Circus Control

Saturday morning and it's time again to get the brain and hands moving to see what I can accomplish today.

In the background, there is an ongoing sense of false urgency about getting the trailer and its winch back into shape. For what, is not clear to me now. It's safe and legal to drive around except, Ben helped me check the winch and we pulled out about 50 feet of cable and the winch wouldn't retract it. So I would have to secure that winch before I took it anywhere.

As I sit in the front room at night in front of the TV, I watch videos on winch repair and operation so that I can understand how it works. I know how to test the motor and that probably there is at least one solenoid out on it. Other than that, I haven't tackled anything with it yet. It is intimidating to me.

I could remove all the extra stuff I put on it and run new lines to it from the battery and see if it works that way, but there's a part of me that thinks I should remove it from the mounting and take it into the shop and test and clean it one part at a time. I probably will have to replace the solenoid pack and it might be worth it to replace the existing one with a modern simplified solenoid pack that's made for winches and golf-carts.

On top of that I need a new deck put onto it. I guess pressure treated is the way to go. It currently has 2 x 6, 14 across with a strip in the middle about 1.5 inches across. I just measured the width of the deck (with the aid of my lovely daughter Ashton) and it was 79.25" across inside the steel frame. That means; 2x6 would take 14.4, 2x8 would take 10.567, 2x10 would take 8.342, and 2x12 would take 6.891 pieces, respectively.

Of these choices in 16 foot length of pressure treated, I think the 2x10 would work best. That means that there would be 3.249 or 3 1/4 inches of left over to split between the 7 widths. Which would be about 1/2" gap between the boards as applied. These gaps would likely widen a bit as the lumber dried out. It would be better to rip another board and put it in the middle for symmetry. The way they did it before.

Of course, looking up prices now, I see the 2x10x16 PT is not regularly available. So it's more likely that 2x8 or even 2x6 would work better and rip the middle board to make up the difference.

And then there's the question of the tie-downs mounted in the center,

Several hours later and I'll wrap this up.

More later,