The Bench Racers Journal

[Terry Bentley]

Chapter 53

No sooner did I get home from class today the phone is ringing. Hey Terry, phone call. Who is it? ITS FOR YOU! GET IT!. OK I am coming.

Hello? Oh, hey Steve. Whats up? He starts rambling along way too fast. Dude slow down.

OK man. I need some help asap. Can I come over?

Sure, since when do you ever need to ask? Let me change my clothes and I will meet you in the garage.

OK, am on the way over, right now. Click.

I ditch my clean non work clothes and get more comfortable in my grungies. Steve is already inside the garage with a box of stuff. OK, I need to cut this piece of plywood round and then find some steel plate. You got anything like that here? Dont you have a saber saw? Where did you put that thing? Isnt it usually under the bench here somewhere?

Hold on a minute Steve. How thick do you need? I dunno, but gotta be thicker than this piece of rusty crap. While Steve has his head down and eyes focused in the box of stuff, shoves a square piece of rusty and bent....whatever it is crusty in my direction without even looking. I grab my vernier caliper off the work bench and try to check thickness around the jagged torched edge. It is about 1/16 inch. OK likely a piece of 16 gauge sheet metal. How much thicker do you think Steve? I dunno man, just anything you got that might not bend like that piece has.

After a few dead ends searching out behind the house, I walk back inside the garage. Looking down on the floor I see something that might work. There is a base plate that held a water pump powered by one of our Clinton acquisitions. It should be a lot thicker and just begging to be re-purposed. After checking thickness I see it is about 1/8 inch. Thats twice what the old piece is. This will be a whole lot stronger.

Hey Steve, what exactly is this for? Oh man, my neighbor guy that does landscaping needed his mower base repaired. Actually this time he wanted a better job done than his hired hand did last time. I want to copy that square piece but make it round to match the opening of the mower. I already got this all figured out on how to do it. Just need some of your tools to borrow real quick and I am out of here.

So what do you think? I want to cut this piece of plywood round for a template. Then use the torch and cut around the outside. This should work, dont you think? Oh sure Steve, that will work fine. Right up until you burn the garage down. Maybe you should rethink this.

I have been thinking about it. The wood should not burn up before we get the piece cut out. That is what I am hoping for anyway. I want a nice round piece of thicker steel to replace that other attempted repair. What if it is soaked in water first? Maybe that will work better. Why soak the steel in water first. No, dumos!

OK, just slow down there Steve. Now take a deep breath. No, not in my direction. Just exhale. Show me exactly what you are trying to make. There has to be a better way than what you are attempting to do here. Steve gives me the whole lowdown. Now I understand what he is trying to do here. The wood thing could work for a template. But really there is too much if, and not enough sure, for me to let this go his way right now.

I see Steve is trying to sandwich a thin piece of the lawnmower base with thicker material. That makes sense. The other attempt wasnt done very well, and looked like it was way too thin. I had an idea. But Steve has already got his wheels spinning in motion and half done with it.

How about this Steve. What diameter does it need to be? He says anything around 10 inches will work. But he wanted it round, not square like the other attempted repair. It has to look professional. His neighbor landscaper is paying cash. Steve, I think I know what we can do. Ditch the plywood thing. That aint happening. Not in here. Not today.

I hand Steve a small piece of scrap angle iron. Go put two holes in this on the drill press, ok? Why? What is it for. I dont want something like that for the fix. Steve, just measure out about 5 inches and drill two 3/8 inch holes. Do it, I will get the torches out and ready.

Steve goes over and gets the holes drilled in the piece of small angle iron. I still dont want this for the repair. It doesnt look right. OK, Steve get the center punch and put a dent right about here. I run my fingers from each end of the steel mounting plate sitting there on the floor and bring them together. This is about in the center. Punch it right there. It is about 12 inches wide and 18 inches long. After that, get the hand drill and pop another 3/8 inch hole here.

You wanna cut this or want me to do it? Do what? I still dont have a clue what you are trying to do here? I go dig out a short 3/8 inch bolt and nut from the bolt bucket under the work bench. It has everything from all of the engines that have torn down over the last few years. Nuts, bolts washers, cotter pins, nails, and anything else worth keeping for future use.

Steve watch this. I bolt up the small piece of angle iron thru the hole he just drilled in the plate. Help me clamp this plate in the vice. Steve tightens the jaws of vice clamping down on the folded lip on one end of the plate. This will hold well enough to keep the plate positioned while I cut it out. Hand me the cutting torch. Steve lights the torch and hands it over to me. I hit the oxygen lever and make a final adjustment to the flame. Then put the tip in the other hole Steve had drilled in the angle iron.



