Bright lights and shiny stuff....

Ok so this week I spent some time working on the Commodore badged Deluxe.  I went off hunting for the belt on Friday when I was off from the main job, but was unable to locate one. I hit several stores locally looking for something that remotely resembled the belt.  I did see some vacuum belts that were almost perfect so I went off in search of a vacuum belt that would match. You would be surprised at how people are not willing to help you when you ask about a vacuum belt that is the same size as what you have in your hand... Needless to say, I wont be going back to that location.
So after all that, I ordered a belt from Ebay and set off to clean up the machine properly. Of course the beauty cleaned up so nice. A little Turtle Wax and an old pair of sweats seem to go pretty far.

The chrome on the wheel is nearly perfect and shined up with almost no work.

As you can see the chrome that Justin shined still has the awesome mirror shine and now you can see the paint is almost new car shine. Not very good pictures but they catch the shine. 

So now that I have the belt ordered, the machine shined its time to change the plug... So after changing the plug thought to leave that test for the husband.  Well when he finally came back from the race today, he plugged in the machine (after checking my handy work) and the light turned on. Woot! Or so you would think.  So lets press the pedal... Can anyone guess what happened? Big old spark shot out of the motor of the machine and I thought Neil was fried. So lets see if a heavier plug works then hopefully it will be fun to play with, if not... well lets see what the motor will cost to rebuild.  Can you tell I'm just heart broken that the machine isn't currently workable and that the belt is in transit. 

Amateur radio and sewing

A couple of years ago Neil (hubby) had his interest in amateur radio rekindled. Shortly after he got his license or ticket as they call it, he joined a local club called LIMARC, Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club.  We met a lot of great people and after a few months I started studying for my license, which I got last May.
So about that time we stopped by one of the ham's houses, to see his "shack" which is his radio room, when lo and behold we heard a sewing machine and his lovely wife is a seamstress.
At field day another ham mentioned his wife quilts. During a shop hop weekend my husband happened to mention we were headed out to one of the shops out east on the radio and another ham offered his sympathy for being made to go as his wife had already left with her friends, during the same shop hop we had a husband approach us about being a ham (do you see a trend yet?).  During the club Holiday party we were sitting with another couple, another ham active in the club too, and his wife quilts too!
Last night on my way across the parking lot, I stopped the only other female ham who works in my building, and mentioned the old 66.  Well surprise of all surprises, not only does she sew.... she collects sewing machines too! So what a conversation, showing her the remote mount radio in the car, discussing the clubs and their members updating her on some she knows but hasn't seen in a while, and sewing machines and the best places to find used machines and ham radios! I've come to the conclusion that ham radio and sewing go hand in hand!
Now to figure out how to use the treadle to power the radio...