A Little Sight-Seeing In Montana

There were a bunch of things I saw on the way to Billings. Here is a small sample.


This picture shows a Black Angus calf that somehow got outside of the fence and is so scared, he backed himself up against the fence post behind him, looking for something that might want to harm him. Meanwhile, Momma cow is right next to him on the inside of the fenceline, looking as though she is worried about his safety. I hope Farmer Bob shows up soon to reunite the pair.

It's a little hard to see, but the white dots in the distance is a small herd of pronghorns grazing in the field. When I tried to get closer, they were gone.

This is a bridge over the Powder River. The next image explains some of its history.

Yep, and I was over by Little Big Horn, the place of "Custer's Last Stand".

The sunsets are beautiful too. Unfortunately, the digital camera really doesn't do proper justice to Nature's display.

Working In Montana

Howdy from Montana!

After flying into Billings then driving out to Miles City yesterday, I continued my journey east-bound towards Baker Montana for a grand total of 216 miles one-way. I arrived at this air injection station that has 8 medium voltage compressors installed. The air injection is used for pressurizing an oil deposit pocket so it practically forces the oil out of the ground.

Here is one of soft starter 4 lineups installed in the MCC room.

Here we are, rebuilding SCR stack assemblies.

After removing this SCR and cutting it open, I could see it had burned from the outer edge, which is a strong indication of a voltage failure.

This SCR has a circular burn at the gate/cathode interface. Could be a current failure, could be gating.

This SCR was so damaged that it fused together and can't be pried apart for inspection without destroying it.

This is the reciprocating compressor that the starter we rebuilt is operating.

After the rebuild was done, the motor was started twice then left on. Since everything looked good, I packed my tools and left the site to head back to Billings.

Quick Update

Time has been moving along, hasn't it? I have a few pics I want to upload, but they're on my office computer and seeing as I'm presently in Miles City, Montana, I won't be getting to them for a bit.

As for Montana, I'm going to have to rebuild a soft starter tomorrow because it shorted some SCRs. After that, I hope to get back by Friday night, just in time to prepare to fly out on Monday for a week-long training seminar I'm putting on in Nashville, Tenessee.

As I mentioned before, Jaime is staying with us for a while (Luann's niece) and she is doing very well in school. Looks like both girls are solid A+ students. Katrina's volleyball season is just about over, they play their final game tomorrow. I was hoping to be at her final game, but Montana is just a bit far away from home.

Of course work is still proceeding on the sailboat. I finally did get all new lines (ropes) for the running rigging and a new anchor rope w/chain. The cockpit finally has been primed, painted and the textured surfaces were given the blue/gray treatment like the rest of the boat. I mounted the 7.5 hp Johnson motor on the back of Udara Tanda and started checking it out. Turns out, it's not making any spark. I searched the internet and found some troubleshooting procedures for the electronic ignition. Looks like the firing module is bad, so I ordered one for $50.00. I'll find out if the module was the problem when the new one gets in. I also ordered new hank clips for the jib sail as the old ones were pretty beat. The type I ordered have a snap bail on them instead of the original piston type. I decided to get the snap bail type because I can hook the jib sail on the forestay with one hand instead of needing both hands for the old piston type. I also ordered a big spool of thread so I can sew up the sails to get the patches in nice. Keeping Dean's advice in mind, I need to cut my teeth learning to handle the sailboat with sails that are a bit loose and forgiving. After a while, I'll look into replacing them and getting a 150% Genoa sail too. Perhaps even an asymetrical spinnaker. We've discovered the boat has all of the rigging on her to handle these other two sails, so why not?


Luann, Katrina, my cousin Karen and I went to Lakeland to see Bill Engvall do a comedy bit there (September 9th) and boy, it was worth it! He had us in stitches during the show and even all the way back to the house (Luann bought one of his CDs and we listened to it in the car on the way home).

Well, gotta go. I'll try to have something put up on the blog after tomorrow's activities.

It's Getting Closer...

Here are some more shots of even more work on the boat.

This one shows the hatch cover I made out of the teflon material I used for the trailer. You can see the hardware for the lock is installed too.

The stern rail has been installed so I could mount the lifelines. I bought some tubing to bend to shape for both the bow and stern rails, but I have no time to do it right now, so I think I'll leave it like this for a couple of outings.

Here is the motor mount bolted on the transom. Katrina crawled inside and did the fastener work. Afterwards, she discovered she had been laying in some fiberglass and had a bad case of the fiberglass itch. A cold shower helped out (a bit). I'm planning on wrapping the top portion of the motor mount board with stainless plate so it doesn't get chewed up from mounting and dis-mounting the motor.

Here is a straight-on view of the motor mount.

This is a connector on the safety line (life line) that runs from front to back on each side of the boat. It's called a pelican hook, and I had these put on the life lines so it is easier to get in and out of the boat. When we went to bring the sailboat home in April, we had a devil of a time climbing over the lifelines, trying hard not to fall flat on our faces. This way, the pelican hook can be opened and clipped off to the side so we can board Udara Tanda without climbing over the life lines.

