Re: metal WORKING today

"Bob La Londe"  wrote in message news:100ibcs$2apib$1@dont-email.me...
On 5/20/2025 7:13 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

I'd love to find a justifiably affordable tractor/loader/backhoe, even one too small to be commercially practical, since I can hoist a boulder or log beyond the capacity of any loader I could maneuver through my woods.

... If you really want something like that I think you will have to actively
look for it.  I'm not dismissing serendipity, but the odds are longer
than they used to be. ...
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I've been passively looking and tire-kicking for a long time, it will keep. First I need to drill test holes or trenches in the hillside close behind the house to check for 'ledge' (solid rock) that would prevent excavating and putting a shed there. The simple answer may be to make a dirt bucket for the hydraulic loader I made for my Sears GT18 garden tractor, its snow bucket is too big and too flimsy, 0.050" stainless. It cleared the roadside snowbank and a front yard turn-around very well for several years before I retired and didn't need to get out early every morning.
The job I need to finish is cutting a metric internal thread in the adapter sleeve of rock drill rod, on a 60-year-old inch lathe with a non-standard metric conversion. I just finished an aluminum test piece and found the minimum compound infeed for a snug fit.
Then split next winter's firewood and complete and assemble the unfinished kit of heavy shed beams I cut last year on the sawmill. I found that a sharp bow saw guided between clamped-on 2x4 blocks cuts end joinery quickly, smoothly and precisely. Much of the wood will be stored as oversized framing.