Its been a couple rough days

 Four day flu. Went thru the while gamut of symptoms  to include fever and hallucinations. 

Was unable to do payroll.  Sexytary "phoned it in" by sending one of her family members to pay the boys.

Monday it's back at it. Plastic lumber production. 

Super sick today.

 Antibiotics,  vitamins,  and fluids. 

Started feeling it at 330pm, by 7pm couldn't get out of bed.

Sexytary also out sick. Same thing. Wednesday morning fine, noon Wednesday noon she went home.

It's back pain, headache,  chills, congestion.   Friday morning now, I'll drag myself to office for payroll this afternoon then back home

The new invention works

 I worked overtime to test the invention yesterday.  We got it built by quitting time, but I was damned if I was gonna have a sleepless night wondering about it.  Tested it and it works.

Even still I did not sleep well.  

today I am processing rigid plastics as those go in the extrusion machine easier.  However without a improved dust collector pulling the heavy stuff thru the shredder machine fast, the shredding is going slow.  Also the plastic is wet.  I will have to run the plastic thru the shredder twice to get it dryer.

testing my newinvention before patent filing.

I fired up the extrusion machine this morning, and the boys cranked out a total of 12 boards in 4 hours.  Each board should be coming out of the machine every 5 to 6 minutes.

The new shredder produced a lot of fluffy plastic. It does not feed into the hopper.  Pushing the plastic in only makes the material clump together and bridge, clogging the hopper. That is my present system. It works fine for feeding pellets and flakes but not for soft materials.

So, I will do my machine mod/new invention.

I canceled this afternoon's production.

I grabbed my old, smaller extrusion machine that has a mild steel barrel. Because it is softer steel, I can drill it in the shop, unlike the big machine that would need to be sent to a machinist.

I got the boys reassembling it as we speak with the modifications. It is 4:12 in the afternoon, and quitting time is usually 4:30; however, I'll be damned if I go home without testing it. I am not losing sleep over this.

The primary reason why these soft plastics are not recycled is because of this physical issue. Despite making up the majority of plastic waste, they do not get re-processed.

My process is very inefficient, but I know what I can do to fix it

 We pumped out four and a half big sacks of plastic shred yesterday.

I identified many major shortcomings.

It was our first time running this shredder, and we half-assed the setup. Connecting the blower, which is nearly worn out, made feeding easier, but the bag also filled in 4 to 6 minutes, which meant we had to stop feeding the shredder for a minute to change the bag.

We did not have adequate PPE or mitigation from dust. I got a bit of a cough today because of that.

1. The shredder vibrates and moves around. We used a ratchet strap to hold it to a railing to keep it from moving. It needs to be in a better location.
2. Work area needs to be covered.  I was sun burned.
3. No spin dryer. Some plastic was wet, so we could not process it.
4. Four workers, and this should be a one-man job. One man feeds the machine, and it dumps into a giant sack dry, then the sack is changed out with a pallet jack and pushed to a covered storage area.
5. 4.5 sacks processed, which is plenty to run the extrusion for 1 to 2 days, but when I get my improved extrusion feeding hopper done, then my production there will increase. I have a laundry list of items to do, and I'm lacking the budget to do them, which is compounded by the inefficient operation not leaving enough margin to do the improvements fast enough.
6. With a better process, I could likely get 8 sacks a shift for one man's labor. 
7. The diesel engine is too loud. I may have to look at a genset to get additional power, or a liquid-cooled, quieter engine, like from a KEI truck or even a tractor PTO.

New plastic shredder in the shop

The new shredder I needed last week finally arrived yesterday.

Unfortunately, it was filthy—covered in cement dust. I ended up spending as much on this thing as I did on my car.

The delay in its arrival has already cost me half the price of the car because I had to purchase material that I could have otherwise produced myself.

We're still struggling to get a proper workflow going. I ran one sack of plastic without the vacuum pulling on the bottom. For the second sack, I used the vacuum to pull plastic through it. I still need a proper blower, cyclone filter, and other equipment. I have a cheap dust collector that blows into a sack, but it fills up in just 4–5 minutes. This means I lose valuable time every time I have to change the bag.

That said, I can now see this mountain of plastic finally being turned into proper shredded material. Once I get my other modifications in place, it will really be something to behold.

I’ll keep working as much as I can today, but I’m already starting to feel worn out—and it’s only lunchtime.

Came in the shop this morning to find my new hire kitty was dead.  He was fine yesterday.  I am suspecting that he got snake bitten.  Sprawled out eyes open, stiff as a board.  The boys have seen snakes in the back of the shop area.  In my subdivision the security committee that I am part of had videos of a cobra as thick as my forearm.  I guess it is snake season now that the weather has turned nice.

Filipinos are so inscrutable

• Cultural or Linguistic Barriers: Sometimes, the term refers to cultural practices or languages that are not immediately understandable to outsiders, like, "The inscrutable customs of the ancient tribe were a subject of much speculation among anthropologists."

 The arrogant dickhead in the HOA office who killed my cat a few years ago, has suddenly become courteous.   

This guy, the story before was that he was the nephew of the congresswoman who lived in the subdivision.  

Then the congresswoman died, and her son showed up from the USA. Big scandal and fight erupted, because he was not her nephew, rather her younger lover.  

However he kept his job, and in order to remain in the good graces suddenly became 'nice'.