Throwing Good Money After Bad

One of the things I did the other day making room to work on Whisker Seeker out of the sun was make some big hooks for things for extension cords, flex conduit, extra stock air, wire, cable, liquid, and oil lines, etc. It took up more space on the floor than you might think. The process is pretty easy. Bend a 180 degree hook in a piece of conduit with a conduit bender. Then cut it off leaving a little straight section on one side of the hook which is smashed flat between two plates on the 12 ton hydraulic press. This leaves an excellent flat to drill holes for mounting screws. It worked just like it has in the past and I got a lot of things up off the floor. Sadly something blew out on the air over hydraulic jack as I was pressing the last couple hooks.

I’ve been debating over the last week (been busy with other things) repairing it or replacing it.

Well, I did it. I ordered another air over hydraulic jack from Harbor Freight. I mean the first one only lasted 20+ years. How can I expect any better out of its replacement. (Shakes head.)

I was sucked in by an advertisement. They manipulated my brain with subliminal advertising. My eyes saw a jack, but my mind saw a super model. I thought… “gee my wife might have an issue with this,” but I convinced myself otherwise. “Its only a jack. She won’t mind. Really.” Then I saw the parking lot sale price “in store and online.” I bought two of them in case one gets tired or has a headache… Errr I mean blows a seal or wears out.

Nah, the plan is to do what I should have done years ago. Throw one on the 20 ton press, and retired the 12 ton to the scrap metal rack out back. The second is because sometimes it is really handy to just have a loose air over jack in the shop, and now I won’t have to lever it on and off the press when I need one. With the sale prices it was $30 cheaper than the 12 ton.

Of course if I ever have a spare moment in the shop without something actually important to do I’ll take a look at the 20 year old 12 ton and see if I can fix it too. Nah I’ll probably just logon to this blog and blather on about something or another.

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I also ordered a battery operated hot glue gun and a battery operated spotlight that use the Bauer batteries, because well why not.

(Subliminal advertising again. In my mind I saw professional cheerleaders.)

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Hmmm…. at first I was just going to post this under Bob’s Other Projects, but it is actually related to Another Boat Project That Will Probably Never Be Finished as well.