Thursday, June 20, 2013

I've got the hatch blues

I have to be honest: My hatch sucks. (Insert sigh and grumpy face here.)

It doesn't make a solid enough connection to the Teardrop when it's closed. It's too heavy, and I installed the hurricane hinge too short.

I've learned so much since building the Teardrop that the current hatch simply won't do.  I fixed the hinge leak, but now there's a leak somewhere halfway down the hatch. Boo!! Hiss!!

Now I could tinker with the hatch forever, but am I just putting off the inevitable?  Shouldn't I just build a new hatch?  I'm leaning strongly towards it.

Right now I'm thinking the new hatch will have aluminum tubing for the frame and every piece of wood will be primed and painted with marine grade paint on all four sides. That's as far as I've gotten in the thinking phase, probably because it's overwhelming to think about.

I've got until January to get it done. Six months seems like a very reasonable timeline.  Oh yeah, but there's a To-Do List for the rest of my life, like building a solar kiln, finishing a micro-house on wheels I started last year, putting a metal roof on the shed, building an end-grain butcher block cabinet...You know, little things.

It's Five o'clock - it's cocktail time!

Leah



Monday, June 10, 2013

Repack trailer bearings

Last year I got a little too close to a curb and popped of the dust cap on one of the trailer wheels.  I didn't notice this for a long, long time.  When I did notice it, I 'll admit it, I kind of ignored it. Lazy is not good, never has been, never will be.

This past January while in Florida I saw a GIANT bulge on the sidewall of the trailer tire and had it changed out. The mechanic noticed a serious wobble in wheel. Turns out it was very unhappy bearings due to that dust cap being off for too long (cough, cough, cough -lazy-).

Well, the time has come to repack the bearings. Doesn't look too hard.  Take the wheel off, pop off the dust cap, take out the cotter pin, remove the bearing, clean the gunk off, repack it with grease, put it back on (with a new cotter pin).

How hard can that be? I even ordered myself a bearing packer, $10 at amazon.

Let's get dirty!  Woo!

-Leah