I'm sure some of you fellows have wondered where I have been, and I have wondered how you guys have been so I figured I would pop in and say hi...

Life has been kinda crazy for me the last year or so.
I have purchased my first home... finally lol. There were many hangups before we could close but eventually everything worked out.

Divorce #2 is just about complete... from the same woman no less lol.

I am still doing the machinist thing at the same shop... been here going on 3 years now! Even with oil & gas tanking we have been able to keep the doors open so I am hopeful we will survive the lull...

I have been leaning toward getting back to wrenching on trucks now that have a nice garage to work in. My place has a 2 car garage with an enclosed workroom that will become my home machine shop.

I have made a deal and the down payment on my first serious machine to put in the shop! I ended up with an older Lodge and Shipley 14x72 3 phase lathe capable of anything I could conceive needing to run at my place. It has been completely rebuilt to factory tolerances or better. I'm hoping to have it moved to my place within a month or so.. very exciting!

I have also gotten myself involved in a new business venture with a couple of guys dealing with honeybees. We do live colony removals and relocate them to hives... In the midst of all that we are dealing with the honey that goes along with the bees and at the volume we are at now it is somewhat overwhelming at times. at this point we are over 100 hives spread out across Victoria county in various bee yards...
We are working as a conglomerate of 3 different companies. Pleasant Green Apiaries is the parent company, "Bee Awesome" Apiary is my little part of it... and "The Bee Bouncers" is the name of the removal company. If anyone is interested in having a look at some of what we are doing with the bees I have a facebook thingy at: http://www.facebook.com/awesomebees

Motorbug is still Motorbug lol. She has been a much happier truck since she got the fresh set of injectors from Full Force. Shortly after swapping them tho the added oomph took out my turbine seals... been kinda low on boost and smokey. It sucks but Things are too tight to spring for a new snail just yet. Still trying to get stable with the added costs of buying a home and maintaining/repairing what goes out lol. Definitely a learning curve.

Anyhoo... I hope you guys are doing great and I look forward to seeing some of you again out at Brother Ted's place for the GTG.

 

glad to see your alive still...I have been working on my girl too, and I know the feeling with "added expences"!!! I just reciently got a build thread for my new girl going also and its been one heck of a learning curve for me too!!

 

Great to hear from you! Congrats on all your adventures, with exception of the sheet-splitting. I was wondering what happened to you.

 

It's great to hear from you. I've wondered about motorbug as I popped a new motor in my Ex over the summer. Thought I could run down from OK and have you do in a couple of hours. Hehe

 

You have 3-phase power at your house, or are you running a converter?

 

Nice Lathe,You could put My lathe between centers with Yours.

 

Hey Brother Chris Glad to see your still around!
I do not have a 3 phase transformer just yet but i have a high tension easment going directly over the center line of my property... so getting a 3 phase run staked should be minimally invasive lol.

It is currently set up on a converter but I want to take advantage of all the drive motor is capable of. The converter cuts its capability by at least 1/3rd.

Yeah she's a big girl... weighs in at just over 8,ooo lbs lol. It is a gap bed lathe too so I can swing some big stuff if I really need to.


Rich: yeah... 2nd time around splitting these particular sheets has been a bit more cordial than the first time... trying to stay friends this time lol.
Glad to see you still here doing your thing. You have always brought a heck of a lot to this forum and you gotta know all the efforts are very appreciated.

 

Well with the added comforts of concrete floors to work on and a roof overhead to block the heat from the devil fireball in the sky... a couple hours is feasable lol. Glad you were able to get it swapped bud.

 

Is that the f250 build thread I saw in the list?
I guess I have a ton of catch up reading to do lol!

 

Glad to see you back. Now go clean out your PM inbox, lol.

 

you could always run it through and variable frequency drive too, the prices on these have come down substantially of late?

 

They always come back, lol, good to see you still have motorbug. I've been on and off the past two years as well building a new home.

 

Around here if you want 3 phase it is considered commercial. You would first have to get it through zoning, then it would be a billable upgrade from the POCO, transformer, line and labor. You would be responsible for setting up your own equipment at your end including meter base/CT can etc, getting it permitted and inspected and all. Just guessing with the POCO equipment and labor you would be into it for min $6K not counting your equipment. Could go much higher.
By contrast a single phase residential upgrade up to 400 amps is free, you provide the equipment and if pad mount or underground from a pole you provide the duct. Back in the 50's when AC was in it's infancy here they used to provide residential 3 phase, and there are a few of those still around. The ones I've seen all had the high leg cut off at the weatherhead and taped up.
Our local POCO is owned by Unisource. Yours may be different.

 

Who ya gonna call?

Christof13T !!!

Yup, you will find that you will become the Ghostbusters of swarm removal.

In college I took the two apiculture classes at UCD and had a couple of hives for a while then gained a reputation for swarm removal and the phone never stopped ringing... Removing them is fun in a tricky kind of way, but finding a home/hive for each removed is the problem and do you really want to build a home for a queen which is genetically predisposed to swarm rather than a homebody-type queen who only wants to manage honey production? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe replace the swarm queen with a storebought proven honey producing queen strain after the swarm is established in its new hive. Keep us informed. Glad you are back and bee happy!