Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Yesterday I went to Stepanagert with the expectation that all my stone cutting equipment would be ready. Well I guess my expectations were just a little too high, as what I thought would be done was not.

On top of this my alternator died on me on my way to Stepanagert. Yes, a 15 year old car has a tendency of such problems I guess and a quick stop to see Sasoon, the automobile electrician took care of the problem. If you don�t remember who Sasoon is, he is the auto-electric who at the age of 12 had to take over his father�s business while his father went to Russia to work.

Luck would have it that Sasoon was able to take out the alternator, take it completely apart, discover that he had replacement bearings (one is the same that is found on Fiat�s and the other from a customer who had their Mercedes alternator rebuilt a year ago and had new bearings put in, even though there was nothing wrong with the old bearings).

The brushes (these are the things that conduct electricity) were also worn out and it just so happens that they are the same exact size at the ones that go in Fiat�s, so my purchase from a nearby auto parts store of said bushes (for less than $1) took care of the final touches.

Sasoon also found a short in the main coil and after some scraping, soldering and a little bit of paint to insulate the coil where the short was, he put the alternator back in the car and presto, it was like new. It only took an hour and I gave his 5,000 dram, which he said his charges were only 3,000 dram (about $5). I told him to keep it to cover next time.

As for machinist hell and my stone cutting equipment, I won�t bore you and will just say that after a day and a half of working and running around, we are in the home stretch of finishing. Maybe even will finish tomorrow.

Today in our quest of looking for an air-compressor, we went to the Max-Wood factory which manufactures rifle butts.

As we were waiting for them to fire up their compressor, I asked of all the Walnut tress they cut, how many percent is actually used for the rifle-butts? I was told as little at 15% and as much at 50%. The rest of the wood they cut up for other uses.

One thing I was thinking about is that this small factory had thousands of rifle-butts in their warehouse and could only think that each one will go on a new rifle. Thousands of new guns to add to this already overly armed world.

Right now we are in the middle of a lightning and wind storm with heavy rain coming down in spurts. I would guess that at some point, the lights will go out from the winds. I�m a little concerned for the Apricot trees, which have bloomed. If we have hail, we may not have Apricots this year again.

No comments:

Post a Comment