…and by ‘rain’ I mean: busted angle grinder.
The work on Dorothy continues at its own pace.
This week’s been focusing on plating the radiator panel, after cutting the rust out – of which there was enough.
First plate…
We’ve got 2 thickness of plate in the workshop (1.5mm and 3mm) and I figure, as the bottom part of the plate’s gotta be double plated anyway, why not make the whole plate outta 3mm steel.
And, rather than cut rust out nice and square, I cut around the rust so we’ve got all sorts of curvy shapes goin’ on.
As Dick pointed out, welding 3mm plate onto (whatever the original steel is)mm plate (it’s not 3mm, I know that much) comes with it’s own problems.
But it was going OK. So I did what you do when shit’s going well… I sacked it off and started again – with 1.5mm plate.
Those curvy bits, tho’.
It’s a pain to get it right (ironically, the original plate I made from 3mm sheet was pretty close).
After some jiggerying and pokerying I decided it was easier to cut the radiator panel in clean, straight lines, so it’s easier to make a panel that fits well enough to weld (right angles, straight lines. Oh-so-boring-but-functional).
And that’s what I was doing, until the angle grinder had other ideas.
Faffing with plate: 1 hour.
Faffing with angle grinder: 4 hours.
Owning an old Land Rover (and having worked on your own cars all your life) you don’t just bin an angle grinder, that’s lighting up like bonfire night and is too hot to handle for about an hour (yeah, it was frickin’ scalding hot).
I took it apart. Had a look. Couldn’t see anything out of sorts. So cleaned it out, greased it up, and bolted it back together.
Still the same.
Long story short… one of the motor brushes wasn’t right. It was that that was sparking like a good’un.
Took it apart, whipped the brush out (‘whipped it out’, yeah, as easy as that), promptly broke it and ended up going all ‘got nothing to lose’ on it and superglued it back into place.
BANG.
Fair enough. One dead angle grinder. (I changed the fuse, of course, but the grinder was blown)
At least I had a go.
End result this week is, not got much further than last weekend.
But the important thing is we got a little further – just a little bit, but I’ll take that win.
The goal is to have the plate welded in place by next weekend, so the rad panel can be ticked off and we move onto the next thing.
Also: I think I’m gonna leave it bare metal. Obviously lacquer it. But the idea isn’t to restore Dorothy to factory condition. That’s really not my thang.
The goal is to get her all complete, but wearing her life on the outside for all to see.
#fuckyeahpatina
Old Landys Rule!
Cheers, Phil.