Working in sunshine

Sverrir is showing Michael how maintenance is done on a generator.

Today we worked in sunshine all day. That was a pleasure. The final panels of the vertical row were mounted, just as the Pistenbully with the crane had to be taken out of action for repairs. How lucky you can be! The rest of the afternoon at the construction site was spent developing a technique for mounting the bottom row of panels, while the Pistenbully underwent repairs. Sverrir found a broken o-ring in the Pistenbully hydraulic system, and then he was able to find a replacement o-ring in his collection. A leak in the fuel tank was patched up. Empty pallets were removed from the construction site and from the cargo line, and afterwards Mainstreet was groomed to make camp nice and tidy.

What we have done today:

1. Excavating science trench, now 4.0 m deep.
2. Mounting 16 panels on main dome. Now a total of 103 are mounted, and we only have the bottom row and the cupola left to be done.
3. Discovering and repairing fuel leak and hydraulic oil leak on Pistenbully.
4. Cleaning up in camp: Removing pallets and rubbish.
5. Routine maintenance on generators.

Ad.3: We have for a long time tried to locate a tiny leak of hydraulic oil from the Pistenbully. Today while using the crane, the leakage increased and we were able to see where it was. Immediately, the Pistenbully was taken out for repairs. It turned out that the leakage was due to a faulty o-ring behind one of the proportional valves for the blade. As we have already been in contact with Kaesbohrer regarding these valves, a new set of o-rings is already included in the spare part shipment we expect next week. Just by coincidence a leak in the fuel tank developed at the same time. This leakage is due to faulty welding of the tank. We will order a new tank. In the mean time, the leakage is fixed with sealant and kept under observation.

Ad.4: As more and more panels are mounted on the dome, the piles of construction material are dwindling fast. We collected a number of empty pallets to be retrograded to SFJ next week. We also collected rubbish around camp. As we have a lot of empty drums in camp, we open them at the top with a drum opener. Then the drums are filled with rubbish, which is sorted out in different fractions. Several rubbish drums will be returned to SFJ next week.

Weather: blue sky, - 16 C, 4 knots from SE. Visibility: to horizon.

FL, J.P. Steffensen