Friday Night Adventure Walk

Tonight was such a nice night, we had to 

don our capes and walk around the property:

Sickle Mower Project - Update

I've been slowly tearing parts and pieces off that old C22 Cub sickle mower.  I intend to tear it down, clean it up, then modify it to mount on the front of my JD420 lawn mower. 

I have most of the sickle portion broken down, and in the midst of cleaning, priming, and painting.  I'm painting this IH mower green instead of red.  I hope that isn't a sin.

Here are some various pieces - pitman arm end pieces / the main arm, and other various small pieces.  I'm using the Rust-Oleum version of John Deere Green from a home improvement store - it's about a third of the cost as the real stuff from a dealer. Currently, I have $4.75 wrapped up in paint.

I took off all the rock guards on the main bar, and cleaned it up.  It's so  much easier to work on clean equipment than rusty / greasy equipment.

Various nuts and bolts and such.

A short PTO shaft for coming out the front.  It now swivels as it should.

Progress is slow, and that's OK.  I have no deadline for this project, so it's fun to do things as time allows.  No rush and no stress.

A New Bolt

I've seen lots of bolts and nuts, but I just found a new one.

This is a square headed flat head bolt.  It is a 1/2-13 NC bolt.  They came off my old sickle bar mower project - they hold the long bar plate to the shoe.  I'm sure they have never been taken off, at least in the last 50 years.  Threads are a bit thin, but I'm amazed at that tapered square head.

And I'm even more amazed at the mating plate that it fits into.  As a wanna-be machinist, I'm not too sure how they made that tapered square hole for the bolt to sit in.  I've never been able to make square inside corners, let alone on a taper.  I don't know how they did this 65 years ago.

I thought about trying to take a standard hex bolt and make some new bolts of this style, but I don't really know where to begin.  I think I'll just clean up my old bolts and hope they don't break when I torque them down.  

Neat stuff.