Precious Metal, the phoenix from the ashes!

So I don't follow sports.  At all.  Not even the gear head "sports"- Nascar, MX, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I love the science and engineering behind all of it, but I just don't have time for that sort of thing.  That was, until last year.  I discovered the Reno Air Races through the coolest bird I've ever seen- a highly modified P-51 Mustang.

They had a pretty good run last year.  This year, only a few hours from their home base in Florida, the plane caught fire on the ground at a fueling stop.

At first, it sounded like the goose was cooked.  The cost involved with getting her back in the air was astronomical.  However, it seems I wasn't alone in my love for this plane- there was a tremendous outpouring of offered help.  Thom Richard, the pilot, retracted his statement about the days of Precious Metal being over, and issued this statement:


"Dear Race Fans,

Precious Metal is more than an airplane; she's larger than life. You have all proven it since our ground fire incident mere hours ago. The groundswell of support is humbling. So what are our options? We could throw in the towel and move on from this tragic chapter and leave the world wondering what could have been.

Or...

We could, in true Team Precious Metal fashion, NEVER GIVE UP! Precious Metal does not deserve to be parted out and disappear into the history books as a failed attempt at the World's Fastest Motor Sport. She deserves to rise out of the ashes in true Phoenix fashion and prove her worth!

Everything is repairable; it's all a matter of capital. If we can raise the necessary funding to make this happen, she will race again!

Many things have to be repaired: wings, fuselage, engine, systems, cowling and last, but not least, her famous paint scheme. The Precious Metal program is run on countless hours of dedicated volunteers and a shoestring budget. This most recent set back is too much of a financial burden for the program to handle. As we know, a setback is just a setup for a comeback. Which brings us to our proposed solution. Here's Team Precious Metal's offer to you, our fans and supporters:

We will give you one square inch on Precious Metal for a donation of $50 towards our rebuild. We will fly your picture around the course embedded in our new paint scheme and you can be part of resurrecting one of the most iconic race planes is history.

Team Precious Metal will be in Reno this year. We will have our pit and sell our team gear. Chances are we'll provide some evening entertainment as well. Come see us there and purchase your squares!

There are several ways to support our cause: through our Precious Metal gear sales, our newly invented onboard picture program, or by supporting our sponsors and purchasing their products.

There's no limit as to how many square inches you can purchase, we'll just make your picture larger! Or submit pictures of friends, family, pets or whatever you desire. Precious Metal is the people's racer. And with your support she will growl around the course again!

Make your mark in air racing history here:

US fans: https://squareup.com/market/AirRaceTeam

Foreign fans: http://warbirdadventures.com/inc/sdetail/160/3086

On a personal note, air racing has been the most rewarding experience I have ever had. Not in the form of trophies and bragging rights, but in the form of enthusiasm, excitement and dedication of the fans and crewmembers. It's been a magical life experience, which I've been very fortunate to be a part of. We, as a team, will do whatever it takes to keep the dream alive. Please join us in making history and carrying on the legacy of the World's Fastest Motor Sport!

Thank you for making it possible,

Thom Richard"

I'm writing this in hopes to see this incredible plane back in the air again.  Do your part, help out if you can!  Hoping for blue skies again for Precious Metal!

They have also set up a gofundme campaign here:  http://www.gofundme.com/dg4s583w

Old School Greene #5

The final update- all caught up now with this installment.



Cleaned the gas tank surfaces up with Acetone,



Bolted it all together,



And filled 'er up with Redkote. Seems to have worked okay, although I think I should kept it moving longer. Have a couple of thick spots I can see, but I don't think they are so thick that I'll have pockets of liquid.



I let that mess dry for about 2 weeks.

Mounted the gas tank good and tight.



Flipped it over, and got it back on skids.



My cup was just a little off. Hard to see, but the weights just barely rub on the side of the cup.



Easy fix, just jammed a big screw driver down there and pushed the side out a little bit. No more rubbing!

Got some brass plugs for all of the holes...




With the exception of the fuel tank drain. Spaced that one, but it turns out an oil drain plug from your standard 3.5 horse Briggs and Stratton fits great! Little on the long side but it worked.



SO!!!



It runs! Need to tinker with timing a bit and then see if I can crank the speed down, make it run nice and slooooowwww....

Fast forward a bit to last week. I had a chance to tinker with the timing and de-crudify the governor tension knob. Now it runs smooth and slooooww, without the clickity clack of the missed fires. Will try and get another vid of that eventually. Still need to put the cover gasket on, and now I need to find an old dead garden tractor frame to mount it to.

Good Tools-

Good tools are hard to find.  Well, not really, but good tools are reeealllly expensive.  About 12 years ago, when my wife and I were first married, I found a set of Crescent brand tools at Sams club on the clearance rack.  Keep in mind, we were both poor starving students, one about to start student teaching and the other about to have a baby (can you figure out which was me?!). We talked about it and ended up "investing" in the set, which had your basic 3 ratchets, matching metric and standard sockets, a couple of wrenches, some allen wrenches, smaller bits and accompanying driver, and 4 screw drivers.

Fast forward 12 years.  They've been used and abused, and it shows.  This poor screwdriver couldn't take it anymore, and today gave its life while tightening a stunt peg on my son's new bicycle.  You can tell just by looking at the handle what kind of life its had.  I don't even remember when it lost part of its "tooth"- think it was maybe 3 years ago.  Still worked great 


I can't tell you how many things this screwdriver has fixed over the years.  Maybe I should cut into the handle and see if I cant weld it back together.  Course, that would void the warranty.  Wonder how I go about collecting on that!?

The dryer broke.

So I have a couple of days off, and think maybe I can catch up on a few things around the house. Morning started off great, then after lunch the dryer suddenly sounds like it sucked up one of the cats and is slowly ripping its fur off.

Broke.



Nothing serious though, the pulley on the belt tensioner finally wore through and split in half. The belt was just running on the rod and rubbing on part of the pulley making a heck of a racket.





Called around, no one local had one in stock so it would have been Monday before I could fix it AND the pulley would've cost $24!

Hey, I've got a 3D printer!!! Took about 15 minutes to draw it up and about an hour to print.







Installed with the belt not routed quite right.





Well, its in and it's drying. We'll see how long it last! Saved myself about $23 bucks AND I don't have to wait 4 more days for the parts to show up, so I can catch the laundry up!

Something new: How to repair a cracked Ipad!

A couple of months ago my son managed to shatter the screen of my wife's Ipad.  Ouch.  It still worked but as we continued to use it shards of glass would fall out.  Not cool.  Got to checking and it's rather expensive to have someone fix it for you.  The glass, on the other hand, is pretty cheap!  Hey, I can fix anything, right?!

Did some research, bought some parts, and here's what I came up with.

So here's the kit and the broken Ipad. It came with the glass (digitizer), adhesive, and a pack of tools. Tools actually are pretty solid and came in handy, although I did almost all of the removal work with a putty knife.



Got the whole kit and caboodle from Amazon for $32.00 shipped. Here's the seller: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This kit did NOT come with the plastic rim piece or the foam gasket, and I would have used them if it did. I managed to re-use the plastic rim piece even though it broke while taking it out. I think with some practice you could leave the plastic in place and just pop the glass out, but I'm hoping I don't have to find that out.

New digitizer.



Read through the destructions, and watched this vid a time or two...



Bit by bit, working the glass up with the blow dryer. The heat definitely makes a huge difference. The directions said several times to WEAR SAFETY GLASSES, and I'm glad I did- several times bits of glass shattered and shot me in the face.







Woot!



Removed the 4 screws and tipped up the screen.



If you look close at the bottom left hand corner, you can see the cables that need to be unplugged. Watch the video closely, it explains very well how to get them unhooked.

All out!



Time for cleanup. Spent most of my time getting bits of old adhesive and glass slivers out of the body. Took forever. Blew it out with air, picked some more, blew it out again, wiped the screen down, repeat about 50 times.

Re-assembly wasn't to bad. Hook up the digitizer, then hook up the screen.



Flip the screen over and screw it down. Apply adhesive to the back of the glass.



Did a test fit, and like Mr. Bob said, the goofy cable is pretty hard to get to lay down in it's little slot. Finally got it to fit right, so I peeled off the adhesive backs and stuck it down.

Sweet!



It works! Have it sitting under some weights overnight to make sure the sticky stuff sticks. We'll see how well it worked in the morning. $32 bucks and a couple hours of labor is a heck of a lot better than $250!!!