Hammer Time! Oh Wait that was how you fix a military vehicle.

This was another good week of work.  School is out so I have a lot of projects I need to complete before the kids come tear everything up again.  I guess I got job security that way.

I will start off with my Saturday afternoon project after spending a very long morning responding to emails.  Things are really picking up here.  We have a group coming over in September of this year and already two groups starting the process to build teams for 2017.  The Full Dimension Ministry wish list is going well with lots of items already funded. 

So I wanted to relax for a little while and I have had a picture of a bracelet on my computer for awhile now and had not figured out how they made it.  Fortunately I brought everything I needed to make the attempt.  I am using a bead made of cow bone as the button.  This caused two significant deviations from the picture I was seeing.  First the hole is so small I could only get the very thin yarn to go  through.  Second it is a bead and not a button so the hole goes all the way from one side to the other instead of a central hole to work with.  This means the button slides around a little.

It was not hard to guess the pattern they used but the thin yarn made working that pattern very difficult.  After several sizing adjustments I finally got it down.  It took about an hour to figure out and complete.  I will try again with a stiffer yarn (actually fishing twine) that will not fray or stretch as much and also try to get a button that I can use thicker yarn with.

Now to the work week.  I finally got to installing the chair rail in the pre-school in an attempt to keep the constant motion of the desks from damaging the walls again.  One of the big factors is the wood when purchased is still a little wet or green and needs to dry before being used.  In the drying  process the wood warps even if I keep weight and straps to hold it in a specific space.  Fortunately this wood did not warp as bad as others due to my precautions and was still usable.

Hopefully you can see how the wood does not line up perfectly

After planing the bark off, sanding smooth (which by the way is a great workout for the arms) and then staining it was ready to be installed.  

I had also noticed last years single coat of paint to the exterior of the building was not good enough so I started applying a second coat.  

The big change up this week was that I had to dust off my mechanic skills which are probably some of my least used.  I have had a problem with the truck and it has been worked on by three different mechanics all who simply wrapped a little electrical tape on the horn and said all done.  Basically every time it rained or I get the vehicle washed the horn shorts out and starts blaring without stopping.  One mechanic actually made it worse by getting the same problem to occur every time I hit a bump (really it might as well have just stayed on).

So now it was my turn.  To make matters worse this was a vehicle electrical problem which I really like to avoid at all costs.  But you have to have a horn here.  Not for the constant blowing it at pedestrians to exert your power over them in very annoying fashion.  But to tell all the vehicles that want to occupy the space your vehicle is currently occupying to move on.

So I started by taking a water bottle and pouring it on all the likely spots (every 5 cms where there is a splice in the line wrapped in electrical tape.  But it was at the big junction it went off and would not stop.  This was under the air filter assembly so all that had to come out.

Then after removing about four rolls of electrical tape so old it was either unable to stick to anything, melted or crumbling in my hands.  Finally I found what I feel must be the culprit.  The power line is spliced into something else I was not able to track down.  When I say splice I might not be explaining it correctly.  The one wire was stripped for half an inch then the horn wire was shoved through it.

I did my best to correct and then use a couple of rolls of electrical tape to seal it all up again then wrap everything in duct tape.  Can't wait to wash the truck this weekend and see if it works.

The reason however that I decided to quit putting that task off was that someone broke the rear door lock on the vehicle.  Even after showing how it works it still got broken.  I have to secure items when shopping in town so I had to fix it.  Unfortunately it is a small piece of plastic that retains one piece of metal going through a hole in another piece of metal that broke and it has to be replaced.  I did rig up a temp fix that will be tested on the roads here but it still works after one trip.

the piece of plastic on the other end that I will have to replace

The temp fix is a little rough since I could not get more than two fingers in the space at one time.  I had to slide the camera in sideways to get a picture.