Nov 13 2011
A Little MMA Action
Know someone whose kid is struggling with a bully or in need of a self-confidence boost? A guy or gal being harassed or succumbing to peer pressure? They should check this out:
Louder is better 
Nov 12 2011
Suicidal Tendencies
Now that the door is a single, solid unit again thoughts go towards cutting the tabs free from the car and getting it on the saw horses to finish it up:
I don’t know about anybody else, but when I drug this rusty hulk home on the trailer and was pushing it into the garage because it obviously couldn’t get there on its own, my wife had an immediate reaction upon seeing it. She said, “It needs to be chopped and you need to suicide the doors.”
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Nov 06 2011
Where’s Venus?
Mercury and Venus will be visible together in some parts of the country low on the western horizon for the first three weeks of this month, but are so close to the Sun that they may not be at all visible. The mountains out here generally obscure any otherwise early evening viewings in that direction… as the Sun is setting, anything closely visible ducks behind the peak before daylight dissipates.
Weather permitting, Jupiter will be easy to see all month. It reached opposition late last month but will still be nearly at its biggest and brightest of the year. The Moon will begin to appear in the eastern sky around 4PM tonight with Jupiter coming above the horizon a little to the North (left) as it starts to get dark, by 5:30 -6PM (UTC 01:30-02:00). It will be hard to miss, being the brightest object in that area. It will be up most of the night, appearing to trail the Moon’s path, and it will be highest in the sky around midnight. Jupiter will be large enough to show detail through even a small telescope with its banded surface and four easily visible moons so we’ should be out on the front porch with ours after dinner.
Oct 23 2011
Door Structure
With the door skin re-formed to the outside, it’s time to give this door some support and structure. For a quick review: When the front pillars are dropped down for a chop they also more forward. Since the back of the door stays where it is, this effectively lengthens the top of the door. You can usually take the vertical part of the door that was removed during a chop and reuse it horizontally across the top of the window opening. It should come as no surprise that this was not the case on this project.
Not only was the 3″ piece removed from the vertical chop insufficient to fill the gap created in the top of the door, but the 7″ stretch from converting it to a 2-door compounded the problem. I didn’t have anything to work with so I started from scratch and I started from the inside out. The first piece makes one half of the window channel and is the one you’ll see when inside the vehicle. This inside edge will hold the window weather-stripping in place and gives the window something to roll-up into.
