New Year's Getting Busy

Due to the oddity of the school calendar, PawPaw is off this week.  The holidays are officially over, and it's time for thing to get back to normal.

PawPaw didn't want to piss away the whole day, but the weather weenies are predictably predicting foul weather.  A quick view at the radar and another view outside shows what is in store for the next couple of hours.

Yeah, it's raining outside.

And, the radar confirms my observations.

It's going to be lousy weather until later today, with a strong line of storms pushing through.  However, all is not lost.  The garage is covered and I can make some lexan lenses for some CFDA targets that I intend to weld-up later this week.  Our targets are steel, with a lexan lens that shields the start light from bullet impacts.  We use poly-carbonate so that we can see the light.  When the lens is installed, it looks something like this.

It's not always easy to find a scrounged supply of lexan, but PawPaw knows a guy who runs a glass shop.  A year or so ago, I told him that I'd need this stuff, and he said he'd keep an eye out.  Later, he called me and asked if I wanted some lexan out of a piece of John Deere construction equipment.  I jumped in the truck and went right over.

He gave me three of those that had to be replaced.  Good, nearly 1/2 inch lexan, totally useful for stopping wax bullets.This morning, as the thunder popped, I went outside in tot the garage, fired up the table saw, and started cutting lenses.  Then, got on the drill press and made mounting holes.

That's seventeen lenses cut from one of those equipment panels.  That should keep me in lexan lenses for a year or so, depending on how many targets I build this year, but for the meantime, I'm set.

At least today wasn't a total waste with the foul weather.  The weenies tell me that the weather is going to get worse over the next couple of hours, so maybe it's time to hunker down in the house and find something else to occupy my time.