My hip surgery went pretty much as the doctors expected. A physical therapist had me up and walking only four hours after the operation, and I was home from the hospital the following day. The surgeon used a relatively new 'superpath' procedure that minimizes the need to cut tendons or muscle tissue around the joint. For anyone interested, a step-by-step (and blood-free) animation is available online that shows all the cool specialty tools that were used:
[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qIjiqI9D5cA[/ame]
Post-op pain was a big issue for me though. Two of the three pain meds sent home with me controlled it, but they kept me constipated, nauseous, and continually loopy. I was so miserable that I decided I'd rather deal with the pain. I switched over to the third med that did little for the pain but did reduce the loopiness.
I tried to get back into my shop about a week after the surgery, but I had a lot of trouble concentrating, so I took another week off. I restarted the build another week later with a pair of trivial carrying handles for the running stand. I finished them, but with great difficulty, and so I decided it would be best to wait another week before attempting anything more substantial. I'm including photos of the tiny bit of progress I did make even though it's hardly worth mentioning.
The project's weight has been slowly growing, and the total including the engine and running stand is now at 53 pounds. I knew the whole assembly would wind up heavy and awkward to move around, and so I planned a pair of carrying handles for the front and rear ends of the stand. Since they shouldn't have been at all difficult to make, I used them as a warm-up to get back into the project. I machined them from a couple pieces of 7075 bar stock which is an alloy that I much prefer working with compared to 6061. Its extra hardness leaves a beautiful surface finish right off the mill, and the chips don't tend to stick to the cutters in deep milled cavities like they do in the more gummy aluminum alloys. I carefully planned the cutting and filleting paths so the parts wouldn't require any secondary work before being painted and installed.
I machined the topside of the first workpiece and then flipped it over in order to machine its bottom. I guess my mental state still wasn't at 100% because when I flipped the part over I mis-referenced the workpiece by exactly .125" along the mill's positive x-axis. I didn't realize I had a problem until after the part was completely machined nor did I understand how I had gotten it wrong. When I machined the second part, I managed to make the same mistake but this time in the negative x-axis direction. At this point I decided I'd take some more time off before doing any more machining. Over the next few days I was able to recover the two mis-machined parts with a lot of filing.
I find that when I work on one of these long term projects, certain parts can become forever associated with the cards being dealt out by life at the time. I'll likely never have any fondness for those two black handles. - Terry