and even more tapping back off.
Obviously bonded at some point in its life, looking at the ‘glue’ residue and the ‘snug’ fit.

So ...... advice ...... this filter is obviously a ‘washable’ unit. Bearing in mind that what’s in the tank is Bio .... any suggestions as to a sensible method of washing this out ?

Was considering a bloody good blasting out, with the air line initially, in the a.m., to see what that produces, in the way of crud and having the bottom cover off is a bit of a bonus in the fact that I have ‘through’ access to the bore.

Ordinarily I’d go for a petrol bath initially after that and then another good blow through to clear any thing left, then let it dry in the sun ideally ..... anyone care to comment or see any issues with this?

Ideally an hour on a hot radiator would be good too ... but that’s gonna stink the house out!! ..... Brownie points in the minus figure scale !!

I’d also appreciate people’s thoughts on the errant base/cover plate? Whack/tap it back on and perhaps dimple it around its circumference with a punch, or try and bond it again and with what? Or perhaps even a few small self tappers?

The base and filter sit in a carrier/cradle in the body/housing and I’m pretty certain that originally this was all one assembly?

Thoughts/opinions/experiences would be greatly appreciated.

I’ll get back to you on the cleanliness level tomorrow, once it’s been blasted out, but visually it looked pretty fair this evening .... aside from the various bits of rubber !!

Oh .......... and the oil looks and feels pretty damned clean .... smelly old stuff though, this Bio !!

[v8druid]

fair bit of input from 't'other one' and consensus is it's a chuck away

Having looked at said filter in a better light, Id guess it’s a paper/wire gauze laminate and pleated as usual.



So as said .... highly unlikely not to be a replace-able/chuck away item.
I have found one number on it today ... again in better light and after a good clean .......



I’ve also measured it ........



116.5 dia x 410mm high / O/a length, in the hope that some one’ll look at it and say....’oh yeh , it’s a so & so jobby’

Here’s what the top looks like, end on .......



Gonna go number hunting in a minute, unless some one can point me in the right direction?
Guessing this is going to be a relatively expensive filter?

I'll scan the only piccy in the parts book that I have and put it up .