Birthday Work Celebration

I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes via facebook.  I especially want to thank T. Welborn and my parents for the very cute cards sent via post.  A lot of folks asked what I did for my birthday.  Well I spent the majority of my birthday gearing up for a next stage in our current big project, though one of my Peace Corp Volunteer friends took me out to breakfast and we got in a couple of games of cribbage, which she won (she is on a roll right now). 

Since many of the folks I know back home do a birthday month celebration, I thought I would combine these two weeks and discuss the things I was doing to celebrate my birthday this time.  As many of you remember last year was a big number of importance, but this year it is just a regular number with no mathematical significance. 

So to preface any discussion of the thing I have been doing these last couple of weeks I need to first discuss the weather.  Technically we are in what would be consider by most as the winter months.  I say technically because that description only has to do with the fact that we are in the southern hemisphere which is now tilted away from the sun which causes shorter days.  However because we are only a couple of degrees off the equator the effect is small, maybe a half hour shorter?  The temperature however has actually risen these last couple of weeks.  In fact over the last three weeks in the valley it has averaged with a high of 116 degrees and an average low of 59 degrees.  I actually documented several of the days but thought I would show you the high from a day of work at 118 degrees with 16% relative humidity.

The good thing about the heat is it seems to cause the reverse in my blood sugar which is averaging 57 lately with all the work.  The heat seems to add to the physicality of the work being performed as well making even small tasks appear to require all my strength.  I am often reminded of the Wet Bulb temperature guidelines.  I always remember the broadcasts on base that would require the marines to go inside, regular army to remove their outer shirts and unblouse their pants, and my unit to run the obstacle course in chemical warfare gear.  (just kidding marines, I think you guys had the same guidelines as the regular army).  It was weeks like this I was glad for the harder life in the military.

On to the work.  The week before last started the first week of our pre-school work.  This is the week I had the least to do at the pre-school itself.  We hired contractors to bust up the top of our pre-school floor which was in pretty bad shape and prepare it for a new floor.  Monday morning I picked up the materials for the work to be performed including 10 bags of 100 lbs of cement.  There was another big item in the truck but I will get to it later.  Once on site with the cement we lined everything up for the following day and the contractors placed (not poured) our new floor.  As always they did a smooth finish on top as is the tradition here, though I would love to convince them to stop.  By doing so they overwork the concrete and bring all the fine material to the top making the surface weaker leading to the many pockmarked floors on site.

 

the floor after removing the top layer

the debris from the damaged floor

hauling water from the other side of the site to the pre-school for the concrete mix

they did this to help hold water in areas for a longer period of time

repairing the clinic porch

While they did that I worked to finish the latrine work painting fascia boards and doors.  In addition I made choo (rhymes with go) stoppers.  That sounds better than latrine stoppers.  This will reduce the flies and gases in the main room.  Speaking of the flies I tried to clean the dead ones off the walls where they went to the paint while it was wet.  Unfortunately they are fully embedded into the paint and only an abrasive scrub will remove them it seems.  I guess we keep the decorative effect.

Next was to fix some of the pre-school desks.  The worst one had a broken top.  As I was looking at the top I realized the front piece was nailed into it and the only way to fix it was to break off the top part of the front.  Murphy’s law guided this decision.  If I had tried to remove the front piece it would have broken somewhere I could not repair it and I would have to replace it also.  So I broke it off using a chisel even with the rest of the desk.  I made the top about ½ wider to cover the front piece and then took the plane and sand paper to the desk to get everything flat.  After that I planed and sanded the new top smooth and varnished it.  Unfortunately the stain available is different from what was used originally so there is a difference even I can tell. Other than color though it came out nicely covering the front piece completely.

 

original broken top

removing the front part that was nailed into the top

planing, chiseling and sanding down the front part

sanded and planed board next to original

after varnish

the repaired desk top

even managed to countersink the screws-yes screws to fix things with later not nails

Now to the other piece of equipment that was in the truck.  Again I need to take the time to thank all my supporters as you were the ones who made this purchase a reality.  Recently I convinced those that control the money to use the generator fund to buy of all things a generator.  Only I found a generator/welder unit all in one that was going to do some great things in the valley area.  So took the money I had been saving up to work on my house and paid the 43% that was not covered by the generator money.  What was the old Home Depot bumper sticker “Big Boy Toy Store.”  While this is a tool for the site it also felt like a big boy toy to me.  It has been over 20 years since I welded pipe. 

Unfortunately I have discussed the lack of safety equipment for the welders in town.  Turns out the reason is availability of both good safety equipment but decent equipment.  At least the unit I bought not only had welding capability but also current control so I knew we could get it hot enough to actually melt the metals being welded together.

So the first week I had just the generator portion and a side grinder I purchased with it.  I had to make an electrical cable to use with it.  We are in Africa after all and nothing is easy.  The unit came with the specialty plug used on the device but that was it, so I bought some heavy duty electrical wire (about three times the size of the wire used for our DC lighting) and the heaviest duty outlet box I could find.  After wiring up the plug and box I rolled the unit through the loose sand to the playground equipment to cut off the bottom chain and remove the current seats on the swing which needed to be replaced.  I also grinded down the old welds on the frame to prepare it for next week.

