One of those days

You know the kind I mean… when things almost go your way but then trip you up at the last hurdle so you fall flat on your face. Well, that’s the day I had today.

I’d hoped to get the Weedhopper’s doors on today and things started very well. I had everything prepared and had cut both of the plastics out perfectly by late morning, and that was when Mr. Dumas, the wood man, turned up with my winter wood order.

I’d moved the Weedhopper so he could reverse his tractor and trailer around the back of the house because I thought the earth in the front would be a bit too soft, but he insisted on driving up the bank onto the front grass and in fact the marks he left weren’t that bad after all.

After depositing the 4 stères of mixed ‘châtaigne/chêne’ (chestnut and oak) that I’d ordered we then embarked on the usual 20-30 minutes of social chit-chat that invariably occurs in France whenever you have a delivery or a visit from a local tradesman. Mr Dumas had noticed the Weedhopper and said he’d be interested in having a look.

We spent a good 20 minutes talking about it and ULMs in general and Mr Dumas also asked about the autogiros that he’d seen buzzing around overhead. What a sea-change difference compared to the usual attitude in the UK to ULMs/microlights! Then it was time for him to go as his lunchtime was approaching and I thought that I might as well grab a bite as well.

Here’s a shot of the heap of wood that he left behind which I covered up immediately with the old tarp that I’d had on the Weedhopper. It has a few holes and worn bits in it now but it should keep the wood dry enough if/when it rains before I can get it cut, split and in my wood store.

So that’s another job added to my list. I made a mental note to find a way to raise my wood splitter up to a decent working height as otherwise splitting that amount of wood will really do my back in!

Then it was back to 28AAD’s doors. I’d already decided that I’d have to use MYRO’s old hinges as the ones that were on the Weedhopper were nasty and corroded. But that gave me a problem because the door tubes had been drilled for them and the holes didn’t match the ones in MYRO’s old hinges.

And not only that, the tubes were of quite small diameter and would have been severely weakened if I’d just drilled some more in them. Easy, I thought, just use MYRO’s old door front tubes because they already have the holes in the right places.

But I was too hasty – they had been bent to go on MYRO and weren’t quite the right shape to go onto the Weedhopper.

And then I demonstrated the universal truth that if you’re lucky enough to bend a small diameter aluminium tube to the shape you want before you’ve drilled holes in it, if you subsequently try to change the shape even slightly, it’ll snap at one of the holes. Which it promptly did.

So that was it – time to pack up for the day. I ended up sourcing both a new set of stainless piano hinges and some more tubing and when both arrive, I’ll fabricate the door tubes and hinges from scratch. I only made the tubes last time for MYRO but I got the hinges as well this time because the old ones are now looking very tatty having been on and off at least two or three times, on the principle that if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.

And as the doors will be off the menu tomorrow, which should be another reasonably bright and warm day, it’ll be an ideal opportunity to get back onto the Savannah’s screen repair, and in particular, the work that’s needed on its cabin top panel. I’m hoping that things will runs a bit more smoothly than they did today 😉