There is still quite a bit of work left to do. The wood trim for the portholes needs to be reinstalled and then the portholes put back in. Then the wood trim on the sides of the cabin needs to be made up from the teak corner section we bought from Sailorman.com and installed. Eventually, the boarding ladder needs to be re-mounted on the transom. We haven't decided if we want to replace it, since we haven't had a chance to try it out while the boat is in the water, so we'll make up our minds about it later. Once all of the hull work is done, it will be time to 'step' the mast and check all of the stays and the boom. I'm already working on buying the lines and sheets (ropes) to re-outfit all of the running rigging, then somewhere in here, I'm going to have to do a little sewing on the sails to clean up a few unraveled stitches and replace a couple of damaged guide slugs too. When everything has been mounted and the lines are in place, I'll then take measurements so we can get a bimini top to keep the sun off of us. Charlie is planning on bringing a 10-foot length of 2 x 3-inch square tubing he picked up from Magic-Tilt trailers so I can lengthen the tongue on the trailer to keep from giving the Magnum a rear-facing drink when we launch the sailboat.

New Motor Mount Board

After looking into a plastic replacement for the outboard motor mount, I decided to make one out red oak and coat it with Cetol wood preservative. I used the original piece that was made out of plywood as a pattern for the outline and mounting bolt holes.

I used a piece of 1" x 12" x 24" and cut it into two pieces so the grain on the outer sections is aligned vertically. Next, I copied the original pattern onto a piece of light construction paper. The pattern was transferred onto one of the pieces, the pattern was cut out with a jigsaw then the mounting holes were drilled through it. The shape was then transferred to the second piece after corresponding holes were drilled into it and the 2 sections were bolted together. After both shapes were sanded until they matched and no seam could be felt between them, a 3/8" x 6" x 24" piece of red oak was cut in half and stacked one over the other so the inner layer of wood would have a grain that runs at 90 degrees to the outer layers. After this, the mounting holes were marked off and drilled through the center layer. The final steps were to make one more pass around the perimeter of this 'sandwich' with the jigsaw, then sand the whole thing smooth, mount it, and coat it with Cetol wood preservative. A couple more coats, then I'll probably end up putting the motor mount back on this weekend.

There's Got To Be A Morning After...

Work that has slowly progressed so far has been to finish putting in all of the fittings, start putting in the stanchions for the lifelines that go around the perimeter and install the front hatch. We also installed the rubber 'rub rails' around the perimeter of the hull and bolted them into place with the bronze corner moldings we polished up. Now you can see why I placed the gold lettering a bit low on the navy blue stripe.

This picture shows the hatch is now installed. Next, I will be installing a waterproof wiring fitting next to the tabernacle that I'm going to use to connect up the mast lights to the cabin. I'll have a better picture after it is installed.

Here is the work area on the port side of the sailboat which shows the table and all of the supplies I have been using to get Udara Tanda 'ship-shape'.

The bow rail has been installed, mainly to 'plant' the bases and get a measurement for the new lifelines. The 12 foot long aluminum tubing I ordered so I could bend up a replacement for the worn out bow rail finally arrived, and I ordered another one to make up the stern rail too.

Here is Jaime, up bright and early, working on her science homework. Her task was to spend 15 minutes each day for a week and observe the environment around her, then take notes. She was quite surprised to see all of the activity from the wide array of critters we have in our yard. She definitely had plenty of variety to write about every day. And talk about fascinated with lizards... she hasn't been able to catch one yet, so every once in a while I'll catch one of the literally hundreds of lizards in the yard and hand it to her. She can't seem to get enough of playing with them, then putting them back where I found them...

The Suzuki Moves On

Charlie came by for a visit and brought little Sammy with him. The girls had some fun together and we went to the beach on Sunday (Luann took the beach pictures, I'll have to get them from her camera). One of the main reasons for Charlie's visit was so he could take the Suzuki GS450T we have had in the carport for about 3 years off our hands. It was a tight fit, but we got the thing to fit inside the old Dodge Caravan he bought from us a while back.

We had to fold the handlebars down to make it through the opening in the back of the van.

This is the spare engine we had bought off of eBay not too long ago. I didn't even take the motor out of the 'baggy' it was shipped in.

Here's a side-view of the tie-downs we used to secure the bike inside the van. Charlie removed the second seat from the van and left it at home so there would be room for the bike. The straps were hooked into the seat mounts in the floor. I made sure it was cross-strapped so it would remain steady on the return trip home.

Here's Charlie, most likely burning up minutes on his cell phone having to deal with teenagers and complaints from/about them that he can't do anything about because he is over 200 miles away from home. I can honestly say that he did get a little bit of sleep, even if it was between rude awakenings from family members calling his cell phone at all hours. He was so tired, he was nodding off while helping me work on the sailboat, slept while we were driving to and from the beach with the girls and then, after we got got home from the beach, he slept for a little while until, 'Rrrrring!' He should have buried that thing in the sand at the beach like I suggested to Luann...

Work has already begun on the Suzuki, you can watch its progress by checking out Charlie's blog at: http://bosticfamily.blogspot.com/