 

debris in pipe that I needed to grind down-note broken welds which is bad

had to cut bottom chain link to create a new spot for the bolts I am going to weld in

One thing I did while I had a side grinder and cutting disc was to experiment with a way to reduce cost on repairing the roof on the medical clinic.  yes this is the roof that was replaced just before I arrived here.  The contractor went along the edge and cut the roof back to account for the poor installation unfortunately it looks ugly but in addition it is now short of the fascia board in many areas and not actually reaching the gutters.  So we will most likely have to replace the bottom row of roof panels all the way around over 50% of the new roof.  My attempts have been to create edging that would have a clean enough edge it would look right and would provide enough edge to go past the fascia board and to the gutters.  I looked for a month to find it but they only sell edging for higher end roof products.  So here is my attempt to make some edging.  Still a little bit of ragged edge but much better than what is there.

tape to hold it in place but to also control the edge as well as mark my cut

after the cut

overall just a little rough but much better that what is there

about the worst burr on the cut

To finish out the week I dealt with another big issue facing the project.  We want to dig out 6 inches of dirt and place sand to make our playground a little safer for the kids since we don’t have any of the cool playground soft material.  The problem started with the fact a supply and demand economy is not present here.  Currently nobody has any work because their crops are dead due to the drought.  That also means they are not selling any crops so they have no money.  While I was not intending to take advantage of the situation, I was hoping we would get a decent price on digging the area out.  What I got was astronomical in scale like I asked them to build me a space shuttle.  So I employed a technique I learned a long time ago, make them realize they are out of bounds.  I started digging up the area.  I spent one afternoon (the day it was 118) digging a trench line around the area I wanted dug out and then the next two mornings I started the digging process.  The dirty is hard packed and dry meaning it is like rock.  When I am home the solution is to dig a little, soak the area with water and then dig a little more and repeat.  Here there is no water for that so I just had to use a mattock to break up the soil then dig it up.  I am currently hauling the soil to the pre-school building to replace soil that has washed away due to soil erosion and recover the foundation.  In my two mornings I accomplished 180 square feet or 11% of the area we need dug out.  Funny but they sent a new price that was about 1/3 the original price after that.  Still slightly high but not so much that we will not do it.

For my birthday weekend I spent the entire time looking for welding equipment.  The main things I needed were the welding helmet, welding gloves, wire to make the leads from and a grounding clamp.  The electrode holder was easy to find.  The rest not so much.  It took the entire weekend and a lot of walking but I finally had 12 meters of wire.  It actually was from an automotive store, the one that sells wire to replace the cables you connect your car battery to.  He was very surprised I wanted 12 meters (roughly 18 feet per lead since I needed a positive and negative lead).  I had hoped to find jumper cables I could convert but they were too short.  However I ended up buy them to get a clamp to use as my negative clamp.  The fun part of buying the wire was when the guy went to cut it he brought out a hacksaw blade-not a hacksaw just the blade.  It took him about 5 minutes to cut through it. 

jumper cables only about 4 or 5 feet long-a little short for a diesel powered generator where
you want to be far enough away not to set it on fire

scavenged clamp for grounding clamp

battery cable/welding lead wire

The helmets were a lot of fun to find.  They were cheap but everybody showed me something different.  Fortunately the place I bought the welder from got their order in and had the kind I like.  I went ahead and bought one of the others as well so I can use them for teaching folks on site how to weld.

welding hood, gloves and 6013 rods

Another big thank you to the Gordons for the straps that allowed me to carry a load of metal and wood to the site and actually expect it to be there on top when we arrived.  The local method are these black elastic straps that tend to snap like a rubber band any time you put enough force on it to tie something securely.

After spending almost the entire weekend hunting for materials and a large chunk dealing with an email that was a complete waste of my time it was time to get back to work.  I started the week by making up the leads for the welder.  Then I brought the main pole of the swing set over to the tool room and welded up the new bolts for the swing seats and repaired some of the chain pieces.  Then I welded on angle iron for the new middle supports.

I installed the two supports and welded them in after digging their holes.  I decided to put them at differing angles to create a counter effect to the swinging motion and relative moment forces that would be acting. In addition I welded on flat iron straps from the support poles over the main swing pole and back to the other side of the support pole.   It was a bit of overkill but considering the fact I never found any electrodes other than 6013 which is a tacking rod I wanted to be sure.

note all the dead dry grass around the hole I will be welding above

note all the sand we moved in to make it fire safe

One of the big concerns was the fact we are in a drought year and well into the period when no rain would fall anyway so the grass is dry.  I had to come up with a way to prevent fires while I was up on a ladder welding since the fire would start directly below me.  In addition if one started I am not sure how we would stop it if it got loose.  So I had a bucket of water on hand.  I placed sand all around the areas I would be welding to completely cover the grass and had additional sand on hand to use if one started and the water bucket did not do the trick.   Fortunately these methods worked and I had not fires except with the debris from bugs inside the poles but that was self-contained.  I kept fires from happening but did not have a good shirt for this but needed to wear a long sleeve one to prevent too many burns.

all the black spots are where the shirt was melted by hot slag

All in all not my prettiest welds but they are strong welds and put them all to the test with a hammer trying to break them as well as putting stress on the chains at all angles and yanking them every which way-hey isn’t that an Eastwood film. 

Next up was the blackboard in the pre-school.  The old one had several pits and various damage to it.  So I decided instead of just repainting to give it a coat of drywall plaster.  Of course here it is dry and you mix it yourself.  Fortunately I had done some of that in the military as well by repairing the house of horrors after every assault. 

While waiting on that to dry I started painting the walls.  I hope this paint dries a lighter color because my golden yellow looks more like Grey Poupon mustard while it is wet.

Last up was to mix and pour concrete around the poles on the swing set and then fix the concrete at the slide.  It has several edges exposed that are sharp so I wanted to bust them off.

before

after

So that is the beginning of my birthday month celebration.  Still to come would be the complete painting inside and out of the pre-school, planning sanding and painting the boards for the new swing set, trying to make a see saw from an old tire,

So I would say I am having a fun birthday-but I do wish the Peru team would come over so we could knock out the digging ourselves.