Weekends are the manna of the week; time for a bit of nothing, lazy thinking, restful relaxing, and occasionally a little fun! Instead of grasping this last weekend for all that it could have been; I chose instead to fill it with back breaking work, sawdust, and the prospect of a new radio in the beast.
My misspent youth had included many hours in mates’ cars installing their radios. This weekend I figured, rather incorrectly, that sound in the beast would not be too much of a stretch. Besides, I had company; the spray painter was to spend the day touching up a number of issues.
Bring on the day!
The beast having been designed in the fifties; was a little sparse in thinking with regard to modern heavy rectangular radio’s. It used to be two knobs and a little display which fitted beautifully in the dash. My first problem was to find anywhere to attach a new radio in the acres of open air under the dash. Being a little loath to drill an unsightly hole through it; required me to dig a little deeper for the solution. The cubby hole was really the only space which could be used, which of course was made of cardboard!
A purpose built wooden box that fitted snugly around the radio, slid into the cubby hole, looked awesome, and somehow bolted onto the cubby hole frame seemed to be the answer. Of course, how I would get it bolted on anywhere else was a mystery, not to mention avoiding the great arcs described by the giant mechanical arms of the windscreen wipers.
With this very simple idea in mind, I got busy cutting the wood with my table saw at an angle. I managed to minimise my cuts and used the least possible amount of wood. And then threw it all away as I discovered my little problem with the angled table saw. Take two saw me fixing the angle problem and then locking down a guide plank to ensure that every cut was straight and perfect. Except that the guide plank was skew.
I almost went on strike. Haphazardly sawn planks of fine wood and a heap of wonderfully aromatic sawdust was all I had to show for my labour.
With the day almost over, I began again. Filled with the wisdom born of failure, I measured, checked, cut and re-checked every piece. They fitted perfectly, much to my surprise.
Sunday saw me dismantling my ignition which took ages to fix, and then everything started to go smoothly. After holding a number of intense yoga positions for a couple of hours under my dash, sound streamed sweetly out of my speakers.
To celebrate my wife and I helped the kids clean their rooms!
1 comment:
Your kids are lucky you helped them! I usually rant and rave until they do it themselves.
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