Within a few seconds, the plate is red hot in one spot and ready to start cutting. I press the oxygen and a hole blows thru the plate. Then slowly rotate the torch sitting in the angle iron, around in a circle. Sparks and slag are spraying all over the floor. A minute later there is a loud clank and the now cut round piece falls out of this new hole in the flat plate. Is that what you want?

Wow man! That is perfect! Without thinking, he reaches down to pick it up. Dude hold on, that sucker is still too hot to touch! I hand him an asbestos glove so he can pick it up. Then he goes outside and cools it off using the garden hose. OK smarty, Do you have a bad fast super cool way to clean up the torched edge too? Or do I use a file?

Well, you might try removing the angle and replace that short bolt with a longer one. Then chuck that center bolt in the drill press. Set the speed all the way to real slow. Then hold a grinder up to the rough edge and clean it that way. Oh wow, that sounds like it will work perfect. Makes sense to me. Super cool. 

Hey Steve, wanna pop to drink. Yea! You got any more Mountain Dew? Or has your mom cancelled your stash? Ok, two Dews coming up. Nope, she just made it clear she wasnt spending money on them. If I bought any, then was not a problem. At least I get to return the bottles for three cents a piece.

I went to the house and into the attached garage. It had been converted a long time ago for more of a family room, but hardly sees any traffic. There is an old fridge in there usually full with mostly drinks and snacks. I try to keep a couple of my favorites stored in the cold. Grab two and go back outside to the garage.

As I walked in, my heart jumps and I stop dead in my tracks. Steve had secured the newly cut round plate in the drill press by clamping down of the bolt. Just like what I had suggested. Good thing his brain was listening. What I didnt expect to see is he had the bench grinder clamped to drill press table and swinging it towards the rough cut edge of the rotating disk. STEVE! What the heck are you doing?????

Specs of orange glowing steel were spitting out like a Forth of July sparkler show. A choppy sound was also building up to a big crunch and pieces of the grinding wheel had just exploded and sent shrapnel all around the drill press. Holy shoot me in the foot, what just happened? I did just what you told me!

Geez Steve, I meant for you to use the small hand grinder under the table over there. Not the dang bench grinder. Look at this mess. That grinding wheel is nothing but crunchy tasting dust floating around in the air now. Gah, I hate that grainy metalic feel in my teeth, yuk.

Man I am sorry, I thought that....Hey, you are the one that spooked me by shouting. It was working fine until you yelled just now. How was I supposed to know what you meant? I did exactly what you said. Did you even specify what grinder? I put the bottle cap on the edge of the work bench and popped it off with the palm of my hand. Then hand Steve the Mountain Dew and started laughing.

He turned red. Her is full blood German, with darker skin than me. It is really difficult to get any different color in his face. But this time I saw it. Red, really red. Then he just busting out laughing too. Well it worked anyway. I have a ground finish on the plate. Not too bad. Well except for a mess to clean up. My neighbor wont know how much of a screw up it was. Just that is does look professionally repaired.

Guess I should sweep up all the chunks of grinding wheel. Yea, you need to do that. Uh, ok, you got any simple way to put all those holes in the plate? Sure Steve, I think you can transfer the holes over from that old piece with a center punch.

Maybe use a small sleeve to help locate perfectly in the center of hole. Do I need to explain that any farther? Nope, but you can look over my shoulder, just in case my adaptation is different than what you were thinking. You know two minds dont really think alike, like they say. You know, just saying.

Steve ended up cutting a small piece of copper tubing. The center punch just fit thru it. The diameter was very close to the hole size to transfer. Are we good with this? Yea, that will work even better than the way I was thinking how to do it.

OK master blaster, Steve says while bowing down in front of me. What about the big hole in the center? Do you have a 1 1/2 inch drill bit? Uh, no Steve, dont think so. But you can use a hole punch. I dig around in the bottom drawer of tool box. Here is one that should be about the right size. Awesome, that looks perfect. Well except I need the center hole a lot larger than what it is right now.




So I dig a little farther in the tool box. How about this one? Oh, that is even better. The smaller hole punch is just big enough for that massive bolt of the larger hole punch. Steve starts fighting with the punch. He finally settles on clamping the square screw head in the big vice. Then he grabs a larger Crescent wrench to rotate the body of this punch. After a few turns, I hear a pop then look down and see the punch jump out of the vice, bouncing off my foot and landing on the floor. Ouch.

Dont do that with the bigger one, K? Or at least let me get over to the other side of the garage. Haha, you so funny. So on this big punch, should I put some grease on it. Yep that is a very good idea. I hand him a small can of wheel bearing grease with a brush. Oh gotcha!. No you dont. Just put it on all the contact surfaces. Okaaay, back up, I got this.

