Well, spring is on it’s way (and I for one am EXCITED!!!)

Here in Utah, during the winter collecting oil is about as fun as having a root canal. Well, ok, maybe worse. You see, it get’s cold here. OK, maybe not as cold as some places WAY up North, but it still pretty much is cold for about a quarter of the year.

Every now & then mother nature teases us a bit & warms the place up during the winter only to slam a good snow shower and cold front on us just as our blood starts to thin out…

So…what to do during the long, cold slog? Lots!

As a rabid biodiesel nut (I wonder if there’s a 12 step program for this…I swear, I’m seriously addicted to the stuff) I come up with all sorts of way’s to “spend way too much time on my supposed obsession –I mean hobby.

The Mighty Blue Snail
During this long, cold winter about every week or so I’ve made sure to walk out & lovingly look at my new toy I picked up last fall. It’s a 1982 Volkwagen Vanagon Diesel.

Ain’t she perty? I think so!

Anyway, so about every week or so I go out to her, look lovingly at her, jump in & start her up to make sure the battery’s still got a charge on it (man, it just starts right up too…the sucker PURRS!) and mainly just sit in the drivers seat & drool over how cool it is.

It’s going to need new tires to make it registerable, but beyond that, that’s it. Sure, it’ll need a lot of TLC to fix it up to meet “my standards” and there ain’t no way in high heaven that it’ll ever meet the wifes standards, so she’s all mine!

A NEW TOY
A couple weeks ago I decided that the water heater I had sitting in my garage (brand spankin’ new by the way) needed to be made into a Processor. Even though I can’t do much brewing this winter (more like NONE), I can still get ready for the spring by getting a nice unit put together.

So, I took some time on a Saturday & attacked the thing. In just under 3 hours I had it put together. Plumbing & everything. It sure looks nice too.

TIP ON HOSES
I did learn a pretty cool trick on getting those blasted poly tubing hoses onto the hose barbs that is going to save me a TON of time! If you take a heat gun (you know, those super high powered cheapies from Harbor Freight) and heat up the end of the tubing for a little while (remember, it’s freezin’ cold in my garage here), I found that they’ll just slide right onto the hose barbs “like butta!” It was amazing! Seriously!

I’ve fought with those stupid tubes for ages building processors, but one nice heat gun with some heat applied in the right spot & whoala! I was in sheer bliss (yeah, I know, doesn’t take much to “sheer bliss” me.

The processor though turned out great and I’m excited to have it ready for the spring.

Not bad, eh?

Here’s a link to more pictures of the thing.
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/photogalleries/processors/40gallon02/

I also built a wash tank to go with it that turned out really nice too.
It’s one of the nicest ones I’ve ever built. I even threw a plug on the thing.
I think it turned out great.

It was a ton of fun to build, as I’m finally getting good at knockin’ em out.

Add to that my involvement with Unaccompanied Minors (see previous post), plus a horrendous schedule at work and you can see time has been of a premium for me lately.

I also am working on adding a bunch of new products to the site for this spring. Everything I put on the site I like to test first (if it doesn’t pass my test, it ain’t goin’ up on the site–I don’t & won’t sell junk!)

Watch the site over the next few weeks as you’ll see some new stuff pop up.

Today I did add some carboy’s to the site. I’ve had them for a long time, but haven’t advertised them on the site (they’re kind of a beast to ship).

Here’s what they look like:

You can check em out here:
Click here

I also added a few more accessories to go with them as well.

All of it takes time to shoot the pictures, crop, adjust, fix, do whatever needs to be done to get em to look nice, post to the site, write the back end HTML and then release them to the public. But, it’s a lot of fun.

I tell ya, I’m gettin’ good at typing HTML REALLY FAST!

So, that’s what’s been occupying the life of the Rabid Biodiesel Nut these days…

More later…(there’s alway’s more isn’t there–he he he).

-Graydon
The Rabid Biodiesel Nut