The Home Board

Acquaintance of mine is financially destitute, no regular job, only income is from odd jobs and selling firewood. He hauled off all the wood from that big maple I had taken down. He gets some income, I get rid of the wood, we're both happy.

His splitter was puking oil out the shaft seal on the cylinder and was costing him more in hydraulic oil that the wood was worth, so I told him I'd pull it apart and re-seal the cylinder.

Seal kit was pretty cheap @ ~$13 (Chinese, no point in spending big bucks on a worn-out machine).

When I took it apart, it was pretty obvious that the oil was full of water and there wasn't much anyway, so I drained it all out and shitcanned the filter.

5 gallon bucket of cheap oil and a hydraulic filter: $97.47 and that's with my military discount!

I'll bill him for the materials and let him figure out what my time is worth (basically, I'll donate it and let him pay me a few bucks for his pride)

That cylinder was a brass-bound son-of-a-bitch to get apart, if I charged him by the hour for my time he'd be SOL.

You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.

I have done a few things like that. Then, I had an old farmer, neighbor, that would bring me the most rusted, worn out crap, that wasn't even fit for the iron pile. I spent half a day and went in the hole fixing up and old silage chopper blower housing of his. Making patches and brazing them in place. Next time he brought me a rusted out, 2 1/2 gallon galvanized bucket and wanted me to braze the holes shut. I had enough of his crap, so charged him $5 ( back in the early 70's). He could have probably bought a new one for that. He got kinda huffy, but quit bringing me his junk!

Gene