Terry, what do you do that? With the snarky remarks all the time. Were your older brothers really that bad when you were younger? I know you have mentioned it a few times. I know your brothers are jerks to me, but...was it really that bad?

Heck Steve, I have told you all that. They were relentless about teasing me all the time. I had to watch my back, everyday everywhere. Especially Gary. He would not let it rest. I am glad he is gone off to college. Rick is not so bad now with Gary out of the way. I think he was just going along with everything so not to get any attention aimed at him.

Thats ok, their day is coming. I dont know when where or what, but it will be epic. I used to get so mad and loose my temper. Start throwing my fists at them and kicking. That just made things worse. They would get mad and then really torture me. I learned to suck it up and take control. This at least lessened the severity of their abuse.

I cant believe my mom one time. She was the only one that would save me sometimes. Nobody would really get in trouble. She would just separate all of us. Then maybe stand in the corner for a while till we all cooled off. She never did catch them actually doing anything. It was always after when I went ballistic, trying to get back at them. Which I finally realized later was completely useless at the time.

I know you have seen the picture of my brothers tying me to that tree outside over there. I was literally in tears. They had stripped me down to my underwear. I was about 5 and waiting on them to come home from school. I even had my own lunch box, looking forward to the day I would start school.

They grabbed hold of me and pushed my back up against the tree. Then got a rope and wrapped it around me tight. Then just left me there. I was screaming for mom. She finally came to see what all of the noise was about. I was so relieved to see her. I cant believe what happened next. Instead of saving me, she went and got her camera. Then took a picture. Can you believe that? She took a picture!

Finally she told them to untie the rope. I had stopped crying by then. Now I was just mad as H E double hockey sticks. I had no way to take out all that frustration on anything. I went to my room and stayed there for the rest of that day. Didnt even come out for dinner. I sure showed them. Man was I starving the next day. My stomach growled all night. I hardly got sleep.

From that time forward, I got over any pain and insecurity that had suffered me. The only thing I could think about is getting even. Revenge. Their day of reckoning is coming. One of these days they will regret everything that has caused me grief. All of those little innocent pranks and picking on me is coming back to haunt them in one big gulp.

Woh woh there, Terry. Going a little bit too dark there for me man. Maybe you should rethink all of this. It is just part of growing up. Maybe you should look at it in a different light. They made you a lot stronger. You are the youngest of your brothers.

That usually makes someone more of a momas boy. You sure dont have to go down that road or deal with it. I think in the long haul, you end up with the better deal. Just a bunch of little pains getting there. I say you should wipe the slate clean and look forward. Dont keep all that bottled inside to control you. Yea, Steve, Okie dokie. I got what you are saying. But dont think so.

OK, whatever. Hey, this big punch is not working. Whats wrong with it? Well, it dont turn. Seems locked up tight. I cant even budge it at all. It turned and tightened up a little bit. But now stopped dead. Steve, it looks like maybe is maxed out on thickness. There are no flats on the punch to clamp or hold on to either. Just the big bolt head.

I walk back over to the other side of garage, then dig out an electric impact and socket big enough to fit the nut on that large punch. Try this Steve. Should go right thru now. Or something breaks, I dunno. Why dont you find out.

Steve takes the impact and pretends like it weighs a ton. Then holds on tightly while pushing the go button. He then makes these exaggerated moves like it is a big monster jack hammer. It hits hammers and ratchets down until the punch has done its job. That thang works good! Look how nice and purty the hole is here.




After another 30 minutes Steve has only broken two drill bits. All of the holes are drilled out and the round plate looks like a manufactured piece of expensive replacement equipment. Well except for the lack of a decent paint job. He pushes the mower deck in the garage and goes to putting everything back together.





I am surprised. This turned out really well. So Steve how much are we making off this specialized custom fabrication job. Oh uh, well, uh, he is paying me $25. Well gotta go. I need to get out of here. I promised him to deliver it today if at all possible. Thanks for the help. See ya. Steve pushed the mower out and left. Yea ok, you are welcome Steve.

Man that sucks. He just made $25 for a little bit of work. Oh well, glad somebody got something from all this mess. My mind got back focused on the Clinton again. I still want to put one of the bushing engines back together. Only try out the modifications that are burning in my head right now.



Time to finish tearing apart the one engine I want to build up. Either of those two we picked up from Gasset will work perfect. Looks like Steve had done a little bit of cleaning of most of the parts already. Thats good. It was filthy. Sure cant believe how well this shroud cleaned up. Sure turned out looking really good.



I would not have expected it to come anywhere close to this kind of clean. It was beyond what I thought cleaning would fix. I will just leave it alone. Ended up nice enough not to even repaint. Sure I could make it look new again. But it wouldnt stay that way very long.