Posted on 05/01/2025 6:15:12 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
You must live near a Menard’s. I don’t have one close to me.
***Beau bought a RAT trap today for the greenhouse.***
Might need a black RAT snake to keep those “chippies” under control. We haven’t seen as many so far this Spring as we did a year ago. I’m guessing the snakes, owls, and hawks have put a dent into the chipmunk population around here.
An aside, a bit OT, but Pollard will love the last part:
I finally pulled out a set of small speakers to try out for TV use on a “non-critical” 24” TV in my shop. “Non-critical” as in I’d like to have at least “mid-fi” sound, but at this point I don’t care about deep bass for this one: Just reasonably clean sound above 100 Hz or so will do. (The TV’s sound is awful.) The brand of the speakers is “ONN” - Wal-Mart’s brand. My brother left them behind when he passed - I’m guessing he intended to use them for computer speakers. They appear “NWB” (new” without box).
So, they seem decent enough, with a rubber roll driver about 2-1/2” diameter, the speakers play respectably loud and are not too obnoxious once I back off the bass — bass “up” they are otherwise rather honky around 200 Hz as many of these small speakers are. Mids sound slightly hollow & boxy, but, are not awful. But... the tweeters both seem dead. Looking under the non-removable tweeter grills more closely, they seem to be just flat diaphragms. Some sort of piezo tweeter, perhaps?
Curious, and noting it appears the front panel should come off the rest of the enclosure after removing a couple screws, I went ahead and, with some difficulty, pulled one speaker apart. The little 2-1/2” driver looks good (substantial) from the rear too — more so than I expected. BUT, the supposed tweeter is fake - it’s just part of the plastic molding of the front panel, with that 1” “tweeter grill” glued in over it.
This sort of fakery in products is of course not exactly new, but it sure gave me a chuckle. Buyer beware! I wonder how many people bought these and never realized they were NOT getting a 2-way speaker system?
Yes, a few years ago Menards put in a store about 20 minutes from us, and we go that way fairly often (closest decent size town.)
That's the easiest hard way to pull a t-post. The easiest easy way is to have a helper hold against the post while you pop it out of the ground with the loader bucket on a tractor.
I use the post driver trick when I can't get to the post with the tractor.
I stopped by the nursery after work yesterday and bought four more rhubarb plants. No fooling around with these - they’re already in the ground.
That makes ten plants - 6 Canadian Red and 4 Crimson Cherry.
Should be enough to make a pie or two.
I’m harvesting Rhubarb now. I LOVE Rhubarb Sauce on Yogurt, Ice Cream or Pound Cake. A real TREAT!
I will be making Beau’s favorite, ‘Rhubarb Custard Pie’ in the near future.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/17728/rhubarb-custard-pie-iv/
I hope you finally have success with Rhubarb. It’s definitely a staple up here in any serious Northern garden. :)
My posts are under the barn lean-to shed roof. The former owner put them in to hold stacks of wood. The ground is like concrete - this hack doesn’t work for my situation (I tried!). My dad has a huge jack he used to get some wooden posts out of the ground - I think I can use it on the T-posts. They ARE coming out one way or another because they are keeping me from using the lean-to for parking mowers, etc.
A high-lift jack might do the trick. Think about watering around the posts that you want to pull. Pulling t-posts out of rock-hard dry ground is tough without hydraulics.
I think this is one for Pollard, but if someone else knows, please chime in:
I want to replace what I guess I’ll call the “output fitting” (adapter) on a small Campbell-Hausfeld compressor my Dad gave me many years back. However, the threading into the compressor is not std. 1/4” NPT. It is slightly bigger — my caliper measures the thread OD on the compressor side of the fitting / adapter at 0.558”, and there is an O-ring on the “bolt”.
(Depatie is a great resource, BTW.)
So... This appears to be a 3/8” SAE Straight Thread O-ring (O-Ring Boss) / SAE J1926-1 (and ISO 11296-1) male connection. The other side of this (straight / no elbow) adapter is 1/4” NPT (actually NPTM) (and I think it’s a compression end) and then THAT goes into a 1/4” NPTF to 1/4” hose barb straight adapter. The hose then runs to the tank.
Rube would be proud.
Unfortunately, after a bunch of searching, my odds of finding a right angle* version of the Boss end adapting to a 1/4” hose barb seem to be nil. It took a lot of searching just to find THIS:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZDKY2YG?psc=1&language=en_US
and fortunately it’s on Amazon with free shipping available if I order some other stuff, which I need to do. So, it’ll still be “Rube”, feeding the hose barb adapter, BUT, at least it will be “better” Rube.** I’d rather have brass than steel, but, this should last for my lifetime, anyway, and probably for the life of the compressor. Plus I’ll apply anti-seize compound. Maybe I’ll wipe on a little Corrosion Pro on the outside of the steel :-)
*Basically I want to go to a right angle fitting because the current straight fitting points the air hose protruding “out” at a right angle to the compressor, where it is easily banged or scraped against “stuff”. “Stuff” includes, on occasion, my leg, but my leg isn’t what tends to beat up the air hose the most... Doorways are good (as in: bad). I’ve just had the air hose pop a leak again right where it gets “hard flexed” coming out of that fitting. Pffft!
Pollard, or anyone, if you know of a better/ cheaper way to go from a 3/8” O-Ring Boss to a 1/4” air hose, turning a tight 90 deg. to parallel the compressor housing in the process, please advise.
Oh, BTW, top pressure this compressor can hit is barely over 100 psi. So, we’re not talking any kind of crazy pressures here. :-)
Now, to go effect a temporary repair until the part comes in...
One can also “lever” the post up a few initial inches if you can attach a (near horizontal) lever to it. I’ve done that a couple times with a 4 x 4 and a big C-clamp. (Or even baling wire wrapped around several times.) Assuming one can dead lift 100 lbs. plus the 4 x 4, an 8 ft. 4 x 4 clamped on, one ft. from the end, gives you ~700 lbs. of force... 6” from the end gives less lift distance, but 1500 lbs. of “lift”.
Assuming the ground is not soft (add a patio block?), you’re in business.
Looks like it’s commonly used as a hydraulic fitting but probably used for a lot of things.
Here’s some with the cheapest being $7.49 - free shipping - https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=6806-06-04&_sacat=0&LH_PrefLoc=1&_sop=15
Tried a few different titles base on that list but the above is always the cheapest. 6806-06-04 seems to be a Brennan part #.
When I was buying for the maintenance dept at my last job, I stumbled across many of those fittings with the oring and there are a few different types that are all similar.
Yep, $7.49 on ebay or $7/80 on amazon. Choose your pick.
Thanks - The eBay listing doesn’t detail what the material is (probably steel) so I messaged the seller to ask about it.
While I was at it I asked if they’d ever seen the same thing but with a barb for a 1/4” ID air hose on the present NPT side. A shot in the dark.
Speaker systems?
You and Mr. FF would get along just fine. He’s an industrial engineer by occupation, but he loves sound engineering. In a secret life, I think he’d want to own a recording studio.
As it is, he has a very nice setup that he loves to tinker with if it stops performing exactly the way he wants it to. We move from vinyl to digital without much difficulty. We play something from our vinyl collection almost every evening. We totally love it. Revert to digital if things get a little wonky.
This kind of talk is all way beyond my expertise. I enjoy the benefits of all his hard work. It is probably his true passion, but doesn’t pay the bills as easily as his day job.
Heh, well, if Mr. FF ever needs a speaker or speaker system part, let me know. I have a 2-story 40’ x 64’ building full of (mostly) such stuff. It’s from my life B4 I had to dump most of said life to take care of my parents...
Once an audiophile tinkerer, always an audiophile tinkerer, though, so I still do a bit with it (and need to sell this inventory without taking a huge loss!) Maybe Mr. FF needs a Scan Speak tweeter - heh-heh!
I’ll pm you an e-mail address for him to reach me at, should such a need turn up.
Heh, with the better rebate I get (through June) on the credit card I would use for Amazon. I would come out all of 8 cents cheaper on Amazon. And probably easier return if needed.
I “could” probably get away with a cheaper single adaptor that goes from NPT to the barbed end, and use a little JB Weld when I thread the NPT end into the compressor, to seal things up & strengthen the attachment. The threads “just catch”. BUT, I’d be hosed if the barbed end ever got damaged.
Between Monday night & this morning, we got 4” of rain! The thunder & lightning last night was so bad, it felt like the house shook a little bit. Creeks, etc. are out of their banks & our county schools were closed due to high water on roads.
We had to travel almost 2 hours to a place where we purchased running boards for the truck - they will be installed Friday a week. GPS took me down a lot of little back roads & I was afraid we’d hit high water & have to turn around, but we were fortunate our way was clear.
My raised beds are mud pits! It will take a couple of days for them to dry out enough to continue with what I have to plant.
And we are drier than DRY up here! (Did I spell that correctly?) My brain is dried out, LOL!
We’re supposedly getting rough weather tomorrow afternoon/evening which will bring rain, but chances of tornadoes, locust, high winds, rivers of blood, frogs, hail and whatever else the Weather Guessers (Augie!) can come up with. ;)
I’m thinking we’re going to have a drought year like we had last year - though we still managed to bring in decent crops and the garden didn’t suffer because I have a hose and I know how to use it, LOL! My Strawberries, Asparagus, Iris and Peonies all took a hit due to NO snow cover last winter, though they were covered with leaves and straw and mulch. It’s amazing what an insulating blanket of snow (before we freeze) can do for the garden.
I’ve already gone through 40 gallons of water from my rain barrel. It only takes 1/2” of rain to refill it, so I’m hopeful for tomorrow.
But, be safe! Turn around, don’t drown! ;)
I do not drive through flooding water across a road - fortunately, we did not encounter that situation. There were some deep puddles on one side, but you could drive around on dry pavement.
We just has another gully-washer storm come through that dropped another half inch per the rain gauge. My herbs & jalapeños are literally standing in puddles. I hope they don’t drown.
Bad timing for those plants that like it High & Dry! If the rain stops, and there is good drainage, they should be OK.
Feeling nervous about what tomorrow is bringing us - but my ‘locals’ like to make a big deal out of nothing, most of the time.
‘Some girls get all excited over nothing...and then they marry him!’
*SMIRK* ;)
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