I just had several days off though, and got a couple of projects completed that I'd wanted to work on for a while.
Shortly before Christmas, I was working on a project that required quite a bit of sanding using a palm sander. As usual, I was listening to music, but I had to crank the volume up quite a bit to hear it over the very loud palm sander.
I didn't want to shake the building apart by playing music over the main speakers. The main speakers are a pair of Pioneer CS-G403s. While the sound fidelity leaves a lot to be desired, they do have 15" bass drivers, and they deliver *a lot* of boom and floor vibration. The wife can tell in the house when I have things cranked up in the shop - so it probably annoys the neighbors as well.
Below: An old photo showing the recently-installed main speakers. I've since added safety rails. I intend to replace these main speakers before too long with some home-made Voight pipes.
Rather than crank up the main speakers, I switched to the aux speakers and turned the volume way the heck up. Unfortunately, the aux speakers were a cheap set of home theater speakers, and weren't really up to what I was asking of them. They quit working after a few minutes, and I was left to finish the job to the howl of the palm sander playing solo.
Below: Fried aux speaker. The main driver is maybe 3" across. The brand is AudioSource.
I took the speaker apart and checked the coil with a meter. Nada. It was deceased.
I decided to replace the blown pair of speakers with a higher quality pair, ones that could deal with the amplifier's power output. It's not an expensive or high quality amplifier, but it can put out a fair amount of wattage. On the back, it says that power consumption is 240 Watts. Divide that by 4 channels (Left and Right, A and B speakers), that's 60 Watts per speaker.
I bought these little bookshelf speakers that can handle 50 Watts. I don't plan on turning the volume up to eleven, so that should be enough. These are about twice the size of the speakers they replaced. The frequency response is pretty good for such a small speaker: 70Hz to 20,000 Hz. I could add a subwoofer if I wanted full bass, but it's a work shop full of sawdust, not an audiophile room.
For the price ($60 for the pair), these are very nice little speakers. They are Rockville 64C speakers with 6.5" kevlar bass drivers. They sound a million times better than the speakers they replaced. Those were pretty tinny. They even sond better than the main speakers - they deliver lower tones without being boomy. The new speakers came with a short length of speaker wire, and two different color grilles - gray and black. The grilles attach via magnets at each corner. Each speaker box also has magnets embedded in each corner.
I'm going with the bare look, because I don't anticipate damage to the speakers where they are located.
The next project required stimulants. A variety of them, in fact.
This is a No. 20 Cast iron, three legged kettle. The previous owner allowed it to get wet, over long periods of time. It's been on my project list for quite a while now. The drill is there for scale.
Doesn't look so good on the bottom, either. A big project. Note the color of the concrete floor in the before photos.
Brand new wire wheel. Go time!
Finished with the first pass. I breathed in a lot of iron, as well as setting off the smoke detector. I really should get a good respirator.
Second pass finished. I also filed down some of the casting marks that had a tendency to snag on clothing. Image below is just prior to cleaning and spraying with Permetex 81849 rust treatment spray. Amazing stuff!
Below: Krylon automotive primer drying.
Below: Finished with a coat of flat black enamel. It's a little bit shiny in places because the paint is uneven and so is the surface. It still looks better than when I started!
This was darn near a full-day long project. The worst parts were rust removal and surface prep. The easiest and quickest were primer and paint.
3 comments:
Yep, shift workers know the routine. I have worked the November & December holidays the last 4 years. The money is good but it would be nice once in awhile to spend the holidays with family. I will be retired before I rotate off that schedule! But the key point is that retirement is only a year or maybe 2 years away. Happy happy!
I hear ya Eric! I got to work nights this year Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day.
I'm looking forward to retirement as well. If healthcare wasn't such a crap-shoot, I'd retire tomorrow and let some young feller have this job. At this point though, it's best just to hang in there until I'm old enough for Medicare. Don't want to go bankrupt just because the old appendix decides to go tits-up at some point.
Let me know when you retire, I'll tip one for you!
Well, I'm happy to say I am retired. A bit of a long story that I'd be happy to go into at such a day/time when I can make a trip up there. Hopefully Medicare will be coming along in a year or two. Story on that is the same as the retired one. Great work on the iron pot! Also think I'd cover the speakers anyway, but then again I tend to be a bit of a klutz.
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