Duck Pond Redneckery


I used to build car washes. At 1st they were using good ol USA steel drilled and welded like a dream. Then they started in with Korean steel. You could drill a hole no problem, then move 12" and could barely scratch the steel. That shit was all like that hard soft.
Yes, that's exactly it. Some spots are OK but other spots are like trying to drill through diamond.

It's gotta be just low grade steel, with the carbon not mixed evenly due to half-assed processing.

Maybe it was made in the steel mill on The Simpsons where they're too busy playing butt pirate & dancing to C&C Music Factory.

 
I used to build car washes. At 1st they were using good ol USA steel drilled and welded like a dream. Then they started in with Korean steel. You could drill a hole no problem, then move 12" and could barely scratch the steel. That shit was all like that hard soft.
rub some Viagra on that Korean steel, soon that soft will be hard all over.
 
rub some Viagra on that Korean steel, soon that soft will be hard all over.
The problem is the hardness.

Steel that can't be drilled through even with a brand new cobalt bit & plenty of oil, is no good for fabrication.

And if that hardness isn't even uniform throughout the piece of steel, it's no good for structural applications either, as the engineers cannot predict how it will carry loads.

It's the result of poor processing.


I know very little about the process, other than that iron is molten & they add carbon to it.

Whether they simply dump it into the molten iron and stir it up mechanically like when you add an ingredient to a pot of soup, I don't know.

But I do know the carbon content and hardness should be uniform throughout the finished product.
 
Thing is, my dad's been doing absent minded stuff his whole life.

My mom used to tell the story about the time when my sister and I were little, and my mom had to go somewhere & my dad was reading a book with his feet on the coffee table, and my sister and I painted the entire top of the coffee table with white shoe polish and he didn't even notice until my mom got home. He would've been in his early 30's at the time.

When he was my age, he'd be storming around the house all pissed off because he couldn't find the TV remote, and my mom would have to tell him it's in his shirt pocket. 😂
Smart man. Set the expectations early. 😀
 
Now that I've had time to study that homemade Model T (shitbox edition) and have found & studied pictures of the 1949 Crosley station wagon frame, I can tell what's original & what's the work of the unknown (to me) builder whom I'll refer to as Dipshit...

He did a lot of stupid things.

He welded stuff I'd have bolted, for example the whole bed/box is welded to the Crosley frame. I'd have bolted it with rubber blocks.

He found a 4 wire turn signal switch. It only controls the turn signals. So he added motorcycle turn signals on the rear.

My dad wants me to eventually put a trailer hitch on it. So I ordered a 7 wire turn signal switch & a 3 pin relay. This way the individual rear turn signals come on together as the brake lights, like any modern vehicle. That way trailer lights will be a piece of cake to wire up later. I'm gonna ditch the rear motorcycle turn signals. Or keep them but power them off the front ones so they don't double as brake lights.

The one I ordered on Amazon has the hazard lights switch on it. Which is good, because I was going to have to use a DPST relay for that.

I've got a SPDT click-on/click-off switch on the way here from China for the high beam headlight switch. I'd like to put it on the floor but it's so cramped in that thing, it's basically a clown car. I might hafta mount it on the overhead panel.

image.webp

I don't know what I'm going to do for a brake light switch yet. It's got this weird tube-inside-a-tube thing for the clutch and the cable operated brakes that's rusted up so they move together. I'm going to have to free that up & figure out how to rig up a switch.

I have 4 motorcycle rear brake switches to use. The pedals pivot below the floor, so I can't use a conventional pin switch.
 
Now that I've had time to study that homemade Model T (shitbox edition) and have found & studied pictures of the 1949 Crosley station wagon frame, I can tell what's original & what's the work of the unknown (to me) builder whom I'll refer to as Dipshit...

He did a lot of stupid things.

He welded stuff I'd have bolted, for example the whole bed/box is welded to the Crosley frame. I'd have bolted it with rubber blocks.

He found a 4 wire turn signal switch. It only controls the turn signals. So he added motorcycle turn signals on the rear.

My dad wants me to eventually put a trailer hitch on it. So I ordered a 7 wire turn signal switch & a 3 pin relay. This way the individual rear turn signals come on together as the brake lights, like any modern vehicle. That way trailer lights will be a piece of cake to wire up later. I'm gonna ditch the rear motorcycle turn signals. Or keep them but power them off the front ones so they don't double as brake lights.

The one I ordered on Amazon has the hazard lights switch on it. Which is good, because I was going to have to use a DPST relay for that.

I've got a SPDT click-on/click-off switch on the way here from China for the high beam headlight switch. I'd like to put it on the floor but it's so cramped in that thing, it's basically a clown car. I might hafta mount it on the overhead panel.

View attachment 88774

I don't know what I'm going to do for a brake light switch yet. It's got this weird tube-inside-a-tube thing for the clutch and the cable operated brakes that's rusted up so they move together. I'm going to have to free that up & figure out how to rig up a switch.

I have 4 motorcycle rear brake switches to use. The pedals pivot below the floor, so I can't use a conventional pin switch.
You bitch, but you bought it. So who's the real dipshit.
 
Well I got the dash redone. I don't know why Dipshit had exposed wood on the front & sheet metal on the inside. :bonk:

But I reversed it. Steel on front, mahogany on the inside, aluminum on top.

And I made it a little shorter vertically for more leg room.

01.webp

02.webp
 

Back
Top