One Of Those Little Agricultural Jobs !

[awemawson]

One of the problems having a well equipped workshop in a rural area is that farmers bring you things to mend 

I don't really mind, but as I am not a commercial shop I always have difficulty in deciding what to do about payment. Much prefer to exchange favours if possible.

A few days back the chap who keeps me supplied with straw for the pigs brought in a broken  bit from his plough. I believe it to be an adjusting bolt that sets the height and takes most of the weight of the plough when raised. This one wasn't doing any lifting - sheared off and extremely rusty. Anyone would think it had been left out in a field all year 

Now initially the castellated nut was thoroughly rusted on to the thread and there was little visible thread to measure. A quick trip to the grit blasting chamber cleaned up the nut and a bit of thread nicely. I was able to rescue the nut and measure the thread as M24 x 3mm pitch

Originally it looks to have been turned from the solid - about 35 mm o/d bar to form the shoulder stop / collar that's in the middle. I didn't fancy turning down about a foot of 35 mm bar to 24 mm and threading it - wouldn't be difficult, but time consuming and very wasteful of materials. Ideally rather than mild steel it should be something with a bit more tensile strength.

Googling about I tracked down M24 studding in 8.8 HT steel - an ideal starting point. Then it was just a case of turning an M24 nut down to form the collar, milling the flats and drilling the three holes (third is in the end not visible in pictures) and loctiting the collar in the right place on the thread.

Materials turned up today so get on with it . . . .

Total job about 2.5 hours including computer time, machining and cleaning up afterwards. A metre of HT M24 x 3 mm pitch studding, 5 nuts and washers (as a kit) was £24.99

So what to charge - certainly the materials but I think I'll trade my labour for straw futures 

The day hadn't started too well. the sound of "Blues and Two's" outside the bedroom window coming from the A21 and then the whirring of a helicopter as the Air Ambulance paid a visit. I never heard any impact and there is no sign of carnage on the road, but some poor soul must have spoiled their day 

Chopper was there for about 25 minutes then flew off in the direction of London - probably to King's College Hospital, that's where they usually take the poor victims.

[Spurry]

This was our air ambulance lifting off yesterday, from one end the lane, having tried to assist a heart-attack victim. Last week, it was the other end of the lane with another heart-attack victim. Now all are wondering, who's next???
Prior to those visits, it was last in our field in Sept 2015. (Much easier to photograph when stationary. Neighbour got kicked by his horse)  . That's too long ago to count though..........hopefully.
Pete

[hermetic]

I think as a rule of thumb for charging out jobs like this, you have to consider how much you get charged for work that you can't do yourself. My absolute far too cheap base rate is £10 an hour, the guy who fitted my gas boiler charged £25 an hour. Payment in kind is fine, as long as they got summat that you want!! Skilled people especially the self taught ones, who are often the best and most versatile in my experience, sell themselves too cheap!
Phil.

[wgw]

A farmer who pays for stuff?

[vtsteam]

Two years ago, I got a neighbor farmer's Ford 3000 tractor running after two years of idle fiddling by others -- which started with one of them pulling the distributor (you can imagine what that meant), rearranging the the plug wires (adding to the confusion) another adding a resistor to the coil (marked "No resistor), a recalcitrant piston in the Holley carburetor (usual online recommended Ford 3000 Holley fix involves attaching a string to the throat, whirling overhead, and flinging a minimum of 25 yards into the farm pond, then replacing with a Zenith), valves which had not been adjusted in 44 years, a fuel shut-off valve that didn't work, a binding choke cable, a bad sight glass gasket, and two year old gasoline.

Sorting that (Br.), straightening that (U.S), with expletives enhanced (both) took two weeks. I charged nothing.

For two years since, a farm dump truck loaded with split firewood has magically appeared twice each fall to deposit a winter's worth of heating on my land. Being sneaky about it, and doing it while my truck is not parked by the road, I have no idea who is doing that. But the tire tread marks do look a lot like the dump truck that was garaged next to the Ford 3000 I worked on.