[papercreters] Papercrete purgatory

Yesterday was an interesting day.

This week I attached another 14.4' geodesic frame outside the door of the dome I'm living in now, an added 165 sq.ft. of space. This dome will be the "door dome", with four doors. One door leads into the dome I'm now in, one opens SW toward a driveway, one opens N to a well used pathway, and one opens S for the eventual connection of a 24' frame (450 sq.ft.) I acquired this week.

So, with the frame in place I thought it was time to start mixing pc for the slab. I got set up with my spray washer and a drum, and started the first batch. About halfway through, the sprayer stopped. Thinking it was out of gas, I grabbed a can and topped off the tank. When I pulled the start rope it was difficult to pull, so much so that I could not get the engine to turn over. It must be a stuck valve in the pump, maybe. I let it sit a few minutes, and it started normally. As soon as I started spraying it stopped again. It was even harder to pull the start rope, and it kicked back really hard. At first I thought it may have broken a finger! Thankfully it was just numb for a while.

Well, with that mixer down, I next turned to my no-tow mixer, which hasn't been used in a while. The truck that drives it refused to start. After some troubleshooting I narrowed the problem down to the fuel pump. I don't know why a 52 year young fuel pump would give up the ghost, but no gas was getting to the carb. I called auto parts stores and found that amazingly there is an original fuel pump for a 1959 Apache available in El Paso, though 50 miles from where I live. The parts store said they will have it brought to a store that is only ten miles away, sometime today.

Back to the original goal of slinging some slurry, I moved on to an electric mixer that I have been working on a bit. It started fine, and was mixing well, except that the extension cord was too small for the load, and caused voltage drop, causing increased amperage and heat, eventually tripping the circuit breaker. A 1hp motor is right at the limits of a 20A circuit breaker under the best conditions, and these were not the best conditions. I'll have to make a larger feeder for the motor.

Strike three - I gave up! I moved on to welding some door braces on the dome, and before long (after a day of frustration and non-production) it got to be beer thirty. A couple of friends stopped by and we built a fire. A few hours of admiring the waxing moon and the milky way took away most of the pain.

Today will be a better day :)



--
spaceman

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