When Things Don't Work Out

exactly as you plan them to.

Behold, readers! My busted, broke down vacuum table! Behold the gory insides of a normally smooth and blue machine of goodness. Oh, woe!

Thursday afternoon, I was preparing to invest some molds...

...when I flipped on the investment table and it made a funny noise and didn't work. Normally it is loud and noisy and you can hear the pumping action. But this time it just made a quite humming noise. I opened the hatch, to see if there was anything I could do, which of course, there wasn't. I cried a few tears and then called my Shop Monkey who assured me we could figure it out. So, I left for the evening. Molds uninvested, shop work at a standstill.

The next day, I called Pepetools and talked to Ed, their all around machine fixer superstar. Actually, I called him and heard a little of the instructions and promptly asked if my Shop Monkey (aka, my boyfriend) could call and get the instructions instead. Now, I am capable of fixing things, but I was also making chicken mole for a dinner party that night and I didn't have the time to dedicate to machine instructions. Plus I can't really tell my right from my left, and when I called the motor an engine, I think Ed lost a little bit of confidence in my abilities anyway.

So that afternoon, before the tostada dinner party at my house, we opened up the machine and followed Ed's instructions. And when I say we, I mean the Shop Monkey. He's an engineer after all.

We had to run to the hardware store 3 times (turns out that though I have a million and a half tools, none are suitable for taking machinery apart. Apparently you need a screwdriver, a crescent wrench, and hex things). We had to give up for the evening, since we had guests arriving and dinner wasn't fully prepared (I love crockpots, but they won't make salad and guacamole for you as well as chicken mole). But the next day we found out what the problem was:

The engine, oh sorry, I mean the motor, works just fine. But the pump is frozen (whatever that means).

So, tomorrow morning, bright and early, I will be shipping that square pump piece to Oklahoma for repairs. My casting equipment will be out of action for at least a week or two and I now have to write everyone who ordered things that need to be cast and let them know about the delay. This I dread. But it has to be done. But at least I will have time to carve all the waxes and casting will go quickly once the pump returns. Fingers crossed!