Instant dump truck

With a deadline quickly approaching it is time to concentrate on the truck for the next week or so. I spent the day in the shop cutting, welding and grinding steel to form the box of the little dump truck. It took a little head scratching and some special design considerations to make it work. The bottom of the dump box is raised considerably to allow for the hidden batteries and hydraulic pump that will reside there between the frame rails. The sides of the box go down over the side of the frame to make it look much bigger and deeper than it really is. the dump truck box will be fully functional of course.

The first task was to weld up the hinge pin supports so the box can tip, then fabricate a sturdy but light frame for the bottom of the box.

Then I cut the sheet metal with the plasma cutter and welded the bottom into place. It was instantly a nice looking flatbed truck with a tip bed.

The sides of the box came next. I used 1" x 1" square tubing as a frame and then welded up the sheet metal. The two sides were clamped in place and then welded up good and strong.

Lastly I welded in the front of the box. It will be notched to accomodate the hydraulic cylinder - just like the real ones. Bec also mixed epoxy for me today for a while and we sculpted the window frame and hood side.

Tomorrow we'll pick up where we left off.

-grampa dan

Final sculpt started

Today we began the final coat of sculpting epoxy on the dump truck cab. The key to sculpting it over a few days is to carefully pick the seam areas. In the case of something like the little truck I purposely allowed the seams to show by doing separate body panels - just as a real car would be built. Today I did the dashboard, cowl, front side panels and the front grill shell. Sarah dutifully mixed the epoxy all day as I applied the sculpt to the body. The truck quickly took shape.

Tomorrow I'll sculpt the grill trim pieces and the hood. It won't be long until the test drive.

-grampa dan

Around the world in mere seconds

The world wide web is a wonderful thing. In the last few years the internet has changed virtually everything - especially in how we get information. In mere seconds we can access virtually unlimited information. I use it to gather inspiration and images as I work. I also use it as a way of getting the word out about the things we do. I find it fascinating how it works.

It is not unusual these days for me to recieve emails from South America, Australia, or someplace in Europe. Someone, somewhere reads of our work on the web and they in turn contact me with a question or comment. The five blogs I write are read routinely by many of these people and it is interesting how the number of followers grow on a regular basis.

Every once in a while I see a spike in the site analytics. Generally this means someone with a large following of their own has done a post about our work, linking their readers to our web pages. Instantly the numbers jump, sometimes dramatically. Two days ago I noticed a bit of a bump in the numbers, and then yesterday they spiked to over five thousand hits. Today the numbers jumped a whole lot higher once more. As I tracked back the source of the hits it surprised me to see they came from a Scandanavian country. The writer had come across our website and written an article on our house. The picture featured one of our signs.

Our work had instantly traveled around to the other side of the world once more. It seems the world is getting smaller all the time.

-grampa dan