John Deere Green, with a chainlink twist.

Update on my John Deere 314 project.
My brother bought a 4 wheeler that came with a plow, so he lent me his blade. Got it all mounted up just fine.



Even tried it out!



There's a big low spot right there that always turns into a giant puddle. The tractor worked pretty good, still need to do some tuning on the carb it seems. After about 15 minutes of work though, I think I busted the bolt I installed in the drive line. Quit moving and had no hydraulics. Got to pull the pan up and check the bolt. In the meantime I picked up this,



So I can mount it at the same time I pull the pan back off to see what happened with the drive line.

AND! Finally went over to my brothers neighbor and settled on a price for some more attachements. I bought a tiller and a blower from him and he threw in a deck for free. The deck is REALLY rough though so I might not end up using it. Not sure what kind of shape the tiller and blower are in but for the price he asked I really don't care as long as they are complete. Looks like I should have everything I need except the belt director box that hangs under the front of the tractor when you want to use the deck.

A few days later :

Went to our local CAL ranch store. Getting real sick of their crappy hardware selection, and on top of that it hasn't been cleaned, sorted, or RESTOCKED in several months so all of the stuff you would normally need is out of stock. AND- No frickin pens to write down your parts. Almost tempted to go pay the higher prices at Fastenal. *sigh*

Anyways, here's what I finally came up with based on the limited selection they had. Just took an allen bolt and turned down the end, and reused the original set screw on the other side. Seems to be a lot more solid.





Got it installed and loctited, set the pan on with some new bolts, and installed the new seat. Again, CAL ranch didn't have the right stuff so I had to improvise a bit, but it is bolted down and not moving.

Now for the fun stuff. Couldn't bring myself to pay the price for a used steering wheel, and mainly didn't want to wait a week to get it so I sat down this afternoon with some scraps and this is what I came up with.

Wrap some old chain around a 5 gallon bucket and tack weld it.



Note- it WILL melt bits of the bucket...

WELD the back side.



Fabricate some spokes.



Attach spokes to wheel.





Improvise alignment tool to get wheel "pretty darn" straight, and tack weld.





Weld it, sand blast it, and wire wheel it.



Slap a coat of paint on it and Bob's your uncle!



You can see where the square piece busted out the center of the plastic wheel. I reused that on the new one- and its pretty much just an interference fit inside the square tube at the center of the new wheel. Might eventually weld it, we'll see how it lasts.

Installed.





Ran it around pushing dirt / gravel, seemed to work great. Steering wheel is solid, seat is comfy, and I even gouged the blade in hard a time or two and the driveline didn't break! (knock on wood)

Now to get the deck, tiller, and snow thrower down here.

Some LEATHER.

Been working on this case for my wife's Ipad in hopes that the next time my boys drop it, I wont have to replace the digitizer... (you may have read about the replacement process a few posts ago).

I had done some 'figurin a year or so ago.  Just think, if I'da built it then I wouldn't have had to replace the screen!  Laid it out and started cutting.





Tried something new- molding the leather by soaking it and keeping it formed to the shape I wanted until it dried out. Had to make an Ipad "blank" to hold the shape but it seems to have worked pretty well!  Also the first time I've ever used a stitching awl.  Pretty sad considering I teach leather working in one of my classes...





All molded and ready for some stain / super sheen.



Viola.  I used Range Tan for the stain and whatever Tandy sells as Super Sheen- Superflow something or other...  *LOVE* how the color turned out, kind of has a distressed look.







Can you see the one thing I forgot to do?!!?





Yup, its missing the hole for the charger.  Oh well... Don't think it will be to hard to pull a few stitches out and cut a hole there.



Might still add a handle and make a few changes but she's going to use it for a while and we'll see how it works.  Almost makes me want to give up the Stainless Steel one I made for mine!  The leather sure is lighter!

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!!!