Grindin'

After last week's setback, I decided that I had to figure out a way to make it work without rebuilding the entire lid (please read last post for details). The angle-iron lip was attached properly on one side of the lid, it had only came separated on the other half. With help from a grinder, chisel, and lots of brute force, I managed to remove the offending part, leaving me with what you see below:

It looks like I just need to redo the other half.



There were some blobs of weld left over from the part I had removed. I ground them down to make sure they would not get in the way.



Here is the joint between the original lip and the new half. It came out pretty good, or perhaps "good enough".



And here is the new corner. It's ugly! I thought it would be wise to grind away all the slag from my welds before I try to build the hinge. It's best to do your grinding while you can still move the pieces around however you want.



Nice looking corner on the lid.



That was a LOT of work. This pile of filings must weigh half a pound! After I finished grinding I noticed that somewhere along the way I had taken a notch out of my pants leg, and it had gone through and shaved some plastic off my cell phone! Better it than me, I guess...

On another note, a bad flu has been sweeping through Evergreen. I caught a mild case, and while it didn't prevent me from doing all this work, my mind is kind of clouded. So I decided not to make a major decision about how to construct the hinge right now. My next work session is on Saturday, and I should be all better by then.