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

Here's our chicken house and some of my wife's garden.

Bruce


Coupe is 5' x 9'. There's a 5' x 15' dog kennel attached which we refer to as the "annex". It gives the birds some freedom if we need to leave them cooped up. This time of year the hawks are trying to feed their young. We've lost quite a few chickens over the years to spring feeding. You have to use your imagination a bit on one shot, but we lost one to a bald eagle a few years ago (cool)!
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Rain barrel runs to "chicken nipples" inside the coop.
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The roosts are set up like a stairs stringer which is hinged at the wall. Makes it easier to muck out the coop, simply flip up the roosts to get them out of the way. The trash can is food, holds 80 lbs. There are PVC elbows in the sides angled down to about 2" from the bottom. It helps keep the birds from flinging food around.
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Spring hawk season from a few years ago. This one unfortunately (for him/her) got tangled in our electric fence. Nope, can't tell you what fried hawk tastes like!
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Bald eagle "poofed" a chicken in our backyard
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Wife's raised beds. The ones with the crate-look on the outside are finished. She's in the process of redoing the beds (long story)
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She's using 3/4" foundation-grade plywood for a base. Using 6" block for the side walls with 8" wide cedar planks for the top deck. She originally dry-stacked the block on a sand base. The walls started heaving after one year, hence the rebuilding.
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Very nice, Bruce. I'll try to download and post some pix of ours.
 
Well, you should see some of my work! Refuse might be a better description! I was pretty good at math, ain't so good at Engrish! In a past life I translated Chinese machine tool manuals! ;)

Bruce
Virtually all of us would respectfully disagree. We've seen MUCH of your work. 'Stellar' is the appropriate adjective.
 
Face my fears... this butane torch that we got for my daughter to make Crème brûlée, is getting a lot of use in the garage, lol... because my torch is at the other house!!!

But bent done!!

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That turned out really nice! :eagerness:
Wonder how long it will take for the Professor of Pending Projects to remake it, this time with evenly spaced sections? Hope he remembers his dial indicator next time! Would make it easier.

@wachuko that came out well. Just teasing you about your uneven sections.
 
Wonder how long it will take for the Professor of Pending Projects to remake it, this time with evenly spaced sections? Hope he remembers his dial indicator next time! Would make it easier.

@wachuko that came out well. Just teasing you about your uneven sections.
I will add it to the list of stuff to do later :p:D:D:D
 
Finally got back to making chips after a two month period of intense organizing and cleaning out in my shop (I should make a separate post about that, because it was probably 10 hours of cleaning and 40-50 hours of organizing).

Decided to make a BlondiHacks side clamp out of some 4340PH:

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This project would have taken me multiple days before I cleaned and organized. I would have spent way too much time losing my measuring tools in all of the crap that was spread everywhere. Now, I'm able to do a project like this in one day.

I milled the slots the way BlondiHacks did, meaning I had to take a boatload of passes using a 1/8" endmill. Next time, I might drill the end of the slot and then use a slotting saw. I only have one four flute end mill in this size, and it's been... Well used, let's just say.

I'm sorely tempted to polish this thing, but that would be silly, this part will surely get dinged up like crazy. I'll probably give it a cold blue treatment though.

Sorry for the rambling and meandering, I'm coming off of a migraine and my thoughts are a little disorganized.

Edit: I should add that I'm planning on making 2-3 more of these, so I've ordered some ground 4140PH bar stock that matches the dimensions a bit more closely than the 4340 I used for this clamp.

Edit: also, I should add that I tapped the holes ⅜"-24, which is a size I have absolutely zero hardware for. I have twenty ⅜"-24 spiral flute taps, but no hardware. Amazing.
 
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