POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

[mattthemuppet2]

Well I haven't power washed my car yet, but I did finish my collet chuck

 

[motormech1]

Next up is to make some kind of “cutter” to punch out a nice round piece of ME that will fit the holder without having the “scrunch“ the ME up to fit the holder. ME doesn’t cut well with scissors….

Any time I need to cut a plug of foam out I find a piece of thin wall tubing (the thinner the better) the right diameter and sharpen it razor sharp and and twist it through gently letting it slice with minimal compression. I've also made a mandrel for said tubing a couple times and used it with a drill for deeper or repetitive cuts.

 

[Firstram]

Well I haven't power washed my car yet, but I did finish my collet chuckView attachment 448606View attachment 448607View attachment 448608

What a beautiful finish!

 

[great white]

Any time I need to cut a plug of foam out I find a piece of thin wall tubing (the thinner the better) the right diameter and sharpen it razor sharp and and twist it through gently letting it slice with minimal compression. I've also made a mandrel for said tubing a couple times and used it with a drill for deeper or repetitive cuts.

Was thinking something similar, just need to find the right id thin wall…

 

[Inferno]

Nice simple afternoon project:

View attachment 448491

View attachment 448492

its just a simple holder for a piece of MrClean Magic Eraser.

The ME is used to clean the stylus after playing a record.

Its hard to beat a ME for cleaning residue off the stylus. You just position it under the stylus and “dunk it” several times. The ME scrapes the vinyl residue off (and other nastiness that collects on the stylus) and gives you a fresh clean stylus for the next lp.

I’ve seen it work. I use a 100x magnifier and the stylus is pretty gross after playing a couple records that haven’t been ultrasonic cleaned. Couple dips and the stylus is factory fresh again. Simple, but effective.

I wanted a holder of some sort to keep dust off the ME, but more about having a nice convenient way to position the ME under the stylus. Most people stick the ME to a toothpick or similar, but that just seemed too “bush league” for me and this was a nice, simple project on a rainy afternoon.

Next up is to make some kind of “cutter” to punch out a nice round piece of ME that will fit the holder without having the “scrunch“ the ME up to fit the holder. ME doesn’t cut well with scissors….

What's the inner diameter?
Looks like you might be able to make a cutter out of electrical conduit. Jut sharpen the outside edge of the conduit, cut to about an inch and put the eraser in the vice with the cutter. Start compressing the cutter into the eraser until it cuts through.
OR, use a band saw. Spray the blade with silicone spray and spread the foam as it cuts.

(The band saw would be the easiest option)

 

[mattthemuppet2]

What a beautiful finish!

Thanks! No idea what that metal was, but push it hard and it would make blue spirals and a beautiful finish. I guess in the metal karma world that balances out the misery I had with the last couple of pieces of mystery metal

This is what it looked like before I started (bottom piece, full thread is in the projects sub forum)

 

[dkemppai]

Well I haven't power washed my car yet, but I did finish my collet chuck

So, is that one of those cheap import chucks? Looks pretty nice. Now that my lathe is done, I keep thinking one of those would be a good idea. That, and about another half dozen other things for that lathe...



So, the last few weeks seem to be nothing but cars. This is how my weekend started out:

Yes, both rear sides looked like this. The calipers were frozen solid. Previous owner mustn't have had rear brakes in a long time. See those stupid flat head screws holding the rotor to the hub. Yeah, those were a complete loss! And the auto parts stores done even carry them!!!

Strangely enough, the Parking Brake cables were perfect! First time I've seen this much corrosion and the P-Brake is fine! Go figure???

Of course the project progressed onto this:

Didn't even notice the spring is broke in two places until later. The Branick didn't get used here. Just bought fully loaded struts for this one.


Of course, since you're supposed to replace struts in pairs, this is what the other lower strut mount bolt did to me, at 8pm Saturday.

Hardware store run the next day turned up a 12mm Gr 10.9 bolt of similar dimensions. Needed some modifications, of course. Turned down the small section in the middle on the lathe to mimmic the original bolt. My guess is so it doesn't freeze in the steel bushing in the rubber mount on the lower control arm. (I have had to drill similar bolts out of Subaru bushings in the past. At least ford thought about this just a little!) Filled the gap between the bolt and bushing with anti-seize compound anyway...

Next is some road noise on the third car. Unfortunately I think it might be pinion bearing(s) in the rear diff. Not looking foreword to even troubleshooting that further. All I know is it's loud in the back of the car somewhere. This car the rear diff is bolted to the frame (subaru), so noise will travel. Up on the lift running, the stethoscope indicates wheels bearings are OK, and the carrier bearing is ok. U joints in the prop shaft seem OK too. Scope on the pinion is noisy at the input shaft and quiet at the output half shaft(s). Oil was OK, only a very small amount, of very fine metal 'dust' on the magnet in the diff.

Any ideas on how to check the pinion/bearings???

 

[mattthemuppet2]

Yes, it was a $50 Amazon special. Looks well enough made so far. A few burrs needed dressing down on the start of the threads, but that's about it so far. Once I figure out a longer test bar that will fit I'll see how run out is further out from the chuck.

I hear you on the "working on old neglected cars" front. The joys of removing old stuck fasteners, or not in the case of the rear brake cylinder bleed nipples..

 

[dkemppai]

I hear you on the "working on old neglected cars" front. The joys of removing old stuck fasteners, or not in the case of the rear brake cylinder bleed nipples..

Do you guys get a lot of rust down there?

Here we have a lot of snow (Oct - April/May) and they're running a lot of salt on the roads to melt that. The side effect is a battle to keep anything looking nice. The up side is pure summer cars get only about 3 months of driving per year! lol

 

[BGHansen]

POTD was making some stainless steel blades for our cordless weed whacker. We have a Ryobi 40V unit which works pretty well. I'm not a big fan of the line reel which does a great job wrapping long weeds around the axle. Ours came with a plastic blade head also which works well on the taller stuff, but not the thicker stuff.


I like the design for convenient blade replacement. Bayonet mount head with snap-on blades. However, the plastic doesn't fair well against stones and thicker weeds.





I grabbed some 0.036" stainless and Dykem'd a couple of holes to slip the blades over a set of the plastic ones. Did the rough hole on the Bridgeport (alas, no photos). Then over to the Oliver die filer for a tight fit. I was a little worried about the stainless separating from the plastic blade and launching it into my foot, so went with a slotted hole so the steel is captured by the cast-metal detail in the head.


Roughed the holes on the BP, and fine tuned with the die filer



My dad passed away 4 years ago, mom last year. Going through their house, I found my dad had an Indestro riveting tool with a punch for tubular rivets. It's been a nice addition to my toolbox, I reproduce a few Erector set parts that use tubular rivets, the punch works much better than a ball peen hammer. Anyway, punched a couple of 5/32" holes in the stainless and drilled through the plastic blades. Peened over a couple of stainless tubular rivets and proceeded to cause much harm to many weeds! Full disclosure, the stainless blades work great on weeds and small saplings up to 3/4" diameter, but at 0.036" thick, the tips will bend so I'll probably replace them with some 1/16" thick stainless. Oh, don't ask me how I know, but they also work great cutting through vinyl siding!






Maybe paint the tips orange for safety?



Thanks for looking, Bruce