Sawmilling

The Wood-Mizer Lumber Mill Model LT40

Venice

From the archives. . . I apparently have around 40,000 photos on this computer.

Short Descent into Winter

Sure was nice today. . .

Baldy

Snow up there now. . .

Skiing

I never managed to post these. Marshall and I went skiing in the north Bridgers last Wednesday on my birthday. We both work at the university where apparently it's ok to just not show up all day if you don't want to. It was a really nice day and the skiing was surprisingly good. We skied "the Great One" which is a north facing and very well shaded chute that is well known around here because it will hold snow well into summer. Or, in our case, will hold snow that fell early in the fall.


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Sign Creek

Rode the Sign Creek trail outside of Sula,MT with Chad on Sunday. It was a long and fun loop in some really remote country.



We saw Moose and Elk, rode through snow for a while and had a great time. I rode a Ventana El Rey that Chad let me try out. It has wheels that are 29" in diameter, 3" larger then a standard 26" mountain bike wheel.

bigger wheels decrease the contact angle with obstacles, which in turn decreases the amount of forward momentum the rider loses while rolling over said obstacles. Or so they say. After around 5 hours of rolling around on it I agree. You can roll over rocks that are around 2" tall without slowing down much at all. The bike handles really well and I instantly felt comfortable riding it. At first it didn't feel as good as my current bike at high speeds, but was just as capable once I got used to it. MORE PICTURES



That's Trapper Peak

Cider Party

 

 

Made a little bit of cider from a lot of apples. It's tasty, I think I'll go get myself a glass right now. . .

Night sailing

From Flathead lake on labor day weekend. 30 second exposure. That's me on the side.

Mirrors

A sculpture outside of what was Jesse's office at UCONN.

New bike parts

I signed up for/got talked into an odd job that pays $80. I then spent lots of time trying to re-learn enough thermodynamics so that I could sound like I knew what I was talking about.








Before I even got the money in the bank I spent it on a snazzy new Shimano Shadow XT rear dérailleur. It's cool because it doesn't stick out off the side of the bike and therefore won't snag on sticks and rocks and rip off. Plus it's been redesigned to look like an evil robot. The good folks at Chalet Sports even cut me a deal at $75 instead of the retail price which is $109. Barring disaster, it should last at least 3 years.

Nitro

Quite possibly the worlds hungriest dog. No snow yet, although it's a winter storm watch pretty soon.

Last October 17th

And the skiing was good by the end of the month. . . and then it got bad again for 3 months. I wonder what this year will be? There are some competing theories. . .

EDIT: The forecast for the weekend is bad as usual.

It's happening soon. . . .

Beyond Clothing

I have recently applied to be sponsored by Beyond Clothing. They make custom sized outdoor aparral, from underwear to waterproof jackets and softshells. I have had a fleece they made me since 2002 and it has been the only jacket I've ever had that actually fits. Apparently I'm too tall and skinny to fit anyone's standard sizes. I still wear it to school most chilly mornings on the bike.

Wish me luck.








Rocking the beyondfleece on Mount Moran

My car, the design project

So I have come almost full circle and am now sponsoring a senior design project in the Mechanical Engineering department here at school. The project is to convert a Mercedes diesel car to burn straight vegetable oil.



As you may or may not know (or have guessed after that first sentence), I recently purchased a 1984 300SD turbodiesel Mercedes Benz. It's a very nice car still, with power leather seats and a sunroof and so on. Most importantly, it has the Mercedes OM617 diesel engine, which is widely regarded as one of the most durable diesel engines in the world. Ever.

Because of this fact it is one of the most popular for "grease car" conversions, the science of which I will briefly cover below.

Basically, the vegetable oil (VO) that is used as fryer grease in restaurants all across America is a perfectly viable fuel for most diesel engines as long as it is heated up to around 160 degrees F. This is necessary because at colder temps it is too thick to be successfully pumped through the fuel system or sprayed into the cylinder through the diesel injection nozzles. It may burn fine in the engine if you manage to get it there, but not efficiently and not without damaging the engine. This is mainly because the system has been optimized for the viscosity of petroleum-based diesel fuels. (The original diesel engine was developed to run on peanut oil by Rudolf Diesel). So you have to heat the VO. This isn't too hard to do really, since car engines produce tons of heat that we attempt to dissipate from the radiator via the coolant system. Some of this heat just needs to be used to heat the VO too. The system that the students are going to make for my car will have 2 tanks of fuel. When the car is first started it will be on regular diesel fuel or biodiesel. It will then run on this for a few minutes while the engine heat being generated heats the VO. Once a suitable quantity of VO has been heated, some valves will be switched and the engine will start burning heated vegetable oil and the exhaust will start to smell like popcorn.

The benefits of burning grease are large. For starters it produces more then 75% less carbon dioxide, which is good. It also produces around 80% less of things that cause cancer. Another important benefit is that fuel will cost between 0-$1.50 per gallon, depending on whether I scavenge and filter it myself or buy it from someone else. My VO tank will be 21 gallons, add half a dozen 8 gallon gas cans and that's a lot of traveling that can be done without having to buy any $3.20 dollar gallons of fuel. Sounds great huh? Well it's not the solution to out problems by any means, as there is only so much oil going to waste out there. Once the local supply is gone, the advantages become fewer.

There are a couple of drawbacks to burning vegetable oil, or biodiesel for that matter. One is that it has a slightly smaller amount of stored energy in it, which translates to around 5% fewer MPG then petroleum diesel. It is also a harsh solvent that likes to dissolve rubber, which in lesser engines then the OM617 can be a problem. I've been burning biodiesel in my car for a while now, the first thing it did was dissolve a bunch of the residue that the petro-diesel had left in the fuel system and clogged the fuel filter. After replacing that it's been trouble free. Back to the senior design project though.

There is more to the project then just my car. It is the first part of a larger project headed up by Kevin Cook and the local ASHRAE club that hopes to get a large federal grant to convert many of the MSU fleet vehicles to run on waste fryer grease from the MSU dining halls. (which produce about 200 gallons of waste oil a month that is currently being "recycled" into things like dog food on the west coast somewhere.) It makes a lot more sense to cart the grease 100 yards across campus and then run cars on it then to ship it in diesel trucks across the country. My car is the experimental one, where they try to make a system that is totally reliable even in the sometimes arctic Bozeman winter. I have faith they will, but I'm not going to leave them alone with it quite yet.

New Blog

So after posting on various other blogs for years, mostly my brother's, which is linked on the right, I decided I should have my own. I will post various pictures and anecdotes from adventures that go well and especially those that don't.

I added some of the latest posts I've done elsewhere that fit the theme.

Enjoy

Summer adventures

Here's some photos from the last 4 big scenic bike rides

Curly Lake: A newly popular ride in the Tobacco roots, starts with around 4,000 feet of uphill to just over 10,000 feet, then it's a loooooooong way back down.






The Bridger Ridge: It was a goal of mine for some time to ride the Bridger ridge trail all the way from Fairy Lake to the M. It was pretty cool being way up there for 20 some miles.








The Gallatin Crest: A remote ride from Hyalite Peak to Windy Pass on the "Devils Backbone". This trail is close to being closed to bikes.
http://www.imba.com/resources/wilderness/montana/index.html




Italian Peaks: Another threatened trail, it features the coolest spring ever.




The spring: