Axial Tilt Compensation…

For many inhabitants of Planet Earth, there are four commonly recognized seasons. In order of my preference, there’s finally done with with the cold, I’ve totally forgotten what cold is, it’s getting colder, and I hate the cold.

The cause for the dramatic changes in temperature (and my attitude towards life) is the axial tilt of the Earth relative to the sun over the course of the year. As the Earth orbits the sun, its 23.5 degree tilt causes one hemisphere or another to receive more sunlight than the other. The hemisphere receiving more sunlight is hotter and experiences the Summer season while the other is cooler and experiences Winter.

As of today, the earth is oriented in a position similar to the following:

You’ll note that the Northern Hemisphere (where I’m located) is approaching Winter and the dark, cold miserable months of misery that it contains.

Thankfully, my shop had an addition last year that allows me to cope with the cold and still be productive:

I love my heater. It’s powerful enough to warm the entire shop to a comfortable temperature in about 10 minutes – even on the coldest of days.

However, as much as I enjoy the warmer temperatures of the three enjoyable seasons of the year, there are times when the warm temperatures get a bit…excessive. The following temperatures were recorded in August this year in my home town:

During those times, progress on the Mustang was slow as it was even hotter in the shop and I had no way other than fans to cool the interior.

Next year though will hopefully be different:

That there’s an old, beat up window air conditioning unit that I picked up for free earlier this week.

As you can tell, it’s a bit beat up. In fact, I needed to drill into the on/off switch and thread in a screw in order to be able to turn the unit on:

The nameplate rating for the unit is 10,000 BTUs which pales in comparison to my heater’s 60,000 so I’m not expecting it to be able to cool the entire shop. However, if I can get it to just take the edge off the heat in the small corner I’m working in I’ll consider it a definite win – especially considering the price.

I don’t currently know how well the unit works, but after I hacked up my power switch and removed a few decades worth of hair from the interior radiator the unit blew air out the front that was colder than ambient. For now, that’s good enough. I’ll find a place to keep it until next Summer when it becomes time to test it out for real